Social media management cost in the UK

A UK small business can expect to pay £300 to £800 a month to have someone run its social media, according to Bark's 2025 price guide. A freelancer charges around £200 to £300 a day. Agency packages usually run £600 to £1,250 a month. Employing someone costs roughly £2,400 to £3,400 a month. Doing it yourself costs time, not money.

Where you land in those bands comes down to how many platforms you're on, how often you post, whether someone makes the content or only schedules what you send, and whether there's video. Ad spend is always on top. We run social media for small businesses from Clutton in Somerset, and our own prices and the sums behind them are further down.

How much does social media management cost in the UK?

The biggest thing that sets the price is who does the work. These are the five usual options and what each one typically costs in 2025 and 2026.

Option	Typical cost	What you usually get
Doing it yourself	No fee, just your time	You do all of it. Meta Business Suite, which is free, schedules Facebook and Instagram posts.
Freelancer by the hour or day	£20 to £150 an hour, £200 to £300 a day	One person, anything from scheduling your posts to making all of it.
Freelancer or small studio on a monthly plan	£300 to £800 a month	A set number of posts on one to three platforms, usually with design and captions.
Agency package	£600 to £1,250 a month, and up to £3,000 or more	Strategy, content, reporting and often ads management.
In-house hire	About £2,400 to £3,400 a month	Someone in your business, full time. Our sums are below.

For a small business posting a few times a week, £300 to £800 a month is the normal range for paying someone else to do it (Bark, 2025). The hourly and daily rates come from Wise and Prospects, and all of it is linked in the sources at the bottom. Prices well under that range do exist, ours included, and the section on what we charge explains how.

What makes social media management cost more or less?

Hours. Every quote comes back to how much work there is each month, and these are the things that add to it.

• Platforms. Each one needs posts sized for it and captions written for it. Two platforms done properly usually does more than five done thinly.
• How often you post. Three posts a week is about 13 a month. Daily is 30.
• Making the content or just scheduling yours. If you send the photos and words and someone else queues them up, it's cheap. If they design the graphics and write the captions, it costs more, and it's usually the part people actually want taken off them.
• Video. Reels and TikToks have to be filmed and edited, not just designed. Filming often means someone at your premises, and that's where prices jump.
• Replying to comments and messages. Some providers include a little. Anyone answering messages through the day will charge for the hours.
• Reporting. A short monthly note costs very little. Dashboards and monthly meetings cost more.
• Ads. Always separate, and covered further down.

What we charge at Bare, and what's in it

Our social media plans start at £99 a month plus VAT. That's below the usual range, so here's exactly what you get for it and why it costs what it does.

Plan	What you get	Price a month (plus VAT)
Present	3 posts a week on 2 platforms	£99
Active	5 posts a week on 4 platforms	£199
Everywhere	Daily posts and reels	£349

Every month you get a content plan built around your business and your offers. We design the graphics ourselves in your brand's look, not from stock templates, and write the captions in your voice. Then we schedule and publish them, and send a short note on what worked and what changes next month. You see the whole month before it starts, and nothing goes out until you've signed it off.

Worked out per post, the Present plan is about 13 posts a month for £99, so roughly £7.60 a post plus VAT. Active is about 22 posts for £199, or around £9.20 each. That's a useful way to compare any two quotes, as long as you check that a "post" means the same thing in both.

We can charge that because of how we're set up. There are two of us, Jack and Carly, with no account managers, and we do around 90 percent of the work ourselves. The plans are fixed: a set number of posts on a set number of platforms, planned a month at a time. We choose the platforms with you, and for most of our clients that means Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. As our own page puts it, we'd rather run two platforms well than five badly. Because the same studio usually made the brand and the website, the posts look like the rest of the business without anyone having to brief us on it.

What the plans don't list is someone filming at your premises every week or answering your messages all day. If that's what your business needs, it's a different job at a different price, and a local freelancer who can turn up in person may suit you better than a studio in Somerset.

How much does it cost to employ a social media manager?

About £2,400 a month for someone junior and around £3,400 for an experienced manager, once you add the employer costs. The salary is only part of it.

Prospects puts a junior social media manager on £22,000 to £28,000 and a social media manager on £28,000 to £45,000 (December 2024). Here's what two salaries in those ranges actually cost an employer in the 2026 to 2027 tax year, using the GOV.UK rates.

	Junior	Experienced
Salary	£25,000	£35,000
Employer National Insurance (15% of pay above £5,000)	£3,000	£4,500
Minimum employer pension (3% of pay between £6,240 and £50,270)	£563	£863
Total a year	£28,563	£40,363
Total a month	£2,380	£3,364

One thing in a small business's favour: if you're eligible for the Employment Allowance, you can knock up to £10,500 a year off your employer National Insurance bill. For a first hire that could cover all of it, bringing the monthly cost down to about £2,130 and £2,990.

