How Much Does Social Media Management Cost? A Complete Guide
Want to stand out in a crowded digital landscape? Start by mastering your social media management cost. With 95% of marketers reporting increased brand exposure from social media efforts, it’s clear that smart investment—not just activity—is what drives results. As ad costs rise and algorithms shift, understanding where your budget goes and what it returns is a competitive edge. If you're serious about scaling visibility and engagement, treating your social media spend like a strategic lever is the first move.
Key Takeaways: Social Media Management Costs in 2025
If you're short on time, here’s what you really need to know:
- Social media management costs vary by business stage, scope, and team model.
- Freelancers, agencies, and social media management software offer different pricing models with trade-offs in scale, focus, and control.
- Content complexity and platform count are major cost drivers—video and multi-channel strategies cost more.
- Hidden costs like tools, training, and crisis response can add up quickly if not planned for.
- Social media often delivers a lower cost-per-click than paid search, making it a cost-effective channel when used strategically.
- Track ROI using business-aligned metrics like CAC, CLTV, and demo conversions—not just engagement rates.
What Drives Social Media Management Pricing?
Social media costs depend on what you're doing, who's doing it, and how many platforms you're managing. Factors like content complexity, audience size, and analytics, all impact price. Costs also vary by delivery model—freelancers, in-house teams, and agencies come with different rates and expectations. For SaaS brands, spend typically scales with GTM strategy: PLG startups lean scrappy, while enterprise orgs prioritize brand and pipeline, and pay accordingly.
Cost of Tools
Social media management software may come with an innate cost (though some are free!) and that cost tends to scale up according to the complexity of your needs. Needing to connect more than 2-3 social media platforms, for example, may be more expensive than just needing to work on 1-2 of them.
Advanced features like keyword monitoring, social listening, AI-powered hashtag generation, and bulk schedulers tend to be associated with platforms that have higher costs. Needing more admin users, integrations/plugins, and customizable reporting are a few other features that affect cost.
The social media platforms themselves tend to be free (Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads) but you may want to pay for additional features, like a business account or verification badge. Before doling out any extra budget, though, I highly recommend taking a social media course to learn all the best practices.
Team Structure: In-House vs. Outsourced
If you’re considering hiring someone in-house, your costs will typically be higher because you’ll be required to pay a base salary plus benefits such as health insurance. By outsourcing your social media presence, depending on what company or freelancers you work with, you can have several team members working together on your social media strategies.
This means you’ll have a mini marketing department or group of freelancers for an hourly rate depending on the social media management package you choose, which is typically less than the salary you’ll pay when hiring one full-time employee.
However, you will typically be one of many clients so the attention of your team will be divided. An outsourced team may not be able to step in on rush projects (or, at least, not without substantial cost) and can never give you 100% of their attention.
Hiring a Social Media Marketing Agency
Another option is hiring a social media marketing agency on a monthly retainer. This approach gives you access to a full team, often including strategists, designers, copywriters, and community managers, without the overhead of building that team in-house.
Retainers typically fall within a price range of $3,000 to $20,000+ per month, depending on the complexity of your campaigns, platform coverage, and content needs. Agencies are especially valuable if community engagement, paid ad execution, or multi-channel coordination are core to your strategy. Just be sure to vet their track record, how many clients they handle simultaneously, responsiveness and alignment can vary based on bandwidth.
Keep reading to compare the true cost and impact of freelancers, agencies, and software to find the right fit for your social media strategy.
Platform Diversity
Reducing your dependency on a single social media platform can lessen negative impacts when the network undergoes significant changes. When diversifying your social media management, you’ll spread ad spending across multiple channels such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. You’ll have to pay for each platform when implementing ad campaigns on numerous social media channels.
Social media pricing is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. Each business, from startups to seasoned business owners, has unique needs. A social media marketing platform can offer a range of pricing structures and packages to suit these varying requirements. Whether it's managing a single Facebook page or orchestrating a full-blown social media marketing campaign, the key is to align the platform with the specific goals and budget of the business.
