Social Media Management Costs: How Much to Charge?

Social media is indeed a powerful tool to achieve your marketing objectives, such as reaching a wider audience, increasing brand awareness, fostering customer engagement, and generating leads.

Businesses turn to social media management services to leverage the expertise of professionals to help create effective social media strategies and navigate the complexities.

While this prospect excites social media managers and agency owners, the question to determine how much should the services of your social media management cost lingers in the minds of many. 

But fear not; this guide has the answers you seek.

We will help you navigate the murky waters of social media management pricing models. Whether your clients are small businesses or large enterprises, this guide will unveil the best approaches to deciding the prices of your services. 

Overview of Social Media Management Cost

On average, social media management services cost roughly $100 to $4,000 monthly. 

This estimation may include services like advertisement campaign costs, content creation costs, and social media management costs.

Before we move ahead, it is important to understand that pricing can vary from business to business and is highly dependent on the services you choose.

Another factor to consider here is whether you’re sourcing the team in-house or going with freelancers or agencies. 

However, determining the budget for your social media depends on your business goals. If your aim is to maintain a positive brand image and gradually expand your audience, a monthly allocation of $500 to $1,200 is recommended.

We have further broken down this cost for you into freelancer, agency, and social media management tools.

Social Media Management Pricing Based on Services You Offer

1. Freelance Social Media Services Pricing

Hiring a freelancer for social media management services can be a cost-effective solution for businesses that need professional assistance but are not ready to commit to an in-house resource or agency fees.

Freelancers’ pricing plans vary depending on factors such as experience, the complexity of tasks, and geographical location.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the social media management pricing associated with US-Intermediate social media expert freelancers for different services:

2. Agency Social Media Management Cost

Hiring an agency for social media marketing can be a substantial investment, but it often delivers a comprehensive and strategic approach—ideal for businesses aiming to strengthen their social presence. Understanding social media services pricing is key to evaluating the value such agencies provide. 

Here’s an overview of the costs associated with onboarding a social media management agency:

• Monthly Retainer: Agencies usually offer different pricing models depending on the content creation services provided, but the most common is a monthly retainer.

  This involves a fixed monthly fee for a bundle of services. Prices can range from $1,000 to $20,000 per month based on the reputation, the scope of work, and the client’s needs.

• Project-Based Pricing: For specific campaigns or projects, such as product launches or brand awareness, agencies might charge you a flat fee. This cost for social media management varies from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the complexity of the work.
• Performance-Based Pricing: Some agencies offer a model where fees depend on certain performance metrics, such as generating an “X” number of leads or achieving “Y“% of engagement rates. 

Factors Affecting the Social Media Management Rates

When it comes to managing social media, the rates can vary quite a bit. That’s because several factors come into play like the number of platforms, content needs, ad spend, and more.

Here’s a quick rundown of what can influence social media management pricing:

1. Number of Platforms

Managing multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or X adds to the overall cost because each one requires tailored content, unique strategies, and regular updates. 

The more platforms involved, the more time and resources are needed to align with your business goals and ensure consistent performance across the board.

2. Content Creation Needs

Creating engaging, high-quality content is a core part of any effective social media strategy. Whether it’s custom graphics, videos, carousels, or branded visuals, the complexity and frequency of content directly impact pricing. 

Daily posting or visually rich content often requires more time and creativity, leading to higher cost for social media management.

3. Posting Frequency

Are you posting once a week or once a day? How often you post plays a big role in shaping your social media strategy and overall cost. 

Posting daily versus weekly means more time spent on planning, content creation, scheduling, and tracking performance. Higher frequency demands a consistent flow of content, which typically increases the workload and therefore, the pricing.

4. Ad Management

Running paid ad campaigns is a specialized part of social media management that requires expertise in audience targeting, A/B testing, budget allocation, and performance tracking. 

Since it involves strategic planning and continuous optimization, it often comes at an additional cost. These services can significantly impact your overall marketing budget, especially if you’re running multiple campaigns across different platforms with varying goals.

5. Engagement & Community Management

Handling comments, messages, and direct numbers goes beyond basic interaction; it’s about fostering real connections with your audience. Consistent engagement helps build trust and loyalty, which is essential for long-term growth. 

However, having someone dedicated to managing these interactions in real time requires extra effort and time, which can influence your social media marketing pricing, especially if high responsiveness is a priority for your brand.

Social Media Management Tools Cost 

Social media managers, also known as community managers, are responsible for creating a brand’s social media strategy to increase brand awareness, drive sales, and increase overall marketing efforts.

