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COSTS

Social Media Management Cost

The number is easy to find. Working out what it buys is the hard part.

Sevenam installs a Meta advertising system on your own ad account and runs the technology that operates it — written decisions at 7am every morning telling you exactly what to do that day. One fixed setup fee, a fixed monthly, priced to the work.

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No retainer·No lock-in·Priced to the work

What the retainer usually covers.

Social media management in Australia usually bundles content production, scheduling, community management and some amount of paid advertising into one monthly fee. Published ranges are wide — a small business package and an enterprise retainer can differ by more than an order of magnitude — because the contents differ that much too.

The comparison most businesses never make is which of those components produce measurable revenue. Paid advertising can be traced to the dollar. Posting frequency and follower growth largely cannot.

Content, scheduling, community management and ads, in one figure.
Published ranges vary enormously because the scope does.
Only the paid component has a clean revenue trace.
Follower and engagement metrics rarely map to sales.

How to separate the bill.

Ask for the retainer broken into paid media management, creative production and organic activity, with the hours or deliverables against each. Providers doing good work will answer without difficulty; the question is uncomfortable only where the split is unflattering.

Then judge the paid line on its own numbers. If it cannot carry its own cost, no amount of organic activity around it changes that.

Ask for paid, creative and organic to be priced separately.
Judge the paid line against revenue it can be traced to.
Judge organic on brand goals, not on sales it did not make.
A provider who cannot split the bill is telling you something.

What you own at the end of it.

Everything is built inside your own Business Manager from the first hour — the ad account, the pixel, the audiences, the creative files and the reporting. There is no agency-owned account that you rent access to, and nothing to negotiate over if the relationship ends.

That single structural choice is what makes the rest of it possible. An arrangement where the provider owns the asset has to be renewed; one where you own it has to be earned.

Your ad account, your pixel, your creative library. Always.
A fixed setup fee and a fixed monthly, priced to the work.
Month to month, with no notice period.
Every decision written down, with the numbers behind it.
WORK IT OUT

What the paid line actually costs you.

Once the retainer is split, the number worth having is what the paid management works out to as a share of the media it manages. It is the same comparison a percentage-of-spend agency invites, made on a retainer that never mentions a percentage.

$4,500
The whole invoice, before you split it.
$30,000
Media only. This is the budget the paid line is managing.
40%
Ask for the split. A provider doing good work answers without difficulty.
Effective rate on your media 6.0% $1,800 a month to manage $30,000 of media is the same as a 6.0% fee, whatever the invoice calls it.
Paid management, a year $21,600 A year on the paid line — the only part with a clean revenue trace.
Creative and organic, a year $32,400 A year on content, scheduling and community. Judge this on brand goals, not on sales it did not make.

Indicative only. It assumes the split you enter is accurate and that the paid line is doing only paid work. Effective rate is a comparison device, not a judgement: a higher rate on a smaller budget can still be the better deal. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type, not a forecast, not a quote, and not advice. Your own account will differ. Nothing here is recorded or sent anywhere.

Questions people actually ask.

What should we expect to pay?

For small and medium businesses in Australia, retainers commonly run from around eight hundred dollars a month to five thousand and beyond, and the spread is that wide because the scope is. A retainer covering daily posting, community management and a modest ad budget looks nothing like one covering serious media buying and weekly creative production. Ask what portion is paid media management before comparing anything.

Is organic social worth paying for?

For some businesses genuinely yes — it is brand, service and community. Just do not buy it expecting it to perform like advertising, and do not let it be measured as though it does.

Do you offer social media management?

No. We do paid Meta advertising and the creative that feeds it. If organic matters to you, keep whoever does it well.

How much of a retainer should be creative?

More than most are. Creative volume drives paid performance more than any other variable, so a retainer that is mostly scheduling and reporting is weighted toward the wrong work.

What is the cheapest sensible option?

Under about three thousand a month in media, running it yourself off good guides and spending the money on creative instead. We will say that plainly rather than sell you a system.

Keep reading
Social media advertisingPaid and organic are different jobs. What agencies chargeThe going rates. Fee calculatorWhat a percentage really costs.
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Four fields, and no call booked yet. We read what you send and tell you whether you qualify for a free marketing technology, systems and performance audit — offered at our discretion and in limited numbers.