Content Volume and Complexity
The complexity of your social media campaigns will significantly impact your pricing. It can determine how many platforms you need to use, the size of your audience, and the amount of time and effort your team will dedicate to the strategy.
Do you primarily need short, text-based post ideas based on trend research in your niche? Well, that won't cost as much as needing audio/video for short or long video content on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. How you use each platform, and the number of platforms you want to be active on, affects how much you pay for content curation and creation.
Is Social Media More Cost-Effective Than Other Marketing Channels?
Compared to traditional and digital channels like paid search, display advertising, or email marketing, social media often delivers a lower cost of entry.
Data from WordStream shows that the average cost-per-click (CPC) on Facebook and Instagram is $1.88 on average, significantly lower than Google Search CPCs, which can average $4.66+ in competitive B2B verticals.
While social may not always outperform in last-click attribution, its ability to drive engagement, brand affinity, and top-of-funnel traffic often makes it a more cost-efficient channel when layered into a multi-touch GTM strategy. For SaaS marketers navigating tighter budgets, reallocating a portion of spend from paid search to social can stretch CAC while still fueling pipeline development.
Pricing Models: Freelancer vs. Agency vs. Software
Choosing the right model for managing your social media depends on your budget, internal bandwidth, and the complexity of your strategy. Here's how freelancers, agencies, and software platforms compare:
Model | Typical Cost Range (Monthly) | What You Get | Pros | Cons | Best For |
| Freelancer | $500 – $5,000+ | Content creation, scheduling, community management (limited to 1–2 platforms) | Flexible, cost-effective, direct communication | Limited scale, may lack strategic input, quality varies | Early-stage SaaS teams or startups with narrow scope |
| Agency | $3,000 – $20,000+ | Full-service: strategy, creative, ads, reporting, multiple platforms | Strategic depth, cross-functional support, scalable capacity | Higher cost, less agility, onboarding time | Growth-stage or enterprise SaaS teams with multi-channel needs |
| Software | $10 – $1,200+ (per month) | Tools for publishing, scheduling, analytics, monitoring (DIY or in-house use) | Scalable, measurable, central workflow | Doesn’t create content, still requires staff to manage | In-house teams that want to streamline or scale efficiently |
Cost Breakdown By Social Media Platform
Here is an in-depth examination of costs across multiple social platforms, each with unique use cases/KPIs.
| Social media platform | Uses, KPIS | Typical costs |
|---|---|---|
| Page likes, link clicks, post engagement, impressions, ads, shares. | The average CPC for Facebook ads is $0.44/click. If you’re considering earning more page likes, the average cost per like you can expect is $0.38/like. You can also boost existing posts to show them to more suitable users based on your specific targeting options - Facebook uses the CPM model for boosted posts, and you can expect an average cost of $6.35/1,000 views. | |
| Link clicks, post engagement, impressions, ads, shares, views, follows, social commerce. | For Instagram, you can expect to pay between $0.40 to $0.70/click. If you add a destination URL to your ad, the CPC is typically a bit higher, between $0.50 to $0.95/click; the average CPE campaign can range from $0.01 to $0.05, and CPM strategies can cost between $2.50 to $3.50. | |
| X (formerly Twitter) | Link clicks, post engagement, impressions, ads, shares, follows. | When promoting a post, you can expect to pay $1.35 to promote a post on average. When promoting an account, you can expect prices anywhere between $2.50 to $4/follower. |
| Link clicks, post engagement, impressions, ads, shares, follows. | When utilizing CPC ad models, LinkedIn recommends bidding at least $5.55 to $9.33 - you can also establish a daily budget of a minimum of $10. If you’re using the CPM model, you must submit a minimum of $2/bid, but the platform suggests bidding at least $2.85 to $4.62. For sponsored posts, you can use the CPC model at a minimum of $2.50/bid, but LinkedIn suggests $5.67 to $10.09. Alternatively, you will spend a $10.50 minimum for the CPM model, with a bid recommendation of $18.55 to $28.91, with a daily budget of at least $10 as a requirement. |
Cost by Type of Social Media Service
Below, we break down the six most common components of social media management, with real pricing benchmarks and industry context.
