How Much to Charge for Social Media Management: Set Your Price
How much to charge for social media management: hourly vs packages vs retainers, a simple price floor formula, what to include and how to raise prices.
How much to charge for social media management depends on your costs, your hours and your scope, not on what someone else charges. Work out a price floor from your own numbers, sell clear monthly packages above it, and charge separately for anything outside the package. Market rates are only a sanity check: Upwork lists social media managers at $14 to $35 an hour, and a 2024 HeyOrca survey found an average agency retainer of $2,107.14 a month for 3 networks.
This guide is for the seller. For the buyer's side, see how much a social media manager costs.
Hourly vs package vs retainer
| Model | How it works | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | You bill the time you log | Simple, fair for unclear work | Income capped by your hours; getting faster earns you less |
| Package | Fixed price for a defined deliverable | Easy to compare, clear finish line | Needs a precise scope, no recurring income |
| Monthly retainer | Fixed monthly fee for a written scope | Predictable income, rewards efficiency | Scope creep if the contract is vague |
For ongoing clients, retainers win. With a retainer the client buys an outcome (posts, replies, reports), not your minutes, so a better process raises your margin instead of lowering your invoice.
Calculate your price floor
Your floor is the lowest price at which a client is still worth taking. Use your own numbers:
- Monthly costs = software + hardware and internet + accountant and taxes set aside + insurance + any help you pay
- Monthly pay you want = what you want to take home
- Billable hours per month = time on client work only (not sales, admin or learning)
- Hourly floor = (Monthly costs + Monthly pay you want) ÷ Billable hours
- Client floor = Hours that client takes per month × Hourly floor
- Package price = Client floor × (1 + Desired margin)
Two common mistakes:
- Billable hours are fewer than you think. Sales calls, invoicing, rework and messages eat the week. Track real hours for a few weeks first.
- Per client costs belong in the floor. Some tools charge per brand or per connected account. List them as a line item on each client, so a new client never quietly costs you money.
Then compare with the market. In the HeyOrca survey the average hourly rate was $66.96, and freelancers with 7 or more years of experience averaged $92.23. If you land far from those numbers, check your hours and scope before your price.
What to include in each package
Define every package on the same lines so the client sees exactly what they get:
| Line item | What to write down |
|---|---|
| Networks | Which ones, one account per network |
| Posts per week | Number per network and formats (images, carousels, short videos) |
| Stories | How many per week, or none |
| Community replies | Comments and DMs: hours covered, response speed |
| Ad creatives | Designs or videos per month (creative only) |
| Reporting | Monthly plain language summary |
| Revisions | Rounds per piece, and what counts as a new piece |
For reference, the HeyOrca average retainer covered LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook with three client approved posts per platform each week and 5 to 10 hours of community management. That is how specific a scope should be. Three tiers with identical lines (light, standard, full) make the jump between them easy to see.
What to charge separately
- Ad management fee. Running paid campaigns is separate work. Charge it as its own monthly fee.
- Ad spend. Never yours to pay. The client pays the platform directly with their own card.
- Photo and video shoots. Travel, time on site and editing.
- Rush requests, extra revisions and extra networks. Anything beyond the package.
- Setup. Profile cleanup, brand kit, first month planning.
Raising prices
Review every retainer against its real hours once or twice a year. When you raise, give 30 to 60 days of written notice, explain what changed, apply new prices to new clients first and to existing ones at renewal, and offer a smaller package to anyone who wants to keep the old price.
Stopping scope creep
"Can you just post this too?" is how a profitable client becomes a loss. Put the scope in the contract line by line, log every request outside it, and answer with options: "Happy to. It is outside the package, so it would be $X, or we can swap it for one of this week's posts." If a client is always over, move them up a tier.
Clear approvals help, as we cover in how to manage social media for multiple clients.
How tools and AI change your margin
Your price is per client, but your cost is mostly your hours. When content takes fewer hours per client, the same price leaves more margin, or the same hours serve more clients. Keep a human review on every piece, and add every per client tool cost to your floor.
How Hudo does this in 3 steps
Hudo is a system you can run every client on. Every plan includes unlimited businesses and agency mode, each client gets its own Brain with its data kept separate, and nothing posts without approval.
- Connect your business (one per client). Paste the client's website and connect their accounts with each platform's official login. Hudo builds a Brain: offer, customer, brand kit, voice and seasons.
- Approve with one tap. Every day new ads, posts and short videos land ready. Invite the client as an Approver to keep what they like, skip what they don't and pick the variation.
- It posts and gets smarter. Hudo publishes approved pieces to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, Threads, X, Pinterest, Google Business and Snapchat, reads the results and makes more of what works. Each Brain gets a new version every week.
For your floor: publishing is included for 1 business, and each extra business that publishes is $10/month, so add $10 as a line item on every extra client. Hudo creates ad creatives but does not run paid campaigns or buy media, so ad management stays your service. See how it works.
Ready to price your packages with one system behind them? See plans and pricing.
FAQ
How much should I charge for social media management?
Start from your own floor: monthly costs plus the pay you want, divided by billable hours, then priced per package. As a reference, Upwork lists social media managers at $14 to $35 an hour.
Should I charge hourly or a monthly retainer?
Hourly works for audits and one off jobs. For ongoing clients, a retainer with a written scope is easier to sell and protects your margin.
Is ad spend part of my fee?
No. The client pays ad spend directly to the platform. Charge a separate fee if you manage ads, and never front the budget.