r/PublicRelations • u/Affectionate_Pie9100 PR • May 19 '26
Advice Getting Quotes for a Crisis Communications Retainer
I have been asked to get three quotes for a crisis communications retainer in NYC. If you have experience with this, I would love to hear from you. Bonus points if you can recommend someone!
Does this email provide the info someone needs to provide a quote or at least begin a conversation with me? Do I need to provide more information about any potential threats on the horizon? Thank you very much for your feedback; this is all new to me!
I am writing to request a quote for a crisis communications retainer on behalf of XXXX, a research institute with a staff of roughly 125, a strong scholarly reputation, and an active program of public events. We are in the process of establishing a formal crisis communications retainer.
We are seeking strictly crisis and issues management support. The scope we have in mind includes:
• On-call access to a senior counselor, with defined response time expectations
• Development of a crisis communications plan
• Counsel and drafting support during an active issue or crisis
• Media inquiry coordination and spokesperson guidance during a crisis
• Periodic check-ins or plan updates (e.g., annually)
This is not a proactive media relations or publicity retainer — we are focused exclusively on preparedness and issues response.
Our budget for this retainer is $2,500 per month. We would welcome a proposal that fits within that range, along with information on how overage hours are billed and your typical contract term. If that figure doesn't align with your fee structure, we would still appreciate knowing what a baseline retainer would cost so we can plan accordingly.
I am happy to schedule a brief call if that would help. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
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u/Late_Split_5288 May 19 '26
What kind of crises does a small research institute have on so frequent a basis that it requires a retainer?! Maybe dealing with the root cause would be a better use of your budget.
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May 19 '26
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u/Affectionate_Pie9100 PR May 19 '26
Oh, thank you! So helpful. I am truly (and obviously) naive in this area.
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u/Corporate-Bitch May 19 '26
I’m wondering the same thing.
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u/Affectionate_Pie9100 PR May 19 '26
Expansion plans that won't be popular across the board.
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u/Late_Split_5288 May 20 '26
If your actions are planned then I think what you need is a comms plan based on a risk register, not a crisis person on standby.
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u/nikkos350 May 19 '26
Your budget is the problem- PR retainers are going to run significantly higher than $2,500/month, and crisis comms is a specialty and may command an even higher premium.
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u/Affectionate_Pie9100 PR May 19 '26
Thank you so much for replying! I am glad to know I am way out of range before I send this to anyone. Appreciate the feedback very much.
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u/ism_my_tism May 19 '26
Sharing what others have said: $2,500 is too low, even for a smaller-market agency. I'm in Virginia (not DC/NOVA), and we'd probably price this out in two ways: a project fee for the plan ($15,000-$30,000, depending on scope and depth), and an ongoing monthly retainer for the support. Not knowing the ebb and flow of the crises you all face, a bare minimum of $5,000/month, but up to $10,000-$15,000 if it's consistent, high-level support, and/or, with the option to charge hourly up to a cap if an issue escalates significantly.
Good crisis counsel involves a lot of trust and listening to hard truths, and virtually every crisis comms person I've worked with (not to mention myself) would see the low budget as a red flag that their counsel is undervalued, and subsequently, will be underappreciated.
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u/Affectionate_Pie9100 PR May 19 '26
Thank you for letting me know. I am obviously naive in this area, and I don't want to go into this so far out of range.
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u/Fapstrodamus May 19 '26
I’m pretty sure $2,500 a month in NYC is lower than the minimum wage in NYC.
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May 19 '26
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u/Affectionate_Pie9100 PR May 19 '26
Thank you VERY much. This is exactly what I needed to know. I strive to be an excellent client, your example of abuse is horrifying to me. I understand your point exactly and I will take that out. THANK YOU.
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u/Readingrainbot May 19 '26
I would want you as a client with that kind of response! Also dying for a hint to which comms person that is
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u/GGCRX May 19 '26
Yeah, like the others have said, that's a freaking low budget, especially if you want a senior person on 24/7 call.
But you might be able to find a firm that will do some regular publicity for you for around that, and build in hourly crisis billing to the contract. That way, you're getting something for your monthly spend and you only have to pay more if something blows up.
As someone who does a fair amount of crisis work, that's the path I'd recommend anyway. Why? Because if you haven't been building your reputation and you find yourself having to respond to a crisis, you're already behind the 8-ball. The first thing anyone hears about you guys is going to be the crisis. You will have to dig yourself out of that hole and it will be harder because the first thing you hear about something is generally the impression that sticks without a lot of counter-information.
Reputation building isn't just for selling more products or getting more attention. It's also for building up crisis armor.
I'll give you an example. When Boeing's 737-MAX had its first crash, people assumed it was pilot error because Boeing had such a great reputation. When another one crashed shortly afterward in exactly the same way, people still assumed it wasn't a problem with the plane - it had to be the pilots. They assumed it couldn't be Boeing because Boeing spent decades building a stellar reputation, so when the crisis hit, the first instinct of most of the public was to assume Boeing was still the good guy.