Businesses like yours often require social media managers to work on multiple campaigns simultaneously, which sometimes results in compromised efficiency and effectiveness of the overall tasks. 

You can use social media tools to enhance the efficiency of your managers. Such social media management tools play a significant role in enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness, and strategic impact of the overall campaign. 

Here is a tool that will come in handy for you in every situation:

SocialPilot

SocialPilot is one of the best social media management tools for helping you streamline your workflow and get more tasks done in less time. Starting at just $25.50/month, this tool offers a centralized hub to schedule and publish content across multiple social media networks.

You can engage with your audience by replying to comments and messages and tracking the performance of your posts. Its built-in AI assistant feature lets you generate engaging captions and hashtags.

You can also collaborate with your team members and clients and bulk schedule your posts in advance.

Here’s a quick look at what some of the top social media management platforms are charging—just so you can get a feel for the pricing out there:

• https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/buffer-pricing
• https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/later-pricing
• https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/metricool-pricing
• https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/hootsuite-pricing
• https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/sprout-social-pricing
• https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/agorapulse-pricing

4 Ways to Charge for Your Social Media Management Services

We have discussed 4 different pricing models that you can use to charge your clients for your social media management services:

1. Hourly

Charging hourly is the most suitable pricing model for freelancers who are just starting out. You can sort out the details with your clients and decide on the total number of hours you will work per week or month.

Typically, a beginner earns around $25 – $35/hour initially, and the number goes up as experience increases.

Pros:

• You know how much time it will take to finish the job.
• You can charge more for any extra work

Cons:

• It’s hard to scale your business with the hourly model
• You won’t get any incentive to work faster

2. Monthly

After building some experience and establishing a relationship with your clients, you can move to the monthly retainer pricing model.

In the monthly retainer model, you get a monthly recurring income in exchange for your social media management services.

Pros:

• No need to constantly search for new clients
• It gets you a steady income every month
• It makes budgeting easier for your clients
• Less time-constraint and organized enough to take other clients

Cons:

• The model is pricey for newer clients
• Clients can demand consistent edits and reject ideas multiple times

3. Project-Based

This option is best when you undertake a specific long project, such as developing a social media ad campaign, promoting a particular product, or a brand-enhancing identity package.

Clients usually select this project when they have to kick-start something with the help of experts and then eventually run it themselves. You can quote them on an hourly basis after estimating how many hours it would take you to complete the project.

Pros:

• It’s easier to scale than the hourly model
• The flexibility of outsourcing work

Cons:

• You will have to work at the client’s pace
• Less visibility on the project finishing date

4. Package-Based

Monthly packages are the most efficient pricing model for your social media management services.

You can create a set of packages offering different services and charge on a monthly or yearly basis.

Different pricing enables you to get hold of prospects who are on a tight budget. You can also create custom packages for large enterprises looking for something more than your preset packages offer.

Pros:

• A constant flow of income from clients
• Straightforward proposals make it easy for clients to choose you
• You know the services you have to offer from the start
• Easy to scale your business

Cons:

• It’s hard for inexperienced individuals and agency owners to create the perfect pricing packages.

Done with the pricing models?

Let’s discuss how you can create perfect pricing packages that give you an unfair advantage over your competitors.

How to Decide a Price Range for Your Social Media Management Services?

On the quest to create a perfect pricing package as a freelancer or an agency owner, you need to go through the following steps.

Step 1: Know Your Worth

First, you need to determine what you bring to the table as a social media specialist. Your level of experience and qualification directly impact the pricing you can charge.

Obviously, a seasoned marketer would charge and quickly get more money than a freelancer for undertaking the same number of services.

So make sure you consider the following factors when deriving your social media management services pricing:

• How much Industry experience do you have?
• What education and certifications have you done?
• Does your clientele include big names?
• What special skills and expertise do you offer?

Step 2: Research Your Direct Competitors

Your direct competitors are the key to finding a reference pricing model for your social media marketing and management services.

Look at how your competitors are floating in the market. What is their pricing model?

You can start by making a list of 8-10 competitors and searching through their website for the pricing package.

The chances of finding a fixed pricing page on a small marketing agency website are low, but even one or two references will help you start.

You must also establish connections with marketing professionals on social media groups to find out how they charge clients.

But I believe you are already doing all of this to some extent.

So while you perform this exercise, make sure to indulge in finding the pricing structure of only your direct competitors. For you don’t want to waste your time overlooking a freelancer’s pricing model when you are a full-fledged marketing agency.