Strategy & Campaign Planning
Effective strategy is the backbone of high-performing social media. This includes brand voice development, audience targeting, competitive audits, and campaign roadmap creation.
Typical cost: $1,500–$7,500 per campaign or $2,000+/month for ongoing strategy support
Benchmark: Agencies like LYFE Marketing charge $2,000–$5,000/month for strategy-inclusive packages
Why it matters: Strategic misalignment can lead to wasted ad spend or poor audience engagement—especially in SaaS, where buyers expect value-driven content.
Content Creation (Copy, Graphics, Video)
This is typically the most resource-intensive piece, particularly for companies producing multimedia or thought leadership assets.
Typical cost:
Copywriting: $50–$500 per post
Graphic design: $50–$300 per asset
Short-form video (e.g., Reels, TikToks): $200–$2,500 per video
Benchmark: According to DesignRush, agencies charge $500–$2,000/month for basic content, and upwards of $10,000/month for video-heavy packages
Why It Matters: For SaaS brands, high-quality content isn’t just aesthetic. It’s educational, often replacing top-of-funnel webinars, blogs, and ads.
Why it matters: For SaaS brands, high-quality content isn’t just aesthetic. It’s educational, often replacing top-of-funnel webinars, blogs, and ads.
Scheduling & Publishing
This operational layer involves content calendar management, post scheduling, and optimization of publishing times across platforms.
Typical cost: $250–$1,000/month
Benchmark: Many social media tools like Buffer and Hootsuite offer this functionality starting at $10/month, but human oversight is still needed for quality assurance.
Why it matters: While this can be automated, improper scheduling can hurt engagement—and compliance, especially for regulated industries.
Community Management & Support
Community management includes responding to comments, engaging with users, monitoring brand mentions, and flagging PR issues.
Typical cost: $500–$5,000/month, depending on platform volume and response SLAs
Benchmark: Agencies like Ignite Social Media offer full-service community management starting at $3,000-$5,000/month
Why it matters: For SaaS companies, social is a frontline for support and sentiment, especially when launching or handling incidents. Delayed replies can damage trust and retention.
Influencer/Creator Collaborations
This includes influencer sourcing, negotiation, briefing, and performance tracking.
Typical Cost: $10–$10,000+/post, depending on the platform and following.
Benchmark: Influencer Marketing Hub reports average rates of $250–$1,500 per post for micro-influencers, and up to $10,000+ for mid-tier creators
Why it matters: Even in B2B SaaS, creator partnerships are growing. This is especially so on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and niche YouTube channels targeting developers or product managers.
Analytics & Reporting
This involves building dashboards, interpreting performance data, and surfacing insights tied to KPIs like engagement, CTR, or demo requests.
Typical Cost: $500–$3,000/month
Benchmark: Advanced reporting platforms like Sprout Social cost $399 per seat/month, not including analyst time
Why it matters: For SaaS teams, social often plays a role in influencing pipeline. CMOs need reporting that ties efforts to CAC, LTV, and retention metrics.
How to Bundle Social Media Management Services Efficiently
Many agencies offer tiered packages combining strategy, content, and analytics. If you're managing multiple platforms or testing both paid and organic, look for bundles that include:
- Monthly strategy sprints
- Platform-specific creative (not just repurposed assets)
- Quarterly reporting tied to business goals
This bundling can save 15–30% compared to à la carte pricing, while streamlining vendor relationships.
ROI Considerations for Social Media Management Spend
In this section, I’ll explore the return on investment (ROI) considerations that go above pricing, shedding light on how strategic social media management not only incurs costs but also develops a measurable and impactful return for your brand.
