SAN FRANCISCO - s4story -- Choosing a marketing agency is one of the harder purchases a business makes: there are tens of thousands of agencies, pricing is opaque, and most comparison sites are hard to navigate. Pick an Agency is tackling that with a new set of free tools.

The toolset includes three free, no-signup tools:

- An Agency Cost Calculator that shows the typical starting budget for any marketing service (SEO, paid ads, social media, web design and more), and lets a buyer check whether a quote they received is fair.
- A Brief / RFP Generator that turns a few answers into a clean, professional brief a business can send straight to agencies.
- A Vetting Checklist with the exact questions to ask, and the red flags to watch for, tailored to the service being hired.

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All three are built on data from the Pick an Agency directory, which lists more than 129,000 marketing and advertising agencies across 90 countries with verified client reviews. The tools are available at pickanagency.com/tools.

Alongside the tools, the company has opened a free public API and an MCP server, so developers and AI assistants can query the directory directly.

"Most businesses get one agency quote and have no idea whether it is reasonable," said Nathan Denier, founder of Pick an Agency. "We wanted to give buyers the same baseline an experienced marketer would have: what things cost, what to ask, and how to brief well. Making it free and removing the signup wall was the whole point."

About Pick an Agency
Pick an Agency is a free directory that helps businesses find the right marketing agency. Users can search 129,000+ agencies by service and location, compare verified client reviews, or use the free Get Matched tool to receive a shortlist of fitted agencies in about 60 seconds. Learn more at https://www.pickanagency.com