How much does social media management cost?

How much does social media management cost? It depends which route you take. A social media manager on payroll averages about $71,777 a year in the US. An agency or freelancer is a monthly retainer, from a few hundred to several thousand dollars every month. Your own automation process is mostly a one-time cost, from around $1,500, with no monthly retainer, plus a few minutes of your team's time per post. Below we break each route into concrete numbers and say when each one is worth considering.

How much does a social media manager on payroll cost?#

A hire is the most predictable, but also the heaviest, fixed cost. According to Glassdoor, the average social media manager salary in the US is about $71,777 a year, with most earning between $54,127 and $95,906. Indeed puts the average lower, at about $64,423. On top of the salary come employer costs, benefits and payroll taxes, so the company's real outlay is higher.

For that money you have a person in-house, but also the risk: vacation, sickness, output. One person running social media is a potential single point of failure, because when something happens to them, you face a standstill. Salary data: Glassdoor and Indeed.

How much does an agency or freelancer cost?#

An agency or freelancer is a retainer model, paid every month. For a small business, a basic package running one or two platforms typically starts around $500 to $1,500 a month. Full-service management, with strategy, content, ads and reporting, usually runs from $3,000 to $8,000 or more a month.

The price depends on how many platforms are covered and whether design, ads and strategy are included. The upside is that you don't worry about the execution. The downside: you pay the same every month, and the content and the relationship with your audience stay outside the company. Agency pricing ranges: Sprout Social.

How much does your own automation process cost?#

Here the main cost is one-time. We price this kind of automation, in a basic variant, from around $1,500, and the more personalization, the higher it goes. The price doesn't grow with the number of platforms, but with how much work goes into the fit: brand character and style, topic research, image generation, integrations. That is why every rollout is quoted individually, and the figures given are a rough guide.

The key point is that you don't pay a retainer. You pay once to build the process, and then the tool works for you. When you want to change something, fix it, update it or plug in a new platform, you reach out and we settle by the hour. No fixed monthly cost.

If you'd rather have us on hand permanently, monthly support is available too. In this model it isn't a retainer measured in the thousands, and usually there is no such need. The rule is simple: you pay once, you have a working tool, and you get in touch when you want to change something. How the process looks in practice we describe on the social media management page.

Hire, agency or automation?#

Do the math over a full year. A hire and an agency are a cost you carry twelve times a year. Your own process is mostly one outlay at the start, plus a few minutes of work per post. With regular posting across several platforms, that difference gets large.

The most expensive thing in social media management isn't a single post. The most expensive thing is the fixed cost you pay every month just to make that post happen at all. An annual agency retainer at $500 a month is already $6,000, while your own process is built once, from around $1,500.

You can see it at KOMMET, a family business with 60 years in metalworking. Instead of hiring a social media person, they got a process where one topic becomes a post on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Preparing a post dropped from about an hour to about 3 minutes, and the company holds a steady rhythm of 8 posts a month with no new hire.

“The most important effect of this rollout for us is a steady, regular brand presence on Facebook without the team's daily effort. A process that used to require manually inventing, editing and publishing content has been automated to a large extent, while keeping full control over what ultimately reaches our profile.”

Mateusz Kwiatkowski, KOMMET S.C.

We tell the whole story with numbers in the KOMMET case study.

When does social media management with automation not pay off?#

When you publish rarely or in just one place. If a post goes out once a quarter on Facebook alone, doing it by hand is cheaper than building a process. Automation pays off with regularity and with several platforms at once.

That is why, before we build anything, we ask plainly: how many topics do you realistically want to publish, and where. If the answer is one post a month, we'll advise against a process and say so on the consultation.