Measuring Returns
To determine whether you’re getting a positive or negative social media ROI, analyzing how much you’re spending is a necessity. Your spending doesn’t just involve money; it can include time, content, social media tools, and ad prices.
You can use this formula: ROI = Net value / Cost of investment x 100
However, what counts as a "net value" to you is something you will need to work out for yourself. What are the most essential metrics you are tracking? Where do you hope to grow? Examples of value indicators include:
- Engagement Rate: This includes likes, comments, shares, and reactions to your posts.
- Follower Growth: The rate at which your follower count is increasing is a good indicator of brand awareness and appeal.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The number of clicks on the links in your posts compared to the number of impressions.
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who take a desired action (like making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, etc.).
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost of acquiring a new customer through social media campaigns.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): This measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on social media advertising.
- Brand Sentiment Analysis: Assessing the public perception of your brand on social media, whether it's positive, negative, or neutral.
- Reach and Impressions: Reach is the number of unique users who see your content, while impressions are the number of times your content is displayed.
- Website Traffic from Social Media: The amount of visitors to your website that come from social media platforms.
- Lead Generation: The number of leads (potential customers) generated through social media activities.
- Social Share of Voice (SSoV): Measures how much of the conversation in your industry is about your brand compared to competitors.
- Content Performance: Analyzing which types of posts (videos, images, blogs, etc.) perform best in terms of engagement and conversions.
- Customer Retention Rate: The rate at which you are able to retain customers through social media engagement and campaigns.
- Influencer Performance: If you're using influencers, tracking their performance in terms of engagement, reach, and conversions they bring.
- Time Spent on Page/Post: The average amount of time users spend on your content, indicating the quality and relevance of your content.
Industry Benchmarks
An industry benchmark in the context of social media management ROI refers to a standard or point of reference against which the performance of a company's social media strategies can be measured. This benchmark is typically derived from the average or median performance metrics of other companies within the same industry.
Expecting your campaign to 100X your competitors' successes might be unrealistic, for example, so you can use industry benchmarks as a standard for setting realistic goals.
Has your biggest competitor gained 200 new followers this month? Go ahead and shoot for 300-400! But trying to set goals that run laps around competitors in an already overcrowded social media landscape just sets you and your team up for disappointment.
Cost vs. Value
When it comes to social media management, having a balance between costs and value is the key to a robust ROI. You can start by identifying KPIs aligned with business goals, ensuring every expense corresponds to tangible value creation, and regularly assessing and adapting strategies based on these insights to foster a dynamic equilibrium that justifies costs and increases sustainable and meaningful growth.
Hidden Costs of Social Media Management
Managing hidden costs is essential to running social media campaigns with strategic foresight and financial discipline. Here’s what to look out for.
Time Investment
The results from a social media management strategy don’t happen overnight. You shouldn’t expect to see your ads on newsfeeds and get new customers immediately. Time doesn’t only mean the work you put into social media strategies; it also requires financial assets.
For example, when running Facebook ads, the longer you run ads, the higher prices you’ll see. No matter your offering, your campaign will require time commitments as well as monetary investments.
Software Tools
Social media management requires a lot of resources, such as marketing software like photo and video editing tools for content creation or social data analytics tools. You also need to budget for a social media scheduling tool if you plan to be consistent.
Typically, you’re required to pay for most of these tools. Also consider the time it takes to learn and excel with each tool, or the cost required to outsource creative work like video editing to a pro.
Crisis Management
Crisis management can be a potential financial aspect that’s often overlooked. The hidden prices associated with navigating unforeseen reputational challenges and crises can extend beyond monetary expenses. It can encompass the toll on customer trust, brand equity, and employee bandwidth.
Adequate preparation and proactive strategies for crisis mitigation are essential to safeguard your bottom line and strengthen your business's resilience in an unpredictable industry.
