The useful part

The six red flags

This is the whole list, in full, for free. No email gate, no "DM me for the rest." Use it on us too — every flag below is a question you should ask Verity before you sign anything with us.

They hold your login

The pitch is "we handle everything, you just create." The mechanic is simpler: whoever holds the password holds the income. The day you disagree about anything — the cut, the content, leaving — your own account becomes their leverage. Some agencies rotate the password monthly and call it "security." It's custody.

What to do Reset your password today and put two-factor on an email and phone number only you control. Real management works through delegated access or a shared workflow you can revoke — never through owning your keys.

Your cut isn't in writing

A percentage said out loud on a call is not a percentage. Unwritten deals grow deductions: "ad spend," "chatter costs," "platform fees" that appear on payout day and were never mentioned before. If the number only exists in a voice memo, it will move — and it will never move in your direction.

What to do One signed document: the exact split, every possible deduction itemized, and a line saying nothing changes retroactively. An agency that resists putting its own price in writing has told you everything.

Exclusivity with no exit

Twelve to twenty-four months, auto-renewal, penalty clauses for leaving early. Notice what that contract does: it removes their need to perform. Once you can't leave, the work doesn't have to be good — it just has to exist. The lock isn't there to protect a great service. It's there because the service can't retain you on its own.

What to do Ask for 30-day termination, both sides, no penalty. Watch the reaction. An agency confident in its work will agree, because good results are the retention plan. One that panics was planning to keep you the other way.

Payments route through their account

The money hits their bank, and they pay you "your share." Your income just became an allowance. Every dispute is now a hostage negotiation, every delay is "processing," and if the agency folds or freezes, your money folds with it — while the tax liability, in most setups, stays yours.

Which way the money flows is the whole answer

What to do Non-negotiable: payouts land in an account you own, and the agency's share leaves it. Any structure where the flow runs the other way is not a payment setup. It's a control setup.

Vague on what they actually do daily

"Growth. Marketing. Full management." Those are categories, not work. An agency taking a percentage of your income every month should be able to say exactly what happened last Tuesday: what was posted, what was tested, what the chat team shipped, what changed in your pricing and why.

What to do Ask to see one real week of work for a current client, anonymized. Not a case study — a work log. If they can't produce one, there isn't one.

They said yes to you immediately

An agency that signs everyone is a volume business, and in a volume business your account is a lottery ticket in a stack — a few winners get the attention, the rest fund the operation. The instant yes feels flattering. It's actually the sound of no one evaluating whether they can help you.

What to do Ask them what they last said no to, and why. A real roster has a shape — a reason you fit it. If the only entry requirement is that you asked, keep walking.

One flag is a reason to slow down and ask questions. Two or more is your answer.

And yes — ask us all six. Here's how Verity works — check it against this list before you sign anything with us.