How Much Does a Social Media Manager Cost for a Small Business?

A social media manager usually costs a small business somewhere between $500 and $2,500 a month if you hire a freelancer, and from about $750 a month if you hire an agency. A full-time employee costs far more, roughly $8,800 a month once you count benefits. What you pay depends mostly on how many posts you get, how many platforms they cover, and whether anyone is making video.

These are ranges, not price tags. Nobody publishes a standard rate for this work, and most of the public numbers come from companies that sell social media services, including the ones we quote here. We've linked each source so you can see where a number came from, and we've tried to show you what the money buys, because that's where quotes really differ.

The short version

Here's what each option tends to cost:

• A beginner freelancer: about $500 to $2,500 a month, according to Planable, a company that makes social media software.
• An agency, small plan: one agency that publishes its prices, LYFE Marketing, charges $750 to $1,550 a month for management, plus a one-time $300 setup fee.
• Agencies and freelancers overall: Planable's wider range is $500 to $5,000 a month.
• A full-time employee: about $8,800 a month in pay and benefits. We show the math below.
• Doing it yourself: no fee, but it costs your time, which is the thing most owners are short of.

Ad spend is usually on top of all of these. LYFE Marketing, for example, bills it separately from the management fee. When you compare quotes, check whether a price includes ads, because a quote that does isn't comparable with one that doesn't.

How much does it cost to pay someone to manage your social media?

It helps to look at a real price list, because a monthly fee means little until you know what it buys. LYFE Marketing publishes three plans:

• $750 a month: 12 image posts a month on Facebook and Instagram
• $1,350 a month: 12 vertical videos a month on Instagram and TikTok
• $1,550 a month: 20 vertical videos a month on Instagram and TikTok

Divide those out and you're paying about $63 a post for images, about $113 a video on the middle plan, and about $78 a video on the largest. All three plans include monitoring and replying on your pages, monthly reports, and a monthly call, so part of each fee pays for those too.

That's one agency's price list, not an industry average. It's still a useful yardstick. When someone sends you a quote, work out the price per post. It's the quickest way to compare two proposals that are worded very differently.

What a freelancer costs

A freelancer is usually the cheapest way to get a real person doing this work. Planable puts beginner freelancers at $500 to $2,500 a month, and that wide range tells you how much the work varies. At the low end, expect a modest number of posts built from photos you supply. Further up, you'd expect planning, video, and replying to comments.

With a freelancer, you're mostly buying one person's judgment and availability. That's the appeal: you'll usually talk to the person who's actually writing your posts, and a good one will get to know your business. The risk is that one person is a single point of failure. If they get sick, get busy, or take a full-time job, your posting may stop until you find someone else.

Some freelancers charge by the hour instead of by the month. If you're quoted hourly, ask for a monthly cap, so you know the most you could be billed.

What an agency costs

An agency usually costs more than a freelancer, and you're paying for a team and a process. Planable's research on hourly agency rates is a good picture of the spread: ongoing management at New York agencies runs $40 to $190 an hour, with top-rated agencies charging up to $350. Agencies outside big cities often charge less.

For that, you'd expect a few people on your account, cover when someone's away, regular reporting, and often help with ads. LYFE Marketing, for example, includes a dedicated account manager and has no long-term contracts.

The trade-off is distance. The person you speak to may not be the person writing your posts, and a small account can get less attention than a large one. Ask who will actually write your posts, and how many other accounts that person handles.

What a full-time employee costs

A full-time hire is the most expensive route by a long way, and for most very small businesses it's more than the work calls for.

Sprout Social, another social media software company, puts the average US social media manager salary at $74,000 a year. Pay is only part of what an employer spends, though. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that for private employers in June 2026, wages made up 70% of compensation costs and benefits the other 30%.

If a social media manager's job follows that national split, the math looks like this:

• $74,000 in salary ÷ 0.70 = about $105,700 a year in pay and benefits
• $105,700 ÷ 12 = about $8,800 a month

That's an estimate, since the 70/30 split covers all private jobs rather than this role in particular. It also leaves out software, equipment, and the time you'd spend managing someone. A part-time employee brings the cost down, but you'd still be hiring and managing a person.

