How pricing works
Three things set your number.
Nothing else does. You can work out roughly where you land before you call us, and the call is about which of the three you have wrong.
The office
A school board seat and a congressional seat are not the same amount of work, the same scrutiny, or the same ground to cover. The office sets your setup fee and your base weekly rate.
The coverage level you pick
A candidate on Visibility needs a presence. A candidate on Battleground needs an answer before lunch. Same platform, a different commitment from us, so a different rate.
The weeks you have left
Coverage is billed by the week between signature and your election day. A longer runway costs more in total and less per week. There is no monthly plan to cancel, because there is nothing to cancel after the vote.
The whole formula
Setup once, plus a weekly rate for the weeks until your election.
Setup comes from the office. The weekly rate comes from the office and the coverage level you pick. Commit sixteen weeks or more before election day and the weekly rate is ten percent lower for the whole engagement.
Rates
Setup, then a weekly rate.
Setup is one-time and covers voice, message frame, the monitoring build and channel wiring. You can buy setup on its own and run it yourself. Coverage is what you add when you want us running it.
| Office | Typical races | Setup, one-time |
|---|---|---|
| Community | School board, city or town council, special district | $500 |
| Legislative / County | State house or senate, county council or commission | $1,500 |
| Countywide / Metro | Countywide office, major mayoral, high-profile regional | $3,500 |
| Federal / Statewide | US House or Senate, governor, statewide office or major ballot measure | $7,500 |
| Weekly coverage | Visibility | Competitive | Battleground |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community | $125 | $250 | $400 |
| Legislative / County | $250 | $550 | $850 |
| Countywide / Metro | $600 | $1,200 | $1,900 |
| Federal / Statewide | $1,500 | $3,000 | $5,000 |
These are founder rates for the 2026 cycle. They are held for campaigns that sign this cycle and they are reviewed after it, so the number you sign is the number you keep through your election.
Visibility
No serious opponent on the ballot. You need a presence and a record, not a war room.
Competitive
A real opponent running a real campaign. The default, and where most races sit.
Battleground
Outside money, a party target list, or you simply want the fast clock. You can always buy up, and we will not argue with you about how competitive your race is.
What that comes to
State house, competitive coverage, sixteen weeks out
$1,500 setup + (16 x $550), at the early-commitment rate
$9,420
County executive, battleground coverage, nine weeks out
$3,500 setup + (9 x $1,900)
$20,600
City council, visibility coverage, twelve weeks out
$500 setup + (12 x $125)
$2,000
What you actually get
Four things, and a clock on the first one.
Every draft goes to a named approver on your campaign, and nothing publishes without their signature.
Rapid response
When your opponent, a reporter or a local account says something that needs an answer, a finished draft lands in your approval queue inside your clock, in your candidate's voice, with the thing it is answering attached.
The monitoring that feeds it
Local news, your opponent's public channels, search, and the social and forum spaces where your district actually argues. Watched continuously rather than on a schedule, and what needs an answer is surfaced with a recommendation.
The standing material
Issue and position pages, endorsement announcements, event promotion and follow-up, volunteer and donor updates, and the social posts that carry all of it. Written once and kept current as your position develops.
Weekly reporting
What shipped, what was said about you and where, what we recommended, and what you declined. A written brief at Community and Legislative; a call at Countywide and above.
How much of it
A campaign item is one finished piece ready to approve: a response, a post, a page, an email, an event write-up, a statement for a reporter, a talking-point memo, or a complete response package. Revisions to a piece you sent back are not counted again.
These are ceilings, not quotas. A quiet week costs the same as a loud one, and a week that needs more than the ceiling is a conversation, not an overage charge.
Not included
What this price does not cover.
Said plainly here so it is not a surprise in week three. Each is available separately, or your existing vendors keep it and we write to fit.
Paid advertising
Neither the ad spend nor the management of it. If you want ads run, that is a separate engagement and a separate number, and the spend is always yours and in your name.
Custom imagery and video
Photography, illustration, graphic design, video production and editing. We write, and we place. We do not shoot. Quoted per project if you want us to arrange it.
Mail, print, polling and voter file
Direct mail, printed literature, polling, and voter file or canvassing tools. Your existing vendors keep those, and we write to fit what they are producing.
Legal and compliance review
Your counsel approves your disclaimer text and confirms what your state requires. We draft to what they approve, and we carry it on everything. We are not your lawyers.
Questions
The rules are part of the product.
A vendor who is casual about these is a liability on your disclosure report. Ours are in the contract, not in a conversation.
- When do we pay?
- In full at signature. Standard for campaign vendors, and it means nobody is chasing an invoice in November. Six-week minimum on coverage. Inside four weeks of your election, setup only.
- What if it is not working?
- Tell us in writing. We refund the coverage weeks you have not used, prorated to the week we receive notice, and we stop. The setup fee is not refundable once discovery has begun, because by then you have it and it is yours to keep.
- Could you end up working for my opponent?
- No. We will not represent two candidates contesting the same seat, not in a general, not in a primary, and not because they are in different parties. If we are working for you, that seat is yours for the cycle.
- Are you affiliated with a party?
- No. Helix is not affiliated with any party, committee or movement, and does not endorse. We work with candidates across the spectrum, and with independent and non-partisan campaigns. We are a vendor.
- What about coordination rules?
- We will not serve a candidate and an independent expenditure committee active in the same race, in any combination, in the same cycle. Separate staffing, separate files, in writing.
- Can anything publish without us seeing it?
- No. A named person on your campaign approves every piece. No autopilot, no exceptions, nothing published on your behalf without a signature. This is not a setting that can be turned off.
- Who is responsible for the disclaimers?
- You are the filer of record. Disclaimers are your text, confirmed by your counsel. Where your state requires AI-assisted content to be disclosed, your counsel confirms the requirement and we carry it on everything we draft.
- What happens if we win?
- The work does not stop being useful on Wednesday. Constituent communication, the newsletter, town halls and what follows them. Transition to Office runs $2,750 a month and starts the week after the election. Officeholder rules replace campaign rules, and we hold that line for you.
- What about between cycles?
- Committees, ballot measure campaigns, advocacy organizations and trade associations do not run on a two-year clock. Same system, priced monthly, on a twelve-month term.
Tell us about your race.
The office, the date, who you are running against and what you are being hit on. We will come back with a number for the weeks you have left.
Put Helix on your raceOne campaign per race. Limited availability by race.