- →Almost no agency publishes pricing, which is why every comparison you try to make falls apart.
- →The three common models are hourly, monthly retainer, and per project. Only one of them protects you.
- →A retainer with no defined scope is the most expensive thing you can buy, because there is nothing to hold anyone to.
- →Cheap is usually a junior executing tactics. Expensive is usually a team you never meet. Neither is about skill.
- →Ask for the shape of the deal before the number. Scope, who does the work, and what happens if it does not work.
Most digital marketing sits between $1,000 and $10,000 a month, and the range is that wide because “digital marketing” is not one thing. What matters more than the number is the shape of the deal: what is in scope, who actually does the work, and whether you can hold anyone to a result. Here is what we charge and why.
Why nobody publishes a price
Go looking for what marketing costs and you will find ranges so wide they are useless. Fifty to three hundred an hour. One thousand to twenty-five thousand a month. Technically true, practically worthless.
There are two honest reasons for the vagueness and one dishonest one.
The honest ones: the work genuinely varies, and agencies price partly on what they think you can pay. A manufacturer with a nine-month sales cycle and a contractor who needs the phone to ring next week need different things.
The dishonest one: a published price can be compared. Vagueness keeps you on a discovery call where the number arrives after you are already invested in the conversation.
The three pricing models, and which one protects you
Hourly. You pay for time. Fine for a defined, small task. Bad for anything ongoing, because your incentive and theirs are now opposed. They earn more when things take longer.
Per project. A fixed number for a fixed deliverable. A website, a campaign, an audit. This is the cleanest arrangement in marketing, because both sides know exactly what “done” means.
Monthly retainer. A recurring fee for ongoing work. This is the standard and it is also where most of the money goes missing, because a retainer without a defined scope is an open tab. Six months in, you are paying the same amount and nobody can tell you what changed.
The retainer is not the problem. The undefined scope is. A retainer with a written scope and a monthly deliverable is fine. A retainer that says “ongoing SEO and social” is a subscription to activity.
What we charge
Ours is deliberately built for smaller businesses, and it is published because I think you should be able to compare.
The audit is $499. A full read across search visibility, website, CRM, follow-up, and messaging, ending in a prioritized roadmap of what to fix first. It is credited toward your first engagement, so if we work together it effectively costs nothing. If we do not, you keep the roadmap and can hand it to whoever you hire instead. More on exactly what the $499 audit covers.
Ongoing work starts at $2,000 a month for service businesses and $4,000 a month for manufacturers, with a defined scope, rather than an open-ended retainer. You can see how that runs on the services and how we work pages.
That is smaller than most agencies quote and larger than a freelancer. It is priced for a business that needs senior direction without a senior hire.
| Where it goes wrong | When it is the right call | |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | They earn more when the work takes longer | A defined, small, one-time task |
| Per project | Only works when done is definable | A website, a campaign, an audit |
| Monthly retainer | An open tab when the scope is undefined | Ongoing work with a written scope and a monthly deliverable |
Table 1 · The retainer is not the problem. The undefined scope is.
What actually moves the price
Four things, in rough order of impact.
How broken the system is. A business with a clean CRM and a clear website needs less work than one where leads land in an inbox nobody checks. The audit exists to find out which you are before anyone quotes.
Whether you need strategy or execution. Knowing what to do and doing it are separately priced. If you already know exactly what you want built, you need execution and you should pay execution rates.
Sales cycle length. A contractor needs the phone ringing this month. A manufacturer is working a nine-month cycle where content and search do most of the selling before anyone calls. Different work, different cost.
Who does the work. The cheapest quotes are usually a junior running a checklist. The most expensive are usually a team you meet once during the pitch and never again. Ask who will actually touch your account, by name.
The questions that reveal the real number
Before you get to price, get to shape. Four questions do most of the work.
What is in scope, in writing, each month? If it cannot be listed, it cannot be measured, and you cannot tell whether you got it.
Who does the work? Name and role. Then ask how many other accounts that person carries.
What happens if it does not work? Not a guarantee, those are usually marketing. Just: at what point do we sit down and change the plan, and who decides?
What do I own if we stop? Your website, your ad account, your CRM data, your content. If any of that lives in their account and cannot leave, the price is higher than it looks.
Cheap is expensive, and expensive is not always better
The cheapest option usually costs the most, because you pay again to redo it. That is not a case for spending more. It is a case for spending on a diagnosis first.
The most common expensive mistake I see is not overpaying an agency. It is buying the wrong thing entirely: paying for traffic when the website does not convert, or for ads when the follow-up never fires. Money spent on the wrong layer produces nothing, at any price.
That is also why lead volume is a bad way to price marketing. More leads at worse quality costs you more, not less, because your team pays for every one in time. The difference between qualified and unqualified leads is where marketing budgets quietly leak.
The bottom line
Ask for the shape of the deal before you ask for the number. Scope in writing, a named person doing the work, a clear moment to change course, and ownership of your own assets. Get those four and the price becomes a real comparison instead of a guess.
If you want a read on your own situation before anyone quotes you anything, that is exactly what the $499 audit is for.
Frequently asked questions
1How much does digital marketing cost per month?
Most small and mid-size businesses land between $1,000 and $10,000 a month, and the spread reflects scope rather than skill. Our own ongoing work starts at $2,000 a month for service businesses and $4,000 a month for manufacturers, always with a written scope. What matters more than the figure is whether the scope is defined, because an undefined retainer at any price is hard to evaluate.
2Is a monthly retainer or a per-project fee better?
Per project is cleaner when you know exactly what you want built, because both sides agree on what finished means. A retainer suits ongoing work, but only with a written monthly scope. A retainer with no scope is the most expensive arrangement in marketing, since there is nothing to hold anyone to.
3Why do agencies hide their pricing?
Partly because the work genuinely varies by scope and sales cycle, and partly because a published price can be compared. Vagueness keeps the number until after you are invested in a call. An agency willing to name a range before you commit is telling you something useful about how they operate.
4What should a small business budget for marketing?
Rather than a percentage of revenue, start with the smallest paid diagnosis you can buy and let the findings set the budget. Paying for a roadmap first is far cheaper than guessing at a retainer and discovering six months later that the real problem was somewhere else entirely.
5Does a cheaper agency mean worse results?
Not automatically, but cheap usually means a junior running a checklist, and expensive often means a team you meet once during the pitch. Neither maps cleanly to quality. Ask who will actually do the work, by name, and how many other accounts they carry.