When budgets come under pressure, business owners do not stop wanting more customers. They stop spending on things that cannot be connected to getting them. Whether a digital agency weathers that shift depends on what it sells, how it prices recurring work, and whether its own cost structure can contract when revenue slows. Those three questions are worth answering honestly before anyone commits to the model.
What businesses cut first and what they keep
The first spending to disappear in a downturn is anything that cannot be tied to a measurable outcome. Sponsorships, broad brand awareness campaigns, and media buys with no trackable return go quickly. What tends to survive, and sometimes grows, is spending that can be connected directly to new customers or retained revenue.
A business owner who is nervous about cashflow does not stop wanting more customers. They stop spending on things that do not demonstrably produce them. This is why the framing of what a digital agency sells matters as much as the services themselves. An agency positioned as a partner that gets clients more customers is answering a need that does not disappear in a soft economy. An agency positioned around digital presence or brand visibility is answering a want that gets deferred. The MAC model is built around a sales first framing: the services partners sell are positioned as tools that get business owners more customers, help them outdo their competition, and run more profitably. That is a different conversation from clicks and likes, and it holds up differently when every line of spending is being questioned.
Do recurring monthly services hold up better than large retainers?
Yes, generally, because lower monthly commitments are easier for a client to keep approving when their own revenue is uncertain.
A modest monthly service rarely requires a formal approval process, rarely triggers a cost cutting review, and is far easier for a client to keep running than to cancel and rebuild later. The MAC model includes recurring monthly income on AI services and care plans, which is exactly the structure that performs well in this environment. Partners build a base of monthly clients across different industries rather than depending on one large retainer, and that spread is also a hedge against any single cancellation hurting the whole business.
Large project work, custom app builds and full website rebuilds, still makes sense and still sells, but an agency that relies exclusively on project work has a choppier revenue profile. The most resilient structure is recurring monthly services carrying the base, with project work adding on top.
Honest about risk: no business is recession proof
Any claim that a digital agency is recession proof should be treated with scepticism. Businesses in every sector face pressure when economies contract, and agencies are not exempt. Clients do cancel. New business takes longer to close when decision makers are cautious. Projects approved in one quarter can be paused in the next.
What the model can do is reduce exposure to specific failure points. Holding many small clients across different industries means no single cancellation threatens the whole business. A partner with monthly clients spread across retail, hospitality, professional services, and trade businesses is carrying very different risk from an agency with two large clients in one sector. Diversification is not a guarantee, but it is a real structural protection.
The wholesale model also removes the cost structure that most often crushes agencies in downturns: staff wages. Because MAC's team handles all technical production at fixed wholesale rates, a partner carries no developer salaries, no project manager costs, and no creative team overhead during a slow quarter. The cost side of the business moves with the revenue side, which is a material advantage over a traditional agency that has committed to a full salary roster.
Which services tend to hold up best
AI powered services and automation tools have shown strong demand when margins are squeezed, precisely because they reduce costs for the client rather than add to them. A business owner trimming staff hours or trying to do more with the same team is a motivated buyer of tools that improve efficiency. MAC's production capability covers AI services and automation alongside apps, websites, and digital marketing, which means partners can have a genuine answer for a client who is trying to cut cost rather than add to it.
Organic search services also tend to be sticky. Unlike paid advertising, which a client can pause and restart at will, organic visibility takes months to build and is lost gradually. A client who has been investing in search for a year or more generally understands what walking away from it means, and that understanding makes it easier to keep the service running through a difficult period.
The weakest position in a soft economy is an agency that sells only paid advertising with no retention argument. When a client needs to cut, pausing ad spend feels low risk because the effect is immediate and reversible. Agencies without sticky recurring services lose clients faster and have nothing to show for the relationship once the ads stop.
Why your own cost structure matters as much as what you sell
Most digital agencies that struggle in a downturn do not fail because clients disappeared entirely. They fail because their cost base was sized for a growth period that ended. Revenue contracted faster than the cost structure could adjust.
Building on a wholesale model changes that equation. MAC charges a one time $25,000 licence fee and then operates as the partner's production factory at fixed wholesale rates, with zero royalties and no ongoing monthly platform fees. There is no payroll to carry when client work slows, because the production cost only arises when a client job is actually running. Partners know their wholesale cost before they quote, which means margin is always visible and there is no scenario where a job runs at a loss because a developer overran.
Richard Giannini brought 30 years in franchising to the model, including building First Choice Business Brokers into a franchise and serving as General Manager and Head of Training at ActionCOACH. Josh Foti came from corporate lending, having managed lending teams at Commonwealth Bank and Bank of Queensland before co-founding MAC. Together they launched the business in 2011, and it has supported 205-plus partners across 14 countries across multiple economic cycles. The structure was not designed only for the good times.
What kind of operator does well regardless of conditions
The digital agency model rewards consistent prospecting and relationship building more than any other single skill. Partners who maintain a pipeline of conversations, rather than relying on a single large client or a single industry, are the ones who come through a soft period in reasonable shape. This is a sales and people business at the partner level; MAC's team handles all technical delivery.
Existing consultants, career changers from sales heavy backgrounds, and small agency owners looking to add capacity without hiring tend to be well placed because they already understand how to prospect and retain clients. The ability to hold a client relationship during a nervous quarter, to have an honest conversation about what is working and what to adjust, is what keeps monthly services running through difficult periods. Technology alone does not do that.
If you want to understand the full structure of the opportunity before deciding whether it fits your situation, the detailed breakdown of the MAC digital agency business opportunity and how it works in practice covers the licence model, the services, and the margin structure in full.
Frequently asked questions
Is a digital agency a stable business to start during uncertain economic conditions?
It can be, particularly if you build a base of smaller recurring monthly clients rather than chasing large single engagements. No business is immune to economic pressure, but agencies that sell measurable customer acquisition outcomes and carry low fixed costs are better positioned than most. The absence of a technical staff to pay means the cost base contracts with the revenue.
What happens to my fixed costs if clients cancel during a slow period?
Under the MAC wholesale model, there are no ongoing platform fees or royalties after the initial licence, and no staff wages because MAC's production team handles all technical fulfilment. Production cost only arises when a client job is actually in progress, so the cost side of the business is not running in the background while revenue is flat.
Do I need to be in a specific country or market for the model to work?
No. MAC holds partners in 14 countries and the licence carries no geographic restriction. Partners can work with clients anywhere, and the production team operates across time zones. The model has been running since 2011 and has not been tied to any single market's economic conditions.
Which types of clients are most likely to keep paying during a downturn?
Clients who understand that what they are buying gets them new customers tend to stay. Clients on lower cost monthly services, where cancellation feels more disruptive than continuing, also retain well. Spreading your client base across multiple industries and keeping no single client responsible for a large share of your revenue is the practical hedge most experienced operators use.
Do I need a background in technology or marketing to make this work?
No technical background is required. MAC's team handles all production. What matters is the ability to have a credible conversation with a business owner about their growth goals and to maintain that relationship over time. Partners have come from real estate, finance, retail, corporate management, and other fields with no prior digital background.
Sources
This article draws on the following pages.
