An agency offers to charge you per meeting. Before you say yes, ask what a meeting costs and who decides it counted.

Paying per meeting is safer than a retainer only if you wrote the definition of a meeting into the contract. If the vendor wrote it, you're still carrying the risk. It's just harder to see on the invoice.

Three things need to be on paper before you sign: what one outcome costs, who decides it counted, and what that definition pushes the vendor to chase.

Even the best-known outcome-pricing company negotiates the definition

Sierra, Bret Taylor's AI customer-service company, built its business on charging only for results. Its own December 2024 post says customers pay only when the software achieves specific, valuable outcomes. In May 2026 Sierra raised a $950M Series E at a $15.8B valuation, per CNBC.

The same post promises "clear, agreed-upon criteria for each outcome upfront." Agreed-upon means negotiated, contract by contract. The buyer is expected to shape that definition, not accept a default. Sierra also says outcome pricing isn't always the right fit, and blends in per-conversation pricing for some interactions.

The price isn't public. The only number we found is a third-party estimate of about $1.50 per resolved interaction, from Value Add VC, not a Sierra figure.

The billing unit is a choice, and it moves

Five9, a contact-center software company, shows why the unit matters. Its FY2025 10-K warns that AI "will likely perform an increasing proportion of contact center interactions," and that this "will result in a decrease in our license revenues from our installed base."

Licenses, conversations, resolutions, meetings. Every vendor bills on the unit that suits its business, so it's worth knowing what yours rewards.

Same budget, billed two ways (illustrative numbers)

These numbers are made up to show the mechanics. They are not MDR data and not any vendor's real pricing.

Say you have 6,000 NIS a month for outbound. Option A is a flat retainer: 6,000 NIS, whatever happens. Option B is 600 NIS per meeting, and the vendor reports 10 meetings. The invoice says 6,000 NIS either way.

Now open the 10 meetings:

1. 10 were booked.
2. 3 were no-shows, so 7 happened.
3. Of those 7, 3 were with people who had no budget, no authority, or just wanted to learn. 4 were real sales conversations.

What each real conversation cost depends on one word in the contract:

1. Per scheduled meeting: 6,000 NIS for 4 real conversations, 1,500 NIS each.
2. Per held meeting: 7 billable, 4,200 NIS, 1,050 NIS per real conversation.
3. Per qualified held meeting: 4 billable, 2,400 NIS, 600 NIS each.

Same month, same calendar, and the invoice runs from 2,400 to 6,000 NIS.

Belkins, an outbound agency, lays out these same three tiers, plus disqualification windows and credits for no-shows, and warns that generic qualification produces "educational meetings rather than sales meetings." Belkins sells retainers, so it has a reason to point out the traps. The tiers are still how the market prices this.

We've covered how a "meetings booked" number in a report can mean very little. Here the same word sits in the contract, so it sets the invoice.

To be fair to Option B: if month one produces nothing, the retainer still costs 6,000 NIS. Per-meeting pricing really does move that risk to the vendor, as long as the definition is yours.

What the definition makes the vendor chase

Paid per scheduled meeting, a vendor chases calendar invites: broad lists, soft asks, anyone willing to give up 20 minutes. Paid per held meeting, it chases attendance. Paid per qualified meeting, it chases fit, but only if "qualified" means your criteria (title, company size, budget, timing) and you get a real window to disqualify a meeting after it happens.

A vendor that fills your calendar with loose meetings on a per-scheduled contract isn't cheating. It's doing what the contract pays for.

This model is common in Israel too. Local appointment-setting and telemeeting call centers offer pay-per-meeting openly. The same three questions apply to them.

Before you sign, get three lines in writing

1. The price of one outcome, in shekels.
2. What counts as a meeting, in your words: held, not just scheduled, with named fit criteria and the number of days you have to disqualify one.
3. What happens with a no-show: credit, replacement, or billed anyway.

If the vendor won't write those down, "pay only for results" is a slogan, not a contract term.

For the other side of the comparison, MDR's price is flat and published. A single LinkedIn campaign is 1,500 NIS a month, the package tier is 3,000 NIS a month, and the premium tier runs 4,500 to 10,000 NIS a month depending on scope. Why we post the number instead of hiding it behind a call is its own post. A flat price doesn't remove risk either. It puts all of it on the page, where you can see it before you sign.