Short answer: most small businesses land between $400 and $2,500 a month. The spread isn't about quality so much as how much gets made — whether someone is producing content, or just scheduling content you produce.
That's the question worth asking about any quote, and it's the one most quotes avoid answering directly.
What you're actually buying
Almost every price breaks into four parts. Knowing which ones a quote includes explains almost all of the variation:
Strategy. What to post, for whom, in what order. Usually a small part of the cost and the first thing dropped at the cheap end.
Production. Graphics, photo editing, video cutting, caption writing. This is the expensive part, because it's the part that takes hours. A price that seems low is almost always low here.
Scheduling and posting. Cheap and easy. Some services are only this.
Community management. Answering comments and DMs. Priced by attention rather than output, and often excluded or capped.
If a quote doesn't say how many pieces of content you get per month, it's usually because the answer is "not many."
What the tiers look like
Under $400 a month. Scheduling, reposting, light templated graphics. Often a tool with a person lightly attached. Fine if you produce your own content and need someone to run the calendar. Not fine if you expect original work.
$400 to $1,000. One or two platforms, a real content batch, graphics and captions made for you. This is where most small local businesses sit and where the value is usually best.
$1,000 to $2,500. More volume, more platforms, short-form video, someone replying to people. Video is the main thing driving the jump — it costs several times what a static graphic costs to make.
$2,500 and up. Paid ads management, strategy retainers, multi-location. At this level you should expect reporting that ties spend to outcomes, not just reach.
These are the bands you'll typically see quoted rather than survey figures — treat them as orientation, not gospel.
Why "cheap" is usually expensive
The failure mode isn't paying too much. It's paying a small amount for a long time and getting nothing back.
A service that posts three templated graphics a week costs you a year of budget and produces nothing anyone remembers. The same money spent on fewer, better months of real production usually does more — because the thing that works is content specific enough to your business that a competitor couldn't have posted it.
What we charge, and why
We publish ours rather than quoting per enquiry:
- Fast Start — $99 one-time, two weeks, 8 posts on one platform
- Basic — $200/month, 12 posts, 1 platform
- Standard — $400/month, 20 posts, 2 platforms, 4 Reels
- Premium — $800/month, 30+ posts, 4 platforms, 10 Reels, paid ads
You'll notice those sit below the bands above. That's deliberate, and it's the one number in this post you should push us on: ask what we're doing differently to deliver original work at a price the market usually associates with templates. If the answer isn't specific, don't buy.
The full comparison is on the pricing page. We publish it because a business that has to book a call to learn a price usually can't afford to waste the call finding out it's the wrong number.
Five questions worth asking anyone
- How many pieces of content per month, and how many are video? Vague answers here predict vague delivery.
- Who writes the captions? If it's a template, say so.
- Do I approve before it runs?
- Is ad spend included or billed separately? It's almost always separate. It should be said out loud.
- What happens if I want to leave? Notice period, and who owns the accounts.
That last one matters more than people expect. You should own every account and asset, and be able to revoke access without asking permission.
The honest caveat
Price predicts effort, not results. A $2,000 plan run against a business with nothing to show won't beat a $500 plan run against one with a genuinely good product and a story to tell.
If you're deciding between spending more on content and spending anything at all on getting the underlying business photographable — better lighting, a tidier space, one good shoot day — the second usually wins.
Ready to stop posting at midnight?
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We'll tell you straight whether a content batch makes sense for your business — and which tier fits.