None of those figures include a laptop and phone, software, recruitment, training, or cover when they're on holiday or off sick. And you get one person with one set of skills. A good photographer isn't always a good writer.

Employing someone makes sense when there's a full week of work: video most days, a steady flow of messages, events to cover. For three or four posts a week, it's a lot of salary for a small amount of work.

What do freelance social media managers charge per hour or per day?

Usually £20 to £150 an hour, or £200 to £300 a day. Wise gives the hourly range (September 2025) and Bark puts most at £40 to over £100 an hour. Prospects quotes the recruiter 3Search for day rates of £200 to £300, rising to about £350 to £500 for a head of social.

A good freelancer is often the best value there is, and even more so one who lives near you and can come and take the photos. When you compare a freelancer on a monthly fee with a studio plan, ask how many hours or posts the fee buys and what happens if they're ill or on holiday. Day rates suit one-off jobs like setting up accounts, a content shoot or a plan for the year. Monthly plans suit the week-in, week-out posting.

Is paid advertising included in the price?

No. Ad spend goes straight to Meta, LinkedIn or TikTok, and it sits on top of whatever you pay for management.

Running the ads is usually charged on top again. Wise puts the typical fee for managing social ads at 10% to 30% of the ad spend (September 2025). Some providers charge a flat monthly fee instead. With us, we design the creative and write the copy for paid campaigns, and give you a straight opinion on where the budget is worth spending. Whoever you use, ask for the ad spend and the fee as two separate lines on the quote, so you can see exactly where the money goes.

When should you do your social media yourself?

When you've got the time and you'll actually keep it up. Plenty of small businesses are better off doing it themselves, at least to begin with.

• Most of your work comes by word of mouth, and people only look at your page to check you're still trading.
• You're on the job with your phone every day. Real photos of your own work are hard to beat.
• Your customers are on one platform, and you'll post there every week without being chased.
• £99 a month would be a stretch right now. Spend it on something that brings work in first.

You don't need to pay for tools to start. Meta Business Suite is free and schedules Facebook and Instagram posts, so you can do a week's worth in one sitting. Our guides on how often a small business should post and what to post when you don't know what to post cover the rest.

The real cost is your time, so do the sum. Take the hours it honestly takes you each week, multiply by four, and multiply that by what an hour of your own work earns. If the answer is more than a monthly fee, paying someone is the cheaper option. If it isn't, keep going. The time to hand it over is when your feed keeps going quiet for weeks because the paid work comes first. We've written more about that choice in do I need a marketing agency or can I do it myself.

Is it worth paying someone to manage your social media?

It's worth it when a quiet or scrappy feed is putting people off getting in touch. Most customers look at your social media before they contact you, and a page that stopped in the spring makes a business look shut.

What it won't do is guarantee anything. We don't promise followers or leads, and we'd be wary of anyone who does. What you can fairly judge after a few months is whether posts go out on time, whether they look and sound like your business, whether you've stopped thinking about it, and whether new enquiries ever mention seeing you on social media.

What should you check before you sign up?

• Is the price plus VAT or including it?
• How many posts, on which platforms, and does a reel or a story count as a post?
• Do you see and approve everything before it goes out?
• Who owns the accounts? It should be you, with full admin access.
• Is ad spend kept separate from the fee?
• How long is the contract, and what's the notice period?
• What does the monthly report tell you, in plain English?

If you'd like us to take it on, see our social media plans and what's in each one. Tell us where your customers are and we'll tell you which plan fits, or whether you'd honestly be better off doing it yourself for now.

Frequently asked questions

Do social media management prices include VAT?

Usually not, so check. Ours are all plus VAT: £99, £199 or £349 a month depending on the plan.

Can I pay someone just to schedule posts I've written?

Yes, and it's the cheapest way to get help. Freelancers often do this by the hour. Most people find the writing and design is the part they actually want to hand over, though, so price both before you decide.

Sources

All figures checked 25 September 2026.

• Bark, How much does social media management cost in 2025? Monthly and hourly price ranges for UK small and medium businesses.
• Wise, How much to charge for freelance social media (UK guide), updated 18 September 2025. Hourly rates, retainers, ads management fees.
• Prospects, Social media manager job profile, December 2024. Salaries, and freelance day rates from 3Search.
• GOV.UK, Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027. Employer National Insurance and Employment Allowance.
• GOV.UK, Workplace pensions: what you, your employer and the government pay. Minimum employer contribution.
• Meta, Meta Business Suite. Scheduling posts for Facebook and Instagram.
• Brandwatch, Meta Business Suite setup guide, 11 February 2025. Confirms the desktop and mobile versions are free.