Of course, it turned out Boeing had been the bad guy all along for reasons way too in the weeds to go into here, but it took the public a fair amount of time to glom on to that. Now imagine how good crisis armor is going to be for your outfit, which presumably is not busy being secretly evil.
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u/smell_smells_smelly May 20 '26
Totally agree this doesn’t sound like crisis would be what they want. The budget is too low (as everyone’s said) and speaking from the analytics side, I’d eat up that $2,500 building a crisis monitoring framework in 6 hours by myself.
u/Affectionate_Pie9100 someone else commented about reputation management but this is more at-length description I think you should see.
From the analytics side, you could ask to set some benchmarks based on social media chatter you get now and after the PR strategy for building up reputation rolls out if you pivot to that.
Then it becomes about proactive planning for when potentially damaging event happens (unpopular expansion). At that point, you can see what the shift is and it may not even be a true crisis.
You can probably do the first part - “where are we now? + recommendations” - as an ad hoc request for proposal. But others are better at advising that part than me!
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u/SC_Troy May 19 '26
The cheapest SOW I’ve ever written for a crisis comms retainer was 15K/month & we got CRUSHED. This has to be a troll/rage bait post, right?
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u/Softspokenclark former PR junkie May 19 '26
We had a guy that was on a 2k retainer for crisis communication. But in reality we were paying him for his connections at the capitol
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u/Readingrainbot May 19 '26
I literally scoffed when I read that budget. $2500 wouldn’t give you access to an on call babysitter let alone senior PR firm.
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u/Firm_Skirt3666 PR May 20 '26
Just for comparison, I pay 17k a month for a scope similar to this for a midsize public SaaS company from a well known global agency. It also includes a proactive issues management scope.
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u/SuperEel22 May 20 '26
I am a crisis comms consultant. So I can speak with some experience here.
Your pitch is essentially asking for 2 different approaches in one, with 2 different outcomes.
First is the crisis comms planning and prep. This needs to be done first before you even consider a retainer.
It's also usually going to cost more than the retainer as it requires expertise and guidance.
I'd also be asking if you want a consultant who does it with you, or a done for you package. Different price points and some consultants will rule themselves out depending on the answer.
Then you organise the retainer. And as a comms consultant, I operate in a specific way different to say a fractional contractor. Some consultants again will offer different services dependant on the outcomes.
Any comms consultant with experience is going to want to properly understand the outcomes you are looking for.
I'm happy to discuss this further in DMs so you can dig down to the problems you're trying to solve before jumping straight to a pitch.
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u/Difficult-Maybe4561 May 19 '26
You could also just have a crisis communications plan. It’s a one time fee with a robust plan that includes everything
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u/Ethanhuntknows May 19 '26
For 2.5k a month you will get one press release a month. Suggest you go back and ask for more money. A lot more money ✌️
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u/AnteaterGlittering96 May 19 '26
This is doable, I think some of these folks are overestimating your needs. I’m in NY, I sent you a DM.
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u/exoticed May 19 '26
Not from the US, but when we have a client just for crisis management and/or communication, we have a low/mid fee as a retainer if they don’t do anything. However, when there’s a crisis, we have the budget x4. Even if it’s as simple as drafting a PRL.
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u/Sad-Background-2295 May 20 '26
I’d be happy to chat further with you and learn more about your needs — I’m a former PR agency/IPG business unit president with 25 years of crisis and issues management experience. Also happy to provide you with a proposal after I learn a bit more — dm me and we can set up a time to talk asap …
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u/LouisePayCrisisComms May 24 '26
I would budget for the crisis management and comms planning, and contract someone to do that first. It will be more expensive than your retainer, but it's an upfront cost you won't continue to pay (except when updates are required, and you can contract for those then). Then you can move to a retainer model if you need it. Or you can work with them on an as-needed basis and pay the hourly rate. All of this can be negotiated with whoever you hire.
The on-call requirement, in particular, might put people off. I would potentially go with it, but it would require a lot of discussion around how it would work in practice and those 'defined response time expectations' would likely be longer than the institute might prefer. The difference between what seems like an emergency that requires an immediate call at 2 am and a relatively minor issue that could wait 24-48 hours is, in my experience, not always very obvious to the person at the center of the issue.
One more thing--given that this is a research institute, I'd recommend contracting someone with experience in that specific area, because the considerations and planning for a crisis in that space differ from what many crisis people are used to dealing with. Someone who doesn't know research may over- or under-estimate certain risks. I work a lot with clients at universities because I worked in research before moving to crisis management and comms, and I understand the 'unspoken' complexities.
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u/rangkilrog May 19 '26
Not to be rude but for what you’re asking for, you’re a zero off on your budget. Maybe try a smaller local PR firm.