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Social Media Pricing Calculator for freelancers and agencies
Enter your hours, hourly rate and tool costs. Get a low, target and high monthly retainer, three package tiers and the formula behind every number. It runs in your browser.
Your retainer scope
Jump to priceContent
Each profile or channel you post to for this client.
All formats together. 16 is about four a week.
Content mix
Share of posts
Hours per piece
Content mix
Text posts
Carousels or designs
Short video
Hours per piece cover drafting, design or editing, and one round of revisions.
Other work each month (hours, all profiles)
Replying to comments and messages.
Pulling the numbers and writing the report.
Planning the month and the client call.
Your pricing
What an hour of your work should earn. Freelancers commonly bill $35 to $150, agencies $75 to $300 or more.
The share of the price you keep after labor and tools. It pays for sales calls, admin and unbilled time. Set 0% to price on your hourly rate alone.
Your scheduling, design and reporting software bill.
Splits the bill per client: $200 / 5 = $40 each.
Suggested monthly retainer
$2,500 per month
Range $2,250 to $2,850, for 26 h of work a month.
Low
$2,250
10% margin
Target
$2,500
20% margin
High
$2,850
30% margin
- Total hours per month
- 26 h
- Tool cost for this client
- $40
- Revenue per hour at target
- $96Above your rate on purpose, for unbilled time
- Hours the target price covers
- 32.8 hPast this, you earn less than your hourly rate
Your target price of $2,500 sits in the mid-tier range of $2,000 to $5,000 that published pricing guides give. Treat market ranges as directional. The pricing guide names each source.
Package tiers
Three packages built from your numbers
Growth is the scope you entered. Starter keeps 60% of the posts and 50% of the support hours. Premium has 2x both. Every tier uses your rate, your margin and the same tool cost.
Starter
$1,450 per month
- 10 posts per month8 text, 2 carousel or design
- Community management: 2 h
- Reporting: 1.5 h
- Strategy and meetings: 1.5 h
- Your hours
- 14.5 h
- Revenue per hour
- $100
- All-in price per post
- $145
Growth
Your scope$2,500 per month
- 16 posts per month12 text, 4 carousel or design
- Community management: 4 h
- Reporting: 3 h
- Strategy and meetings: 3 h
- Your hours
- 26 h
- Revenue per hour
- $96
- All-in price per post
- $156
Premium
$4,950 per month
- 32 posts per month24 text, 8 carousel or design
- Community management: 8 h
- Reporting: 6 h
- Strategy and meetings: 6 h
- Your hours
- 52 h
- Revenue per hour
- $95
- All-in price per post
- $155
The formula
How your price is built
Monthly price = (hours × hourly rate + tool cost per client) / (1 - margin)
With your numbers: (26 h × $75 + $40) / (1 - 0.2) = $2,487.50, rounded up to $2,500.
| Line | Value | Arithmetic |
|---|---|---|
| Text posts | 9 h | 12 × 0.75 h |
| Carousels or designs | 7 h | 4 × 1.75 h |
| Community management | 4 h | Your input |
| Reporting | 3 h | Your input |
| Strategy and meetings | 3 h | Your input |
| Total hours | 26 h | 9 + 7 + 4 + 3 + 3 |
| Labor at your hourly rate | $1,950 | 26 × $75 |
| Tool cost for this client | $40 | $200 / 5 clients |
| Cost before margin | $1,990 | $1,950 + $40 |
| Low price (10% margin) | $2,250 | $1,990 / 0.9 = $2,211.11, rounded up |
| Target price (20% margin) | $2,500 | $1,990 / 0.8 = $2,487.50, rounded up |
| High price (30% margin) | $2,850 | $1,990 / 0.7 = $2,842.86, rounded up |
- Margin here is a share of the price, not a markup on cost. A 20% margin equals a 25% markup.
- Low and high move your margin 10 points down and up. Prices round up to a clean figure.
- Hours per piece, shares and the other inputs are your own estimates. Track real hours for 60 to 90 days, then run the numbers again.
How to use it
From hours to a retainer price in three steps.
The defaults follow the worked example in our pricing guide. Replace each number with your own and the price, range and tiers update as you type.
- 1
Enter the scope
Set the profiles or channels, posts per month, the content mix and the hours each piece takes. Add monthly hours for community management, reporting and strategy.
