Investing in social media management increases your brand’s awareness, generates leads, drives traffic to your site and boosts community engagement. While that sounds great to executives and stakeholders, they may not understand how the costs associated with social media translate to business objectives.
As a marketing leader, it’s your goal to ensure your team has the best resources they need to be successful. If you need help getting executive buy-in for your social strategy and building your budget, this social media management pricing guide will help you get started.
We’ll walk you through what is normally included in the cost of social media management, how the cost of agencies compares to freelancers and the average amount a business should spend.
What you need to know about social media management pricing
Social media costs depend on the size of your business and the complexity of your strategy. Understanding these factors will help you plan your social media budget effectively and align your investments with your goals.
Prices vary depending on your social sophistication
When you align your budget with your social sophistication and needs, you invest wisely and can achieve measurable outcomes. Here’s some food for thought.
- Small and medium businesses (SMBs): Social media costs are often low for SMBs as they typically focus on foundational strategies like regular content posting, engaging with followers and running modest ad campaigns. Costs may include social media management tools, basic reporting and low ad spending in limited markets.
- Mid-sized businesses: Mid-sized companies usually operate at a higher level of sophistication. That’s why they need more robust tools for scheduling, team collaboration, advanced analytics and targeted advertising. AI-driven tools for content recommendations and sentiment analysis help you understand brand and customer experience, and can significantly improve your social strategy. While this translates to higher overall social media management pricing, it will also drive better ROI.
- Enterprise businesses: Since enterprise-level companies have highly sophisticated strategies involving multiple channels, large-scale campaigns and dedicated teams for social customer care, their costs are higher. Costs include the need for advanced tools, such as AI-powered automation, custom integrations, advanced analytics and social listening.
Cost savings of social compared to other marketing channels
With lower entry costs, precise audience targeting and the ability to support every buyer stage, social media delivers higher ROI than traditional marketing channels. Features like AI-driven automation and real-time analytics further improve your efficiency so your budget is spent wisely while maximizing impact.
But to get executive buy-in and budget, you need to justify the social cost to decision-makers. According to our newly released 2025 Sprout Social Index™, 65% of marketing leaders say demonstrating how social media campaigns are tied to business goals is crucial for securing social investment. Another 52% say quantifying the cost savings of using social compared to other channels is equally important.
How to build an effective social media budget
Building an effective social media budget is a foundational step. Start by defining clear goals and considering your organization’s unique needs. Factor in aspects like audience size, platform priorities and your social media expertise to determine whether you need basic content management or advanced analytics and social customer care tools. Align these needs with your overall marketing budget so resources are allocated effectively and support measurable outcomes.
Social media management costs overall
There’s no one-size-fits-all social media management pricing. Brands will spend differently depending on their goals and objectives.
While a basic social media management program can cost anywhere between $500–$5,000 per month, a comprehensive program is roughly $5,000 per month. Additional social media marketing costs related to content creation, advertising campaigns and social media management software may include:
- Content creation: $8,000 per month (Nano-influencers charge between $40 to $150 per post; micro-influencers charge anywhere from $80 to $350; while mid-tier influencer rates are around $350)
- Social advertising: $6,000 per month
- Platform management: $5,000 per month
Bringing your total to $19,000 per month.
Here’s a breakdown of how we calculated this figure.
Cost of launching on a new social channel and creating content
Although launching on a social channel is technically free, running the profile and creating a content calendar costs a brand anywhere from $500 to $10,000 per month.
The estimated social media management pricing depends on factors like talent sourcing (in-house talent vs. outsourced) and third-party tools. For example, at Sprout, our content and social management is driven by our internal team members, but we contract content creation too.
Here are the average rates for both:
- Social Media Specialist salary: $4,700 per month
- Social Media Manager freelance rate: $20–150 per hour, based on experience
- Creator compensation: $25–$500 per post or video, based on the platform and influencer type.
Cost of social media ad campaigns
To run a successful network-specific advertising campaign, you should plan to invest at least $2,500 per month in each network you’re targeting. Often the cost can be much higher based on your goals, so it’s wise to consider that.
It’s important to factor in your goals, campaign duration, audience and networks that will work best for your campaign, to determine your social ad campaign budget. As you integrate more platforms and run longer campaigns, expect the overall expense to increase.
Your campaign metrics will reveal ways you may need to optimize your strategy to reach your desired goals, so leave room in your ad budget for flexibility.
Costs of influencer marketing
Adding influencer spend into your strategy is critical because according to Sprout’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report, almost half (49%) of consumers surveyed, make purchases at least once a month because of influencer posts. Interestingly, 62% of frequent buyers often share product feedback with influencers, rather than with brands directly. This means you can get better reach and conversions with influencers plus access to product and brand feedback you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Average influencer pricing varies per network but in general, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok cost $10 per 1000 posts, while Facebook and YouTube are $20 per 1000 subscribers/followers.
Platform management costs
Whether you manage multiple platforms through a social media management tool, an agency partner or both, you’ll pay around $500–$5,000 per month.
The price is influenced by the number of profiles you manage, the volume of inbound messages and mentions you receive, the size of your community and the features you use.
