How much does a social media agency cost per month?

What's actually in a monthly price

Search for social media agency pricing and you mostly find wildly different numbers, anywhere from low three figures to four-figure packages. That's because social media management isn't one fixed service, it's a bundle of building blocks that different agencies put together differently. On top of that, some providers advertise a very low entry price and only reveal the actual workload in the fine print, while others break down what's included from the start. A café in Neukölln that just wants its three channels kept alive needs a different offer than a trades business that wants a video out of every job, and both end up hearing a completely different number even though both searched for the same thing. Before any figure is even comparable, it helps to look at what a monthly price actually covers.

Typical building blocks are concept and a content calendar, so nobody has to decide from scratch every week what to post; the shoot itself, anywhere from a quick phone clip to a camera with proper lighting and sound; editing the footage into finished posts; publishing to your channels on a fixed schedule; often community management, meaning replying to comments and messages; and monthly reporting that shows what worked and what didn't. Some packages cover only channel upkeep, others full production including the shoot. If you put two quotes side by side, check exactly which of these blocks are included and which are billed separately, otherwise you're comparing two different services with one single number. How these blocks fit together with us is on our social media management page; a broader overview of our full range of services is on the services overview, and related topics are in our guide cluster on social media strategy.

Four levels of service, compared against the market

The table below sets out four common levels of service and the market ranges that go with them, each sourced and dated August 2026. These are figures from the providers named, not our own estimate, meant as orientation rather than a prediction for your specific case. The further down the table, the more of it is actual production, and the wider the range gets within that level too, because channel count and posting frequency vary more as well.

What each level means in practice

Managing suits businesses that already have photos and copy and just want publishing handled. Creating with a phone is enough when short everyday clips will do, say from a workshop in Weißensee or a shop on Torstraße. Producing with a camera becomes relevant once image quality and effort need to step up, for a clinic or a showroom that depends on trust, or for a business that wants to win customers and find skilled staff at the same time. Add a campaign with its own budget, say an offer around a festival or a reopening, and the fourth level comes into play. Which level fits a specific plan is something we'd rather work out in a first call, because a table rarely settles it on its own.

In practice, scope tends to grow alongside the collaboration. Many businesses start at the level that fits their current budget and only move up once it's clear that more content actually pays off. That's also why a rigid twelve-month lock-in is impractical here: if a level turns out to be wrong, you shouldn't have to wait a year to change it or end the collaboration. That's exactly why cancelling monthly with us isn't a marketing line, it's a practical consequence of how actual needs change over time.

Why prices vary so widely

One reason for the wide spread is how an agency actually gets its video. Some social media agencies don't own a camera and hand the shoot to an outside production company; that's our own observation from our own agency years, not a market figure, but it explains part of the markup you end up paying, because there's at least one more provider sitting between you and the camera, coordinating and brokering. Freelancers often skip that extra step, an average hourly rate in social media marketing sits around €75 (freelancermap, as of August 2026), though concept, shoot and edit usually have to be bought and coordinated separately, sometimes across different people who then have to align with each other first.

A second reason sits in the contract terms. Some providers set a base term of twelve months for management, cancellable afterwards with one month's notice (Crediso Media, as of August 2026); Meta ads packages often add a minimum term of six months plus a one-off setup fee of €99 to €149 (Greven Digital, as of August 2026). Even pure social media packages carry one-off setup costs in some cases, close to €1,900 on top of the ongoing price in one example (designenergie, as of August 2026). For you that means committing before you know whether the collaboration works, and paying extra just to get started. With us the minimum term is one month, cancel monthly after that, there is no setup or onboarding fee, and you start with an initial project: a first content batch and your first shared film vision, before the retainer even begins. That way both sides see early on if they are thinking in the same direction, before anyone is locked in.

Our model

With us, management runs on a fixed monthly price built from the actual workload: the number of channels, the number of posts, and how much of it involves a shoot. We deliberately don't put a number here, because without your specific scope it wouldn't tell you much; we share our own range in a first call, 45 minutes, free of charge. What sets our model apart is less the pricing unit than what's inside it: a shoot isn't an add-on with us, it's part of the management itself. The same two people, Öykü and Nils, are on set themselves, edit the footage and post it to your channels, with no account layer in between and no rotating point of contact. Nothing gets outsourced, video is our core business.

Many packages in the market count in posts per month, with video added as a limited extra, often "up to two reels" or an animated feed image rather than an actual shoot; the number of revision rounds is capped per package too, typically one, two or four rounds (werkvonmorgen, as of August 2026). With us, two revision rounds are built into the calculation and stated in the quote; anything beyond that is billed by effort, named in the quote up front. With us, the shoot is the core of the management, not the quota bolted on top of it, because we don't have to buy it in. You can see what comes out of that in our references.

Add social media ads and your ad spend goes to Meta one to one, with no commission on the amount you put in; you decide yourself how much of it goes into a campaign. The creatives for that come from the same shoot as your organic posts, which saves a second production for the same campaign and keeps the feed and the ad visibly connected.

Every first call with us ends in a written quote covering scope and price, not a rough verbal estimate that gets renegotiated later. You know what you're getting and what it costs before you sign, whether you choose a one-off project or ongoing management. The retainer quote itself lays out the service commitment, not a line-by-line timesheet, because the workload evens out across months rather than needing to be renegotiated hour by hour. Agencies that only give you a rough range over the phone often leave you finding out what's actually billed only once the first invoice arrives.

What to check before you sign

A quote is only fairly comparable once you ask the right questions, whichever agency you end up choosing. A few of them are worth raising in every first call:

• Which building blocks are included in the price, concept, shoot, edit, community management, reporting, and which cost extra?
• What's the minimum term, and how and when can you cancel?
• Is there a setup or onboarding fee?
• How many revision rounds are included per post?
• If ads are involved, who gets a share of the ad spend, and how much?

These questions take less than two minutes in a first call, but they prevent most of the unpleasant surprises later. Ask them and you'll quickly see whether a quote genuinely fits what you need, or whether a low starting figure only comes from a narrow scope. It also helps not to look at a quote in isolation, but to compare it with what you actually get for that money: a number on its own says little without knowing the building blocks behind it.

One-off project or ongoing retainer?

Whether the final figure is smaller or larger depends on the workload, and on the choice between a one-off project and ongoing management. A single shoot for one campaign is priced differently than a month-after-month content calendar with community management, even when the same two people handle both. The clearest answer comes from a first call, 45 minutes, free of charge: it ends with a written quote covering scope and price, not several follow-up emails and not added on later. How often you should even post before this question becomes relevant is covered in How often should you post on social media?; once paid ads enter the picture, How much do Instagram ads cost? has the matching numbers. Either way, the same principle holds: the price follows the actual workload, not whichever package happens to sit closest.

Keep these principles in mind and you end up negotiating scope rather than a single number, which is almost always an easier conversation than haggling over a rigid package.