- 2
Add your rate and costs
Enter your hourly rate, your target margin and your monthly tool bill. Split the bill across the clients who share those tools.
- 3
Read the range and tiers
Quote the target price, hold the low as your floor and use the three tiers to offer a smaller or larger scope. Copy the summary into your proposal.
What a social media pricing calculator should do
A social media pricing calculator, also called a social media management pricing calculator, turns the work a client needs into a monthly fee. It counts the hours behind the posts, the community management, the reporting and the strategy call, prices them at your rate, adds the tools you pay for and puts a margin on top. It doubles as a social media rate calculator: set your hourly rate and it shows what each hour of the retainer earns.
This one is deliberately plain. There is no AI and no database behind it. Every figure comes from the formula shown under the results, so you can check it, change it and defend it on a sales call. The defaults reproduce the example in the social media management pricing guide: 26 hours at $75, $40 of tools and a 20% margin gives $2,500 per month.
Use the result as the start of a quote, not a market verdict. Published price ranges are directional, and your best data is your own tracked time. For rates by provider type and by platform, with the source named for each range, read the guide.
Margins
Four ways to raise your margin without raising your price.
The calculator shows what an hour of work earns. These moves cut the hours behind a retainer instead of the quality.
Batch the work
Write and design a month of posts for one client in a single block instead of a few posts every week. Switching between clients costs time, so batching lowers the hours per piece. In Postiv, Bob prepares a weekly plan for each profile, so the next posts are ready to draft when you sit down.
Take approvals out of email
Chasing feedback in threads adds hours no client pays for. In an agency workspace, an approval link lets the client see each post as it will look on LinkedIn and approve it without a Postiv account. You share the link the way you already talk to them.
Give every client a workspace
Voice, brand, knowledge base and calendar sit in the client's own workspace, so switching between clients is quick and one client's tone never leaks into another's. See how this works for agencies running several clients.
Let Bob draft first
Bob is Postiv's AI agent. He can write a first draft of each post in the profile's voice from the client's own sources, and make carousels and infographics on their brand. You edit and approve, and nothing goes live until you schedule it. Lower the hours per piece in the calculator to see what it does to your margin.
The calculator works for any channel, using your own hours. Postiv runs your LinkedIn and X content.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I calculate a social media management retainer?
Add up the hours a client takes each month (posts, community management, reporting and strategy), multiply by your hourly rate, add the tool cost per client, then divide by one minus your margin. The formula is (hours × hourly rate + tool cost per client) / (1 - margin). With 26 hours, a $75 rate, $40 of tools and a 20% margin, that is $1,990 / 0.80 = $2,487.50, which rounds up to $2,500 per month.
What hourly rate should I use in a social media rate calculator?
Use what an hour of delivery work should earn you. Published guides put freelancers at $35 to $150 per hour and agencies at $75 to $300 or more, and beginners often start around $15 to $50. Pick a rate you can defend, then let the margin cover sales calls, admin and unbilled time instead of padding the rate.
What margin should I add to a social media retainer?
The calculator starts at 20%, the margin in our pricing guide's worked example. That is a starting point, not a market statistic. Margin here is a share of the price, so a 20% margin equals a 25% markup on cost. Raise it when the work needs senior time, interviews or fast turnarounds, and when a client wants less money, cut scope instead of your rate.
How many hours does a social media client take each month?
It depends on volume and formats. The default scope is 26 hours: 16 posts a month (12 text posts and 4 carousels), 4 hours of community management, 3 of reporting and 3 of strategy. Treat that as an example, not an average. Track your real hours per client for 60 to 90 days, then enter them here.
How do I price more than one profile or platform?
Raise the number of profiles or channels and the posts per profile, then adjust the shared hours for community management and reporting. Price each added platform from the hours it adds, not from a flat per-platform fee, because platforms differ a lot in effort. The math works for any channel.
What do the low, target and high prices mean?
The target price uses your margin. Low takes 10 percentage points off it and high adds 10. Quote the target, treat the low as your floor (reduce scope before you reduce the price) and reach for the high when a client needs extra approval rounds, rush work or interviews. All three round up to a clean figure.
Priced it? Now run it
Run every client in a workspace of their own
Each client gets their own voice, brand, knowledge base and calendar. Bob plans every profile's week, and clients approve posts from a link.
- 7-day free trial
- Client approval by link
- LinkedIn and X