What it costs to have your pages run
Managed social media is normally a monthly retainer per brand rather than an hourly rate, and the number moves with posting volume more than anything else. Our own bands run from $300 to $800 a month, from one post a day up to ten posts a day.
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Pricing in this industry is deliberately vague, and the vagueness is not always dishonest. Two brands asking for social media management can want jobs that differ by a factor of ten, so the honest first answer is a question about volume. Still, you deserve a number before a call, so here is how the number is built.
What actually moves the price?
Volume, mostly. How many posts a month, on how many platforms, with how much original production behind each one.
After volume come three smaller levers. Whether the content is produced from scratch or assembled from assets you supply. Whether anyone is answering the comments and the messages daily. And whether the account needs a face, which is where an AI persona and its setup fee enter the calculation. Strategy, calendars and reporting are real work but they are not what the money is spent on.
| One brand, ten posts a week | Monthly cost shape | What you manage |
|---|---|---|
| Managed retainer | One fixed monthly price | A short approval, nothing else |
| Experienced freelancer | Fee plus your briefing time | Briefs, chasing, cover, replacement |
| In house hire | Salary, tools, equipment | Recruitment, management, holidays |
What do we charge?
Social media management is priced per brand from $300 to $800 a month, and the band is decided by volume: one post a day at the bottom of the range, up to ten posts a day at the top.
There is no setup fee on management. The AI influencer line carries one, because a persona has to be designed and built before it can be run, and that build is a real piece of work rather than a monthly activity. Every engagement starts with a free written proposal, so you see the exact scope and the exact number before anything is agreed.
The current bands and what sits in each are on pricing, and what the retainer covers is what a social media management company does.
Is an agency cheaper than hiring?
At these volumes, usually yes, but the comparison people make is the wrong one. A freelancer’s fee against a retainer ignores the hours you spend briefing, chasing and eventually replacing them.
An in house hire is a different proposition again. One competent social media person is a salary plus tools plus equipment plus the management time, and they produce roughly one brand’s output, take holidays, and leave after two years with everything they learned. That is fine for a company large enough to have a team around them and expensive for everybody else.
The real question is what your own hour is worth. If posting is the thing that slips every week, the retainer is replacing your worst hours rather than a freelancer’s invoice.
What should you be careful of?
Prices quoted per post, budgets that quietly include advertising spend, and any proposal that promises a specific follower, view or revenue number.
Per post pricing sounds transparent and punishes exactly the consistency that makes an account work. Bundled ad spend makes the management fee look smaller and makes the real cost impossible to read. And a promised result is the clearest signal available that you are being sold something nobody can deliver, because no agency controls how a platform distributes content.
How much volume you actually need is its own question, answered in how many posts a month does a brand need. The rest of the pricing and process questions sit on the answers hub, and the service itself is social media management.