Service
Social media management priced by posts and channels
Social media management pricing starts at $400/mo: twelve, twenty-four or forty-eight posts a month across a stated number of channels, with the exclusions written on every tier.
In one line
Social media management is the planning, production and scheduling of posts on your existing channels. Social media management pricing here rests on two counts, posts per month and channels covered, with paid budget, community management and video production stated as exclusions rather than assumed.
Social media management and what each tier costs
Starter
12 posts/mo, 2 channels
$333/mo billed yearly
- 12 posts
- 2 channels
- Scheduling handled
- Monthly performance summary
- Not included: Paid social budget
- Not included: Community management / DM replies
- Not included: Video production
Growth
24 posts/mo, 4 channels
$708/mo billed yearly
- 24 posts
- 4 channels
- Everything in Starter
- Custom graphics
- Comment monitoring
- Not included: Paid social budget
- Not included: Video production
Scale
48 posts/mo, all channels
$1,583/mo billed yearly
- 48 posts
- All major channels
- Everything in Growth
- Short-form video editing
- Quarterly strategy review
- Not included: Paid social budget
These social media management are billed at the price shown, with no scoping call in the way. First content calendar within 7 business days. Every tier is billed monthly, and the scope is fixed by a brief you agree before anything is invoiced.
Page one is a mix of agency pricing pages and a Reddit thread of practitioners arguing about what a package should include. The Reddit thread is more specific than most of the agency pages, which is a fair summary of this market.
Everything each tier includes and excludes
The same list that drives the price cards, laid out so the tiers can be read against each other. Exclusions are printed because an unstated exclusion is what turns a good month into an argument.
Starter
12 posts/mo, 2 channels
Included
- 12 posts
- 2 channels
- Scheduling handled
- Monthly performance summary
Not included
- Paid social budget
- Community management / DM replies
- Video production
Growth
24 posts/mo, 4 channels
Included
- 24 posts
- 4 channels
- Everything in Starter
- Custom graphics
- Comment monitoring
Not included
- Paid social budget
- Video production
Scale
48 posts/mo, all channels
Included
- 48 posts
- All major channels
- Everything in Growth
- Short-form video editing
- Quarterly strategy review
Not included
- Paid social budget
Which tier you actually need
Two counts set the tier: posts per month and channels covered. Both matter, because the same post cross-published to six channels is not six posts.
All three social media management run the same process and the same reporting. What changes between them is volume.
Starter
A business with two channels that actually have an audience, wanting consistency rather than volume.
You are on this tier when: Your posting has become sporadic and the gap between posts is measured in weeks.
Growth
Four channels with different formats, where custom graphics and comment monitoring have become necessary.
You are on this tier when: Comments are going unanswered, or you are reusing the same image across channels that need different ratios.
Scale
All major channels at pace, including short-form video editing from footage you already have.
You are on this tier when: Video is where your audience is, and the editing queue is the bottleneck.
Three exclusions that cause most of the disappointment
Short answer
Paid social budget is excluded at every tier. DM and comment replies are excluded at Starter. Video production is excluded until Scale. These are the three things buyers most often assume are included in a social retainer, so they are printed on the tier.
A package that quietly excludes community management fails in week two, when someone asks a question in the comments and nobody answers it.
Comment monitoring starts at Growth, which is different from full community management, and the difference is written down rather than left to interpretation.
What a month produces
The output is countable and visible on your own channels.
- The tier’s post count, written, scheduled and published
- A content calendar you approve before anything goes out
- Custom graphics from Growth upward
- A monthly performance summary naming what performed and what did not
What a social media month actually contains
Social retainers are usually sold as "management", which counts nothing. This one counts posts, platforms and the calendar they are approved on.
What a social media month actually contains
Within 7 days — First content calendar. A calendar for the month comes back inside seven business days: every post, its platform, its date, and its hook, ready for you to approve or strike before anything publishes.
You approve — Calendar locked. Approval fixes the month. Changes after that are made against the following month, which is what stops a fixed-scope retainer turning into an unpaid content desk.
Through the month — Scheduled and published. Posts publish on the approved dates across the platforms in your tier. Community management, where included, is stated as a response window rather than as "engagement".
Month end — The report. Posts published against posts planned, per platform, with the reach figures the platforms themselves report. Platform numbers are quoted as the platform gives them, not re-modelled.
Select any milestone to read what is produced at it. Every date is a published commitment from this page, not an estimate of results.
What the price buys at each tier
Billed monthly at the price shown. The yearly option is the same scope with two months off, and nothing here is quoted as a slice of your budget.
Post volume is the lever; the approval calendar is not optional at any tier. A retainer that publishes without your sign-off is cheaper to run and worse to own.
Prices resolve from the same source as the cards above. Switch metric to compare cost against volume.
How a month actually runs
Order, brief, production, delivery, report. The same four steps every month, so a second month can be compared against a first.
- 1
Days 1 to 7
First calendar
A month of planned posts, produced within 7 business days of the brief, for you to approve.
