Every pharma and health tech team that invests in HCP media faces the same problem eventually: they need a real media plan, and they need it faster and cheaper than an agency project allows.

A full agency media planning engagement costs $15,000 to $50,000 and takes four to six weeks. A VP of Media Strategy runs $250,000 to $350,000 in total comp. And a generic spreadsheet template built for consumer media gets you nowhere near the channel specificity that HCP media requires.

That gap is why we built the HCP Media Planner.

What It Is

The HCP Media Planner is a scoped, deliverable-based product that produces a complete HCP media plan for your campaign or therapeutic area -- built on the same strategic frameworks used across 15+ years of senior agency-side planning.

Every plan is tailored to your specific situation: your target audience, your therapeutic area, your launch stage, and your budget parameters. It isn't a template you fill in yourself. It's a finished strategic deliverable you can present to your brand team, your agency, or your leadership.

The output includes:

  • Channel mix recommendations across endemic, non-endemic, programmatic, and point-of-care
  • Budget allocation framework with rationale by channel
  • NPI targeting guidance by specialty and geography
  • Vendor shortlist with category-level benchmark context
  • Measurement framework -- KPIs, pacing milestones, and reallocation triggers
  • A 30-minute strategy call to walk through the plan and answer questions

Who It's Built For

The HCP Media Planner isn't designed for companies with a full agency relationship managing their media planning. It's designed for teams that don't have that -- and need senior strategic output without the agency overhead.

Specifically, it works well for:

  • First-time pharma launchers who need a credible media architecture before their first sales hire or agency pitch
  • Lean in-house teams where the marketing lead is strong on brand but doesn't have HCP media depth
  • Health tech companies entering HCP marketing for the first time and navigating endemic vs. programmatic tradeoffs without prior experience
  • Companies doing an annual planning reset who want an independent view on whether their channel mix is still the right one
  • Agencies that need HCP-specific depth for a client they don't typically serve

How It Works

The process starts with a focused intake form and a 30-minute strategy call. We align on your brand, target audience, therapeutic area, competitive context, and budget parameters. From there, the plan is built and delivered within five business days.

There's no long discovery process. No committee review. No back-and-forth over scope. You come in with a problem, you leave with a plan.

The bottleneck in most HCP media planning isn't execution -- it's the time it takes to get senior strategic alignment. The Planner removes that bottleneck.

The Pricing

There are three tiers, designed for different levels of need:

Single Plan -- $2,500. One campaign, one target audience. Includes the full deliverable and a 30-minute strategy call. Right for teams testing the approach or with a single near-term planning need.

Annual License -- $15,000/year. Unlimited plans across all therapeutic areas and campaigns for the year, plus quarterly office hours. Right for teams with multiple brands or an ongoing planning cadence. This is the most common choice for companies scaling their HCP investment.

Enterprise -- $35,000+/year. Adds custom data integrations, white-label output, dedicated onboarding, and quarterly strategic consult calls. Right for larger teams or agencies that want to embed the capability across multiple clients or brand teams.

Why Not Just Hire an Agency?

Agencies are the right answer for many companies -- particularly those with ongoing media buying, campaign management, and reporting needs. The HCP Media Planner isn't trying to replace that relationship.

What it addresses is a specific gap: the need for a credible, senior-level strategic plan before you're ready to engage an agency, or independent of your agency relationship when you want an unbiased view.

Agency media plans are produced by the same firms that will then buy the media. There's an inherent tension between "what's strategically right for your brand" and "what inventory do we need to move." The HCP Media Planner has no media vendor relationships and takes no commissions. The plan reflects what your brand needs, not what any particular vendor wants to sell.

A Note on What It Isn't

The HCP Media Planner is a planning product, not a managed service. It doesn't include ongoing campaign management, vendor negotiation, or media buying. If you need those, Cadence's fractional consulting services are the better fit.

The Planner is for teams that have the capability to execute -- or are working with an agency to execute -- but need the strategic architecture to be right before they do.

Getting Started

The fastest way to get started is to book a 30-minute call. We'll talk through what you're working on, confirm whether the Planner is the right fit, and get the intake process started.

If you're not ready to book a call yet, the Tools page has the full breakdown of what's included in each tier.