How To Budget For Social Media Management
Developing a strategic budget for social media management requires a balance of foresight and flexibility. In this section, I’ll unveil actionable steps and considerations that can empower your business to forge a practical budgetary roadmap.
Setting Objectives
Knowing your business’s objectives will help you allocate your budget when creating a social media management campaign. For example, if brand exposure is your goal, you may invest more in paid awareness campaigns and less in generating new content daily.
To help set your goals, refer to your previous year’s goals and funding allocations and determine which strategies were successful, if you had a budget left over or the prices you paid stretched you too thin, and if you want to increase resources to impact new strategies or expand old ones.
Allocating Resources
Social media project management requires resources to help plan, implement, and monitor your campaigns. This can include hiring employees, utilizing various social media management services, and investing in training and software. Your team can use social media tools to enhance efficiency, encourage creativity, and provide data that helps your business.
You can use a budget calculator to help strategically utilize your resources, including software with various pricing plans, and avoid overspending on things you don’t need.
Monitoring and Adjustments
Budgeting your social media management campaigns isn’t a one-and-done practice. Monitoring social metrics will help determine if your campaigns are worth the investment, identify if you could have spent less on ads and gotten the same results, and discover optimization opportunities.
You can also use this information to reevaluate and make adjustments to get more out of your budget. You can use marketing budget software to help track your expenses and avoid overspending, track goals, and monitor performance.
Additional Resources
ABL, “always be learning.” That’s how I stay up to date on new social media and marketing trends. Here are some resources I’ve curated for those who want to stay informed:
- Mastering Your Organic Social Media Strategy: A Guide
- Social Media Content Management in 9 Simple Steps
- 10 Undeniable Benefits of Social Media Management
- 15 Social Media Marketing Podcasts
- 17 Best Social Media Marketing Books
People Also Ask
In the following section, I’ll dive into the frequently asked questions about social media management costs and values.
What are some cost-effective social media management tools?
For brands looking for cost-effective, robust social media management tools, you can consider options like Hootsuite and Buffer, which offer comprehensive capabilities for scheduling posts, analytics, and team collaboration capabilities at scalable prices.
Also, tools like Canva offer affordable graphic design solutions, while Later focuses on Instagram scheduling. Platforms such as these empower brands to simplify social media strategies and get the know-how they need without compromising quality or breaking the bank.
How do I calculate the ROI of my social media campaigns?
Calculating the ROI of your social media marketing strategy involves a blend of financial and performance metrics. You can start by identifying the value generated from social media, including sales, leads, conversions, and savings from effective engagement; you can always use marketing attribution tools to do this. Subtract costs incurred, covering everything from ad spend to team efforts and tools. Then, divide this number by the total costs and multiply by 100 to get a percentage.
The formula will look like this: Social Media ROI = ((Value generated from social media – Costs of social media investment) / Costs) x 100. Percentages above 0 show your strategy generated more value than invested.
Can I start with a small budget and scale up?
Absolutely! Small businesses in the space can start with a modest budget for their social media management campaigns and progressively scale up as they gain insights and traction. Smaller budgets allow you to experiment with different marketing ideas, understand audience preferences, and refine strategies without a significant financial commitment.
As your business gains confidence in what’s working, you can incrementally increase your budget, implement various social media management services, and optimize for higher impact channels and methods, ensuring more efficient and informed allocation of resources while achieving scalable growth in your social media management. Be sure to check out our social media marketing tips for small business for more helpful insights and resources.
Conclusion
As the curtain draws on my exploration of social media management costs for your brand, one resounding truth emerges: the landscape of digital growth is dynamic as well as promising. Understanding the intricacies of cost allocation, platform diversification, and ROI considerations becomes the foundation for savvy strategies in this evolving environment. Ready to embark on your brand’s journey to social media success? Be sure to check out a few management tips to keep your whole social team aligned.
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