What makes the price go up or down

Two quotes for "social media management" can describe very different jobs. These are the things that usually move the price:

• Video: this is the big one. In LYFE Marketing's plans, the same 12 posts cost $600 more a month as vertical video than as images, though the platforms covered differ too.
• How many posts: more posts means more writing, designing, and scheduling.
• How many platforms: a post written for Instagram rarely fits LinkedIn or Google Business Profile as it stands.
• Who supplies the photos: if someone has to visit you to shoot pictures and video, expect to pay for that time.
• Replying to people: answering comments and messages is ongoing work, and not every plan includes it.
• Strategy and reporting: a monthly plan and a report on what worked take time, and they're often what separates a cheap plan from a more expensive one.
• Ads: running ads is a separate skill, and the ad spend itself usually comes on top.

Before you compare prices, write down what you actually need. A bakery that wants three good posts a week and handles its own messages has a very different job to offer than a business that wants daily video on four platforms.

Is getting a social media manager worth it?

It's worth it when the posts bring in more than they cost, or when they free up time you can use better. You can test the first part with simple arithmetic before you sign anything.

Here's a made-up example. Say you're paying $1,000 a month, and a new customer brings you $100 in profit over time. You'd need about 10 extra customers a month for it to pay for itself. Now ask yourself whether that's believable for your business. For a business with loyal, high-value customers, it may be easily reachable. For a business with small sales and a tight local market, it may be a stretch.

Be honest about timing too. Social media tends to build slowly, so don't judge it on the first few weeks. Agree up front on what you'll look at and when. Calls, bookings, messages, and people saying "I saw your post" are more useful than follower counts.

The second part, time, is harder to measure but just as real. If planning and writing posts takes up your Sunday, or if your accounts have gone quiet because you can't get to them, then what you're buying is partly having that off your plate.

Questions to ask before you hire anyone

A few questions will tell you a lot, whoever you're talking to:

1. How many posts do I get each month, and on which platforms? Get the number in writing.
2. Do you need photos from me, or do you make them? If it's on you, ask how many, and how often.
3. Who writes the posts, and how will they learn how my business sounds? Ask to see examples for a business like yours.
4. Do I approve posts before they go out? Your name is on them, so you should be able to.
5. Are ads included, and is ad spend part of this price?
6. Do you reply to comments and messages?
7. What will you report to me each month? Look for numbers tied to your goals, not just likes.
8. How long is the contract, and how do I leave?
9. Who owns the accounts and the content if we stop working together? The accounts should stay in your name, and you should keep the login access. Agree on this before you start.

If someone promises a specific number of followers or guarantees sales, ask them how. Nobody controls what the platforms show people.

Other ways to get this done

Hiring isn't the only option, and it may be more than you need right now. If you're still weighing it up, we've also compared an agency, a freelancer and doing it yourself, looked at what AI can and can't do, and set out a simple marketing plan for busy owners.

• Do it yourself with a scheduling tool. If you enjoy this work and just want to save time, tools like Buffer, Later, and Hootsuite let you schedule posts in one place. You still come up with the ideas and write everything.
• Hire a freelancer for a few hours. Pay someone to set up a plan and a month of posts, then carry on yourself.
• Share it with someone on your team. If a team member enjoys this, give them real time for it. It doesn't get done in the gaps.
• Use software that does the planning and writing. This is the kind of tool we make at IndieAM. It plans a month of marketing, writes the posts in your voice, and you approve everything before it goes out. It suits owners who want to stay in charge and can take a few photos of their real work. It won't come to your shop with a camera or run your ads, so if that's what you need, a freelancer or an agency is the better fit. Our prices are on the home page.

How to choose

Start with your budget and the job, in that order. If you have a few hundred dollars a month and want a steady, simple presence, look at software, a scheduling tool, or a part-time freelancer. If you have $1,000 or more a month and want video or ads handled for you, a good freelancer or small agency makes sense. A full-time hire only starts to add up once social media is a major source of your customers and there's a full week of work to fill.

Whichever you choose, try it for a few months, measure it against what you agreed, and don't be afraid to change course.