PreslyHow much does a social media manager cost?
There are four different pricing models hiding behind that one question, and they are not comparable until you normalize them. Here is the honest breakdown, without a made-up average.
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Social media management is priced four different ways, and comparing them without normalizing is how businesses overpay. Freelancers usually charge by the hour or per post; agencies charge a monthly retainer that bundles strategy, production and reporting; an in-house hire costs salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, software and management time; and a tool charges a flat monthly fee to do the production work only. Rates vary enormously by market, scope and seniority, so any single published average is misleading. The useful comparison is per-month, all-in, against a defined scope: how many posts, which platforms, who answers comments, and who is accountable for the result. Presly costs $39 to $159 per month for the production half, which is the part that is now automatable; judgment, strategy and relationships are the part still worth paying a person for.
Freelancer: hourly or per post
Freelancers price either by the hour or by the deliverable. Hourly is honest about effort but gives you no ceiling; per post gives you a ceiling but quietly excludes everything that is not a post, which is usually strategy, replies, and the thinking about what to post at all. Rates swing widely by country and experience, which is why the same title can mean four times the price in two different markets. Ask what a post includes before comparing any two quotes.
- Hourly: no ceiling, honest about effort
- Per post: has a ceiling, excludes everything that is not a post
- Ask whether replies and strategy are included
- Rates vary several times over by market
Agency: monthly retainer
An agency retainer bundles strategy, production, scheduling and reporting into one monthly number, and that bundle is the value: you are buying a team rather than a pair of hands. The trap is scope. A retainer that looked reasonable at twelve posts a month becomes expensive at four, and most retainers quietly bill for the account manager's time whether or not anything was published. Ask for the post count and the reporting cadence in writing.
- Bundles strategy, production and reporting
- Priced per month regardless of output volume
- Get post count and cadence in writing
- Usually the most expensive option for a single location
In-house hire: salary is not the cost
The salary is the number people compare, and it is the wrong number. The real cost is salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, the software they will ask for, the hours you spend managing them, and the gap when they leave. For a single-location business the deeper problem is usually that there is not enough social media work to fill a role, so you end up paying full-time for part-time output or handing them tasks they were not hired for.
- Salary plus payroll taxes and benefits
- Plus tools, equipment and management time
- Plus the cost of the gap when they leave
- Rarely a full role for a single location
A tool: flat monthly, production only
Software prices the production half at a flat monthly fee and does not price the judgment half at all, because it cannot supply it. Presly costs $39 per month on Starter, $79 on Growth which adds the unified inbox, and $159 on Pro. That buys generated captions and images, a filled calendar, and publishing to 10 platforms. It does not buy someone to decide your positioning, run a campaign, or handle an angry customer with grace, and any tool that claims it does is selling you a demo.
- Flat monthly fee, no per-post cost
- Covers production: captions, images, scheduling, publishing
- Does not cover strategy, campaigns or relationships
- Presly: $39 / $79 / $159 per month
How to compare properly
Normalize everything to one monthly number against one written scope before you compare anything. Write down how many posts per week, which platforms, whether Google Business Profile is included, who answers comments and reviews, who is accountable for the result, and what happens in a week when nobody is available. Most quotes that look wildly different are actually answering different questions, and the cheapest quote is usually the one that quietly excludes the most.
- Posts per week and which platforms
- Is Google Business Profile included
- Who answers comments and reviews
- Who is accountable when something goes wrong
When a person is worth it anyway
Hire a person when your brand voice is a real differentiator, when you are running campaigns and partnerships rather than steady presence, when community management is a meaningful part of the value, or when you have enough locations that coordination becomes the job. Those are things software does not do. If what you actually need is to stop disappearing from Instagram and Google for three months at a time, that is a production problem, and production is the part that got cheap.
- Brand voice as a differentiator
- Campaigns and partnerships, not steady presence
- Community management at scale
- Multiple locations needing coordination
You post. Customers respond. Presly catches every reply.
The AI generates and schedules your posts — and when customers respond, every DM, comment, and Google Business review lands in one unified inbox. No more app-switching, no more missed inquiries. The whole workflow, start to finish, in one place.
- Every DM from Instagram, Facebook, and more — one screen
- Google Business reviews alongside your social comments
- Reply without leaving Presly — generate posts and manage responses together
- Never miss a new customer, a 5-star review, or an unanswered question
- On Pro, AI drafts an on-brand reply — you edit and approve before it sends
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Frequently asked questions
How much does a social media manager cost per month?
It depends entirely on which of four models you are buying: hourly freelance, per-post freelance, agency retainer, or in-house salary. Rates vary several times over between markets and seniority levels, so a single published average would be misleading rather than helpful. Normalize every quote to a monthly figure against a written scope — posts per week, platforms, who answers comments, who is accountable — and the comparison becomes real. A tool that handles the production half, like Presly, is $39 to $159 per month.
How much does a social media manager cost per post?
Per-post pricing is common with freelancers and looks like the clearest model, but it is the easiest to misread because a post is not the whole job. Confirm what the price includes: is the image sourced or created, is the caption researched, are comments answered, is anything scheduled to Google Business Profile. Two per-post quotes at the same number frequently cover very different amounts of work.
How much does a social media manager cost per hour?
Hourly rates vary widely by market and experience, and the honest problem with hourly is that it has no ceiling: the invoice reflects effort rather than outcome. If you use hourly, cap the monthly hours in advance and agree what happens when the cap is reached. Hourly suits project work and one-off campaigns better than it suits steady weekly posting.
Is it cheaper to use AI than hire a social media manager?
For the production half, yes, by an order of magnitude: a tool is tens of dollars a month against a salary or a retainer. But the comparison is only fair if the scope matches. Software generates and publishes; it does not do strategy, campaigns, partnerships or community management. Many businesses end up with both, where the tool produces and a person directs.
What is a fair price for social media management for a small business?
Fair depends on scope, not on a benchmark number. For a single-location business that mainly needs to be present and findable — a few posts a week, weekly Google Business Profile updates, and reviews answered — that is production work, and paying agency retainer prices for it is overpaying. If you also need campaigns, launches and partnerships, you are buying strategy and should expect strategy pricing.
What does Presly cost compared to a social media manager?
Presly is $39 per month on Starter, $79 on Growth which adds the unified inbox for comments, messages and Google reviews, and $159 on Pro. That covers generated captions and images, a filled calendar and publishing to 10 platforms. It replaces the production hours rather than the judgment, and it does not require hiring, onboarding or covering the gap when someone leaves.
Pay for the judgment, automate the production
Presly handles the posting half from $39/mo. A 7-day trial, no agency retainer.
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