Wait, how to distinguish my direct competitors?

Your direct competitors are the agencies or individuals who are similar to you in the following aspects:

• Number of employees
• Client industry
• Client company size
• Services offered

Step 3: Take a Look at Your Current Pricing Plan

Once you are done researching competitors, have a go at your own pricing structure.

This step is for the agency owners and freelancers who already have a clientele and a pricing structure in place.

The aim here is to figure out how clients are perceiving your current pricing plan. How is your business working under the current pricing?

Do you have any kind of objection to your current pricing plan?

Are your clients satisfied with your current pricing?

Are your clients suggesting your rates as too high or too low in comparison to others?

Keep an eye for what your clients feel about your pricing. You need to strike a balance in opinions. If 50% of your clients think you are expensive and the other 50% think you are not, then it’s alright.

But, if you notice more people inclining towards either side, then it’s time to rethink your social media management services pricing accordingly.

Here, you have to understand that having an inexpensive plan is not always a winning situation. You are probably undercharging for the value you provide and impeding your own business growth.

Step 4: Consider Your Expenses

Pricing greatly depends on how much you will spend on providing your services and running your business.

You want to create a pricing structure that aligns with your customer expectations and covers the cost of running your agency.

Here are some of the expenses you need to consider while making your pricing structure:

Office expenses: Whether you work from the office or home, with a team, or as an individual, you need to pay operational costs, which include rent, utilities, equipment, maintenance, supplies, etc.

Service expenses: Investment in multiple tools and software to run marketing campaigns for your clients. This list generally includes task management software, CRM tools, SEO tools, email marketing tools, designing tools, social media automation tools, etc.

Since this blog revolves just around social media services, you can stick with the expense of social media marketing software.

• Employment expenses: Expenses made in providing salary, benefits, insurance, bonuses, and travel expenses to employees.
• Professional fees: This cost includes government licensing fees, corporate taxes, legal fees, and other professional or advisory services fees.
• Growth cost: In order to reach your audience, you need to have a marketing budget cut out for yourself. The growth expenses cover variable marketing costs such as advertising, conference fees, directory listing fees, traveling expenses, etc.

It also covers the money you want to invest back in the company for growing your business.

Step 5: Consider the Needs of Your Best-fit Clients

In order to create a social media management package, you need to identify the needs of your best-fit clients.

We are talking about the clients you have worked with before and managed to achieve the best results.

So start brainstorming:

• Who are your best clients?
• Which services do you offer them?
• Which of your services turned out to be valuable for clients in getting better impressions, account growth, sales, and leads?

Once you have the answers to all these questions, see if you can duplicate similar services and approaches in a monthly package for other clients.

Step 6: Create Your Pricing Package

Once you know what your best-fit client wants, you can easily carve out a package that other clients would also love.

The best-fit client package can go as the most popular package on your website pricing page. After that, you can create one package that is a bit basic and one that is a bit more inclusive with the extra set of services.

Look at the pricing plan of SocialPilot:

Although you have mentioned everything in your pricing plan, sooner or later, you will find clients who won’t like certain aspects of your packages and want to add or exclude some services.

In such cases, you need to have the option of a custom package on your pricing page.

Take a look at this example of Canva pricing plan:

Source: Canva

To create custom packages, you need a flat rate price sheet with a monthly price for every service you offer. This will allow you to generate a quote for each service and create a custom package for clients who are unsatisfied with preset packages.

Step 7: Test it on Clients and Collect Feedback

Finally, it’s time to release your pricing.

You can start by releasing it to new prospects. Help them understand what each plan offers and which one will be suitable for them over sales calls and emails.

Once you get positive feedback from new clients, introduce the new way of pricing to old clients. See how your old best-fit clients behave to the pricing plan. If you see something not working, be open to making changes.

Conclusion

Creating the perfect package for your social media management services can be overwhelming, especially when you’re uncertain of your own worth. It’s crucial to be fully aware of the value you bring to your clients and to boost your negotiation skills. 

Keep in mind that your goal is to craft a package that aligns with the needs of your ideal clients while also covering the costs of running your agency.

To streamline your package refinement process, take stock of your operational expenses, assess your client’s requirements, study your competitors, and remain open to feedback.

By being mindful of these factors, you can confidently set your social media management cost and offer a package that effectively reflects your value proposition.

Speaking of simple, use SocialPilot to effortlessly manage social media marketing campaigns of multiple clients at once.

SocialPilot is especially made for agencies to work efficiently and scale better.

Experience it yourself – Start your free trial.