Compare

Five other ways to solve this. Here’s where each one wins.

We lose two rows on this page and we’ve left them in. If your budget is firm under $200 a month, or you genuinely enjoy posting and have kept it up for six months, the honest answer is that you don’t need us — and you should know that before a call, not during one.

Line by line

The whole comparison, in one table.

Ordered by how early each question comes up in a real conversation — which is why the two rows we lose sit near the top rather than buried at the bottom.

Feature	Neo Tier StudiosFrom $200/mo	Full-service agency$2,000–5,000/mo	Freelance manager$800–1,500/mo	Doing it yourself10+ hrs/week	AI tools alone$20–200/mo	Budget content services$75–199/mo
Starting price	$200/mo	$2,000/mo	$800/mo	Your time	$20/mo	$75/mo
Setup or onboarding fee	None	$500–2,500	Sometimes	None	None	Sometimes
Cost per post, entry tierList price ÷ posts. Excludes the video each of our tiers includes.	$16.67	$60+	$40–75	—	Pennies	$8–12
Cheapest per postThe row we lose. Worth being straight about it.	—	—	—	—
Posts per month	12–30+	15–30	8–20	However many you manage	Unlimited drafts	10–30
Short-form video includedReels and TikToks, not stills with motion added.	Every tier		Sometimes	—	—	Paid add-on
Written and designed by a person					—	Varies
Revisions before anything publishes	Unlimited	2–3 rounds	Varies	n/a	Regenerate	1–3 rounds
You see the month before it runs			Sometimes		—	Sometimes
Contract length	Month to month	6–12 months	Month to month	None	Monthly or annual	Month to month
Paid ads managed	Premium tier		Sometimes	—	—	Paid add-on
Survives one person quitting			—	—
Your time per month	~20 minutes	2–4 hours	1–3 hours	40+ hours	8–15 hours	~30 minutes
You own the accounts and the files		Usually	Usually			Usually
Time to first post	~2 weeks, or 3 days on Fast Start	4–8 weeks	1–3 weeks	Today, in theory	Today	1–2 weeks
	See plans

The arithmetic

We are not the cheapest per post, and it gets less cheap as you go up.

Budget services run about $8–12 a post. We start higher and rise from there. Both of those are on this page because you'd find them in a competitor's tab within a minute, and finding them there instead of here is what costs us the sale.

Basic: $16.67/ post$15.38 counting the 1 video$200/mo · 12 posts / month
Standard: $20.00/ post$16.67 counting the 4 videos$400/mo · 20 posts / month
Premium: $26.67/ post$20.00 counting the 10 videos$800/mo · 30+ posts / month

Why does it get more expensive per post? Because the mix changes. The entry tier is twelve posts and one video; the top tier is thirty-plus posts and ten, across four platforms. Video costs several times what a static graphic costs to make, and every extra platform means re-cropping and rewriting rather than re-posting. Divide by posts alone and you are pricing the cheapest thing in the box.

Short-form video in every tier, not sold back to you as an add-on. It is the format that reaches people who have never heard of you.
Unlimited revisions before anything publishes. Capped-revision services are counting rounds because the first draft is built to be cheap, not right.
One named person who has read your last month of posts, so the voice compounds instead of resetting every batch.
Keyword research on every tier, and trend monitoring from Standard up — so the calendar is built on what people are searching, not on what was easy to make.

Divide by posts alone and the cheaper option always wins, because the cheaper option is selling a different thing. Compare what’s in each tier

Straight answers

Where each alternative shines, and where it breaks down.

Full-service agency

$2,000–5,000/mo

Companies with a marketing lead to brief them and a budget to match

Where it shines

Strategy that spans more than social. If you need positioning, a rebrand, media buying across channels, and someone to own the whole funnel, an agency is the right shape of thing and we are not.

Where it breaks down

The retainer assumes someone on your side to brief and approve it. Small businesses without a marketing lead end up paying agency rates for a junior's output, and the six-month contract means finding out slowly.

Choose this instead of us if

You have a marketing manager and a budget above $2,000 a month.

Freelance manager

$800–1,500/mo

Businesses that want one person deeply embedded, and can absorb the risk

Where it shines

The best freelancers are genuinely excellent and get closer to your business than any studio will. One person who knows your customers by name is hard to beat.

Where it breaks down

Concentration risk. They get sick, take a client that pays more, or burn out, and your feed stops mid-month. Most also don't shoot and edit video, which is the format that actually reaches new people.

Choose this instead of us if

You've found someone good, you can absorb a quiet month, and you don't need video.

Doing it yourself

10+ hrs/week

Owners who genuinely enjoy it and have the hours

Where it shines

Nobody knows your business like you do, and owner-made content routinely outperforms anything an outsider makes. The voice is free and it's the part everyone else is trying to fake.

Where it breaks down

It's the first thing to fall off the list, every time. Not because it's hard — because it's never today's emergency. Three posts in a quarter then six weeks of silence is the pattern, and the algorithm punishes exactly that.

Choose this instead of us if

You enjoy it and you've kept it up for six months straight.

AI tools alone

$20–200/mo

People who want a drafting assistant, not a finished feed

Where it shines

Genuinely useful for drafting, research, and getting past a blank page. We use them internally for exactly that.

Where it breaks down

They don't shoot your food, walk your site, or know that Thursday is slow. You still have to write the brief, pick the photo, fix the caption, and press publish — which is the ten hours a week you were trying to get back.

Choose this instead of us if

You want a faster blank page, not a finished feed, and you have the hours.

Budget content services

$75–199/mo

Businesses that need presence on one channel at the lowest price

Where it shines

Honestly good value for what it is. If you need a presence on one channel and the alternative is posting nothing, ten decent static posts a month for under a hundred dollars is a real deal and it beats an empty grid.

Where it breaks down

Video is where the reach is now, and at this price it's an add-on rather than included — so the thing most likely to find you new customers is the thing you're not buying. Revisions are usually capped, and the per-post economics push toward volume over fit.

Choose this instead of us if

Your budget is firm under $200 a month and you don't need video yet. We'd rather tell you that than sell you a tier you'll cancel.

Judge it yourself

This is what the extra buys.

Every piece below ran on a client's own account. Compare it against what a $99 service ships and decide whether the difference is worth $100 a month.

Green Apron Cafe
Food & drink
Lounge on Main
Food & drink
ChiKing Southern Chicken
Food & drink
Re Lumi
Beauty & wellness
Odeon Professional
Beauty & wellness
Botanic by J.Amila
Beauty & wellness
Mobile Beauty Team
Beauty & wellness
Ironclad Roofing & Exteriors
Home services
Mitchell Home Group
Real estate
Morales Realtors
Real estate

See all 61 pieces

Track record

We've been doing this since 2012.

In business: 14 yrsIn businessTrading since 2012
Businesses served: 10,000+Businesses served
Posts published: 1.5M+Posts published
Industries: 120+Industries

Neo Tier Studios is the studio brand of the team behind $99 Social. The figures above are the company's, across both brands, since 2012.

Still deciding? Try two weeks for $99.

Fast Start is see what a real content batch looks like before you commit to a month. Refundable in full inside the two weeks, and credited toward your first month if you convert.

Book a discovery call See pricing