When an agency is paid per meeting, everything depends on one definition: what is a meeting? If that definition is settled after the fact, it tends to settle in the agency's favour. Calls that were never going to become pipeline get counted, and the client ends up paying for activity dressed up as results.
That is the most common complaint about per-meeting pricing, and it is a fair one. The fix is not to avoid paying for results. It is to write the definition down before launch, attach it to the agreement, and bill against it line by line.
The five conditions
Under our Results as a Service plans, a meeting is billable only when all five of these are true.
1. The prospect matches the ideal customer profile. Industry, company size, market and any exclusions are agreed in writing before launch. A meeting with a company outside that profile is not billable, however good the conversation was.
2. The person holds a role on the agreed buyer list. We agree in advance which roles can actually buy or champion what you sell. A meeting with someone outside that list does not count.
3. It was booked through a channel we run for you. Our email sequences, the LinkedIn messages we draft for you to send, or the booking links and forms we set up. A meeting that arrived through your own referrals or existing pipeline is yours, not ours.
4. The meeting actually took place. Booked is not held. No-shows and same-day cancellations are never billed. If the prospect reschedules and the meeting later happens, it counts then.
5. You had the chance to dispute it. You have 48 hours after a meeting to tell us it did not meet the definition. We review it together against the written conditions, and it does not go on the invoice while the question is open.
Why no-shows are never billed
Billing for booked meetings rewards booking, not meeting. An agency paid that way has every reason to fill your calendar with people who were never going to turn up. Billing only for held meetings puts the cost of a no-show on us, which is where it belongs: whether a prospect turns up depends mostly on how well they were chosen and how honestly they were invited, and both of those are our job.
How disputes work
Every invoice lists each billed meeting: the company, the role, the date and the channel it came through. That is what makes a dispute quick. You are not arguing about a total; you are pointing at one line and one condition.
Most disputes are about the first two conditions, profile and role, and most of those come from a definition that was too loose at launch. When that happens, the useful outcome is not just removing the line. It is tightening the written definition so the same question does not come up next month.
What the definition does not do
It does not promise a number. Nobody can honestly say how many qualified meetings your market will produce before seeing your offer, your buyers and a few weeks of real replies. What the definition does is make sure that whatever number you get, every one of them is a meeting you would have wanted, and that you can check each one.
If you want to see how the fee works alongside the base fee, the pricing page has a worked example. For the rules we follow in each market before anyone is emailed, see compliance.