Continue reading to learn more about the costs of working with a social media management agency and using a social media management tool.
Social media management agency pricing
Some brands use agencies for social media services to complement their in-house social teams, while others use them to outsource all their social media management tactics. Services offered depend on the agency type, but often include:
- Platform management
- Social strategy
- Content development
- Social analytics
- Running paid social campaigns
- Engagement and community management
The scope of your social media management needs will impact cost as prices vary depending on your goals, service term and the number of tasks the agency performs. Most agencies will charge anything from $500 a month to $20,000+ per month, based on your size, goals and campaign.
Social media management freelancer pricing
An influencer marketing budget needs to be in addition to your basic social media management pricing. Freelancer costs shift based on their experience level and the extent of your project. On average, freelancers charge between $500–$10,000 per month. Many freelancers also offer hourly rates.
Once you determine your goals and budget, find freelancers with the skills you need and who fit your price range. Search hundreds of vetted influencers with Sprout Social Influencer Marketing, our all-in-one influencer management platform that enables you to also manage and track your campaigns end-to-end. You can also find influencers in marketplaces such as:
- Upwork: A freelancing platform and independent talent workforce that helps you scale faster and transform your business. Upwork is a great option for larger projects that require subject-matter expertise.
- MarketerHire: This is an online marketplace where you can search and hire social media marketing freelancers that fit your needs and budget. The platform offers marketing roles based on expertise, making it easier for brands to bridge gaps in their social media management team and meet goals more easily.
- The Mom Project: A freelancing platform specifically designed to employ mothers and help over 650,000 talented women stay engaged in the workforce. The Mom Project’s Maternityship® program provides companies with coverage for resource gaps created by parental leave.
If your team opts to work with freelancers, we recommend starting with smaller tasks. Make sure their work aligns with your goals and expectations before partnering on large-scale, critical projects.
Social media management software pricing
Publishing, scheduling and reporting natively is cumbersome without social media management software. It’s necessary software to optimize team resources and save time, so they can focus on creative and strategic tasks to build authentic customer connections and elevate your brand.
For a robust social media management platform, you can expect to pay up to $1,000+ per month to cover end-to-end needs. For less robust platforms built to support specific tasks, you can expect to pay the same amount or less.
Here’s an overview of our pricing models.
Standard
- $199 per seat/month | Billed annually ($249 billed monthly)
- 5 social profiles
- All-in-one social inbox
- Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts
- Social content calendar
- Review management
- Profiles, keywords and locations monitoring
- Group, profile and post-level reporting
- Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts
- iOS and Android mobile apps
Professional
- $299 per seat/month | Billed annually ($399 billed monthly)
- All Standard features, plus:
- Unlimited social profiles
- Competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook and X
- Message tagging
- Custom workflows for multiple approvers and steps
- Scheduling for optimal send times
- Saved replies
- Digital asset and content library
- Brand-level engagement reporting
- Trend analysis for X keywords and hashtags
- Suggestions by AI Assist
- Paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn
Advanced
- $399 per seat | Billed annually ($499 billed monthly)
- All Professional features, plus:
- Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity
- Get alerted when message volume is higher than usual with email and push notifications.
- Enhance by AI Assist
- Chatbots with automation tools
- Sentiment in the Smart Inbox and Reviews
- Rule builder for automated actions
- Automated link tracking
- CSAT and NPS surveys
- Scheduled report delivery
- Helpdesk and CRM integrations
- Feature visibility controls
- External approvals
- Organize tags
Enterprise
- Pricing available on request | Custom-built plan to meet your needs
- All Advanced features, plus:
- Tailored implementation and onboarding to get teams up and running quickly
- Professional consulting services
- 24/5 prioritized customer support
- Premium add-ons, including:
- Social Listening to uncover emerging trends, brand influencers and competitive intel
- Premium Analytics to measure success across all social channels
- Employee Advocacy solutions to amplify your brand’s organic reach
- Influencer Marketing to connect with creators and manage campaigns
Cost of other software that can help with social media management
In addition to a social media management platform, you might need other tools to supplement your social media strategy. Here are two examples of platforms that can help you track your customers’ journey and generate new content ideas.
- HubSpot
HubSpot’s integrated CRM platform helps you monitor social engagement in the context of your customer relationships.
The platform gives you a detailed understanding of your customers’ social interactions and how many marketing-qualified leads you’re generating from specific platforms—which makes it easy for you to prove the return on investment (ROI) of your social campaigns.
Cost: $730/month (Professional)
- Post Planner
Post Planner curates articles, images and custom content feeds so you always have something fresh for your followers. The platform identifies your most popular posts and has automated features to repurpose and recreate top-performing content.
Cost: $57/month (Business)
Invest in long-term social media success
Designing your social media management budget requires thinking critically about the resources you need to reach your goals. While the upfront social media management pricing might seem expensive, finding the right mix of tools will set you up for future success.
After all, growing your social media presence is a marathon, not a sprint. The investments you make in your management strategy today will accrue and deliver long-term gains.
Tap into the robust power of social by starting your free 30-day Sprout Social trial today.
