How Much Do Social Media Agencies Charge? [Pricing & Packages]

When you ask how much an agency charges, you’ll hear “it depends”.

While not particularly helpful, it’s often true.

There’s no set cost for a social media agency in the UK, so you’re never really sure what price tag to expect. This can make it hard to tell if you’re paying a fair price or getting ripped off when you’re quoted a price.

To show you what to expect with social media management pricing, to pay when hiring an agency, we’ve put together what goes into pricing, the average prices and whether it's a better deal to hire a freelancer or an agency.

Social media management agency pricing can vary drastically, with agencies charging between £500 - £50,000 per month for their services.

When working with an agency, you should keep your goals and budget in mind. The most expensive isn’t necessarily going to offer the best service. However, you do often get what you pay for.

When considering social media management pricing, what an agency charges, you focus more on the value you expect to receive rather than the cash amount. If you select the right agency, your investment can quickly pay for itself many times over. You can get a rough idea of the returns on investment you can possibly make by looking at their case studies and seeing the typical results they achieve.

Social Media Management Agency Pricing Depends on Several Factors

• Experience
  The longer they’ve been in the trenches, the more insight and expertise they’re going to have, and as a result, they’ll likely charge more.
• Location
  A social media management agency in central London will cost you more than an agency in the East Midlands due to overhead costs and talent pools.
• Competence
  An agency that routinely wins awards and brings high ROIs to their clients can command a higher price in the same way top-performing athletes command higher salaries.
• Clientele
  Who are they working with? If they’re working with Fortune 500 companies and household names, they’re going to cost more.
• Services offered
  If they’re super specialised in one service, they’ll charge more than other agencies will for it. A more general agency will likely cost less but may not get the same results.
• Contract length
  Some agencies prefer to lock agencies into long contracts, which may be cheaper, but clients can’t move on if they’re not getting value for money. Agencies that offer shorter contracts, on the other hand, are forced to provide results.

When it comes to how much social media management agencies charge, they charge, the truth is, it depends. Agencies can charge per campaign, per day, as a monthly retainer or with a bespoke package deal. Typically, these are the prices you’re likely to see:

Social media management consists of running a brand’s social accounts, implementing social media strategies and creating engaging content.

The average agency charge in the UK for social media management is:

• £500 per day
• £2,500 monthly retainer

These prices are often based on a per-platform basis. The more social accounts an agency manages, the more they’re likely to charge. On top of this, you also have to factor in how much content they're producing, if they're managing any ads or influencers.

Paid Social advertising, or media buying, is buying ad space on a social media platform to present your ads to the right audience.

There are two main ways an agency will charge for this: a flat rate fee or a percentage of ad spend.

For flat fees, the average agency charge in the UK for paid social advertising is:

• £430 per day
• £587.50 monthly retainer
• £266 per campaign

If an agency operates using a percentage pricing model, you can expect to pay 10-15% of your total monthly ad spend for the service.

Most agencies will offer both payment models.

Source: Adzooma

Influencer marketing is hiring a content creator to create sponsored content that promotes your brand to their audience. An agency can help you source the most suitable influencers, show the results you’re getting and keep everything within budget.

Typically, social media agencies will charge a finders fee for sourcing influencers or a percentage of your influencer media spend.

Most commonly, an influencer will create content for Instagram. The prices they charge to do so can vary depending on their audience and engagement rates. They typically charge on a per-post basis.

Here’s what to expect:

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub

Hiring a freelancer is more like hiring an extra hand to help out on a project. Whereas, hiring an agency is more like hiring a partner to work alongside you to create a strategy and leverage their resources to bring it to life.

The price difference between agencies and freelancers

Initially, a freelancer is likely to be cheaper than an agency. This is because an agency has to pay salaries, software subscriptions and various other operating costs. They also need to make a profit too. A freelancer, however, is just one person.

However, as a freelancer is a single person, they’ll likely only have expertise in one area. Whereas an agency offers a team of experts in various roles, all working together.

If you have a project that requires, say, media buying and video production for your ads, you’re going to have to hire multiple freelancers. This can quickly add up in price. Whereas, when you hire an agency like The Social Shepherd, you can get both services under one roof.

Why agencies are a better option than freelancers.

Freelancers can operate faster than an agency and hit tight deadlines. However, freelancers lack a full range of skills, knowledge and resources. No single individual will be as capable as a larger team.

Due to the way you’d hire them, a freelancer may end up becoming more of an order-taker rather than one leading you through the social media marketing process systematically.

An agency will have access to the resources and the capacity that would be impossible for a freelancer to have. This results in a higher quality end product with generally stronger results.

Which route should you pursue? Other questions you should answer first.

It depends on how critical your social media success is to you. Are you aiming to grow and hit goals through a solid strategy or simply have somebody fill in your content or media buying needs on a schedule?

Most importantly, however, it depends on the project and the budget you have.

If it’s something small or short-term, get a freelancer. However, if you’re planning on running an extensive campaign or doubling down your social media efforts, have an agency by your side.

We offer four core services for social media marketing. We keep our prices for these services transparent and straightforward. This is so you can make the best choices without feeling the pressure of a hard sale.

We charge a minimum of £4,000 per month, but every single proposal we create is completely bespoke to your brand - so this pricing can change depending on your requirements.

Contract-wise, we offer an initial 3-month contract. If you’re happy with the results you’re getting, this moves into a 28-day rolling contract.

We prefer shorter contracts because we want to be judged by our work’s quality and the results you receive. It puts the responsibility on us to provide you with our best work and never put clients on the back burner.

Check out our case studies to see the results we’ve earned for our clients. To see how we can help you achieve similar (or better) results, get in touch with us here.

Want to find an agency that fits your needs? See our full list of the best social media agencies in the UK here.