There is no single price for outsourcing social media, and anyone who quotes you one without asking questions is guessing. What you pay depends on three things: who does the work, how much of the job they take off your hands, and how often posts need to go out. The most useful question is not “what does it cost?” but “what exactly am I paying for?”
For a busy owner of a small service business, the answer usually comes down to a choice between advice and finished work. Advice tells you what to post. Finished work means the posts are written, approved and published. Those are very different things, and they are priced differently.
What actually drives the cost
Whichever route you take, the same handful of factors push the price up or down:
- How much is written for you. A plan or a calendar of ideas is one thing. Every post written, ready to go, is another.
- How many posts, how often. Posting every weekday is more work than posting once a week.
- How custom it is. Original photography, video, campaigns and bespoke design take a person’s time and are priced accordingly.
- How much strategy is included. Someone who studies your market and adjusts your approach is doing a different job from someone who keeps your pages active.
- How much of your time it still needs. This is the cost most owners forget. If you have to brief, chase and rewrite, you are still paying with your own hours.
- The terms. Some arrangements tie you in for a set period. Others run month to month.
Your three options, honestly
Doing it yourself
There is no fee, but it is not free. It costs the time you don’t have, and for most owners that is exactly why the posting stops. Do-it-yourself tools can help with scheduling or ideas, yet they still leave you doing the work. If the real problem is no time rather than no ideas, another tool rarely fixes it.
A freelancer or agency
A good freelancer or agency can be the right choice, especially if you want hands-on strategy, custom creative work, or someone who gets to know your business closely and shapes a campaign around it. You are paying for a person’s skill and time, so the cost reflects how much of both you want. If that is what you need, it is worth paying for, and you should ask each one exactly what is included.
A service that does the posting
This is where YorDigital Presence sits. It is for owners who mainly want the posting done, in their own voice, without having to sit down and write it. A finished post arrives by email each morning. You reply “yes” and it goes out once your accounts are connected. If it isn’t right, you reply “no, because it sounds too formal” and a better version comes back. Each reply teaches it a little more about how you like to sound.
It is monthly with no contract, and every customer starts with a free plan. We run Presence on our own pages first, and YorDigital Services Limited has built for the web since 2001, so this is not an experiment on your business.
It does not suit everyone. If you want a custom campaign or someone working alongside you on strategy, a freelancer or agency may be the better fit.
Questions to ask before you pay anyone
Whoever you are considering, these questions make quotes comparable:
- Who writes the posts, and do they sound like me?
- Are the posts published for me, or do I have to publish them?
- How many posts are included, and on which days?
- What happens when I don’t like a post?
- How much of my time will approvals and briefings take each week?
- Is there a minimum term, and how do I stop?
- What is not included that I might assume is?
Write the answers side by side. The cheapest option on paper is not always the cheapest once you count your own time, and the most expensive is not always the one that fits.
How to compare with what you pay now
If you already pay a freelancer, an agency or a member of staff for your posts, you don’t need to take anyone’s word for how the numbers compare. Our free plan shows how our price compares with what you pay now, so you can judge it against your own situation. We won’t claim to be the cheaper choice for everyone, because that depends on what you need.
If the thing you want is finished posts that go out in your voice without taking up your day, it is worth a look. See what it would cost with us.