- 2
Ongoing
Production and scheduling
Posts written and scheduled to the calendar. Changes before publication are free and expected.
- 3
From Growth
Comment monitoring
Comments watched and flagged, with responses drafted for you where a reply is needed.
- 4
Month end
Performance summary
What performed, what did not, and what the next calendar changes as a result.
What the monthly summary contains
The summary exists to change the next calendar, so it is short and it names things.
A twenty-page social report is a way of billing for reading. This one fits on a page.
- Reach and engagement per channel, compared with last month
- The three best-performing posts, and the pattern they share
- The posts that underperformed, named rather than averaged away
- What the next calendar changes as a result
Why posts and channels are both counted
Twelve posts across two channels is a different job to twelve posts across six, because each channel needs its own format, aspect ratio and tone.
Pricing on posts alone is how social retainers quietly degrade: the count is met by cross-posting the same asset everywhere, which the audience notices before the report does.
What the performance summary actually says
- Reach and engagement per channel, month over month
- The three posts that performed best, and the pattern they share
- The posts that underperformed, named rather than averaged away
- What the next calendar changes because of the above
It is deliberately short. A twenty-page social report is a way of billing for reading rather than for deciding.
How this differs from the usual arrangement
Neither column is a verdict on quality. The left is how this service is normally sold, taken from the pages ranking beside this one.
A typical social retainer
- Price
- Quoted per client
- Output
- "Regular posting"
- Channels
- Unstated
- Ad budget
- Sometimes blended into the fee
- Approval
- Posts go out and you see them live
The Super Panel
- Price
- Published, by post and channel count
- Output
- 12, 24 or 48 posts a month
- Channels
- 2, 4, or all major channels
- Ad budget
- Excluded, and stated on every tier
- Approval
- Calendar approved before anything publishes
The three things buyers ask before ordering
Social is the service where the exclusions matter most, so the questions about them get direct answers.
Will this bring in sales?
Organic social rarely drives direct sales inside a quarter. It holds attention, supports search discovery, and gives an audience somewhere to check you are real. If direct response is the goal, paid ads answer it faster and the budget is excluded here for exactly that reason.
Why is community management not included?
Because it is a staffing commitment rather than a production task. Comment monitoring from Growth flags what needs a reply and drafts it. Someone answering messages all day is a different product and pretending otherwise is how retainers fail in week two.
Can you grow our follower count?
No promise on that. Follower growth depends on your offer and audience far more than posting cadence, and any guaranteed number in this market is bought followers.
What this pairs with
Content writing feeds social directly: one researched article becomes several posts, which is cheaper than commissioning both separately.
Paid ads use the same creative and the same channels. Running organic without paid is normal; running paid without any organic presence makes the ad account work harder than it needs to.
Social rarely deserves the largest share of a small budget, and how to split a small marketing budget.
When a social package will not help
Short answer
Posting on a schedule does nothing for a business with no audience on those channels, no product story to tell, or an expectation that organic social will drive direct sales this quarter. Paid social answers that question, and its budget is excluded here.
- You expect organic social to generate direct sales inside a quarter.
- You want someone answering DMs all day. Community management is excluded at Starter.
- You need original video shot and edited. Video editing starts at Scale.
- Your audience is not on the channels you already run. Posting more will not move them.
Questions before you order
How much does social media management cost here?
Starter is $400/mo for 12 posts across 2 channels, Growth is $850/mo for 24 posts across 4, and Scale is $1,900/mo for 48 posts across all major channels.
Does the price include ad spend?
No. Paid social budget is excluded at every tier and paid to the platform by you directly, so nothing about your spend passes through us.
Do you reply to comments and DMs?
Comment monitoring starts at Growth, with responses drafted for you. Full community management, including DMs, is excluded at every tier.
Who approves the posts?
You do, as a calendar, before anything publishes. Changes before publication cost nothing.
Which channels do you cover?
The ones you already run. Starter covers two, Growth four, Scale all major channels. We would rather do two well than six adequately.
Do you make the graphics?
Custom graphics are included from Growth upward. Starter uses your existing brand assets and templates.
Do you do video?
Short-form video editing is included at Scale. Shooting original video is not part of any tier.
Can you use our existing scheduler?
Yes. If you have no scheduling tool, one is set up and it stays under your account.
What happens if a post gets a bad reaction?
It is flagged to you the same day with a suggested response. Crisis handling is a judgement call that stays with you rather than with a vendor.
Will you grow our follower count?
No promise on that. Follower growth depends on the offer and the audience far more than on posting cadence, and anyone guaranteeing a number is selling bought followers.
Sources cited on this page
- Meta’s branded content policies – Cited for platform-rule constraints on published content.
Start Social Media from $400/mo
Pick a tier and send the order. You get a brief form and a start date within one business day, and nothing is charged until that brief is agreed.
Entry point $300/mo. Cancel any time. No long contracts.
Still deciding?
Read how the process runs end to end: order, brief, production, delivery, report.
How it works