Social media management services take the recurring posting work off your plate: planning, writing, images and video, publishing, and often replies.
Ads and reporting are usually sold on top.
Typical ranges, not a survey: a virtual assistant is $5 to $45 an hour, a freelancer $500 to $1,500 a month, and an agency $750 to $2,500 a month and up.
Productized post services sell about ten posts from $99 a month (Feedbird, read September 16, 2026), and software that reads your website writes them from $9 a month.
If the job you want gone is the posts, a post service or software does it; if you want replies and ads gone too, you are hiring a person.
What a month of social media management contains
The request usually sounds like "I need someone to manage my social media."
Behind it are five core jobs, and three add-ons that some providers bundle and most sell on top.
The five core jobs:
- Planning. Choosing what to post each week, so the month is not eight versions of "call us today."
- Writing. The captions, in your voice, about your actual business.
- Images. A designed image or a photo for every post, sized for each channel.
- Video. Short vertical video for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, often priced separately.
- Publishing. Getting each post onto the channels on a schedule, and keeping that schedule in your busiest month.
The three add-ons:
- Replies and community. Answering comments and messages, and hiding the spam. Agencies often include them; freelancers often charge extra.
- Ads. Choosing the audience, setting the budget and watching the spend, priced on top of the spend itself.
- Reporting. A monthly read of reach, clicks and followers.
When an owner says they want social media off their plate, the five core jobs are usually the whole request: the posts should exist every week without anyone asking the owner to write one.
The add-ons are separate decisions, and they are where a quote climbs from a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand.
Which add-ons a small business can skip entirely is covered in social media marketing services for small businesses.
How much should I pay someone to do my social media?
Pay for the part you want gone, and nothing more.
Here is the cheapest option on this page for each amount of work, and what still stays with you after you buy it.
Named vendor prices were read from the vendor's pricing page on the date shown; everything labeled a typical range is a typical quoted range, not a survey.
| What you want gone | Cheapest option on this page | What you still do | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing the posts; you publish them | Software from your website (Boomp Packs), or a human post service | Post the finished posts yourself; replies | $9 for software; a human post service is $99 for ten posts (Feedbird, read September 16, 2026) |
| Writing and publishing; you approve each post | Software from your website (Boomp Core) | About ten minutes a week of approving; replies | $39 |
| Writing, publishing and approving; you never look | Software with a person approving (Boomp done-for-you) | Replies; keeping your website current, because the posts are written from it | $275 |
| All of that, plus replies | Add a virtual assistant with a reply script, or a freelancer's reply add-on | Writing the reply script; the replies only you can give | About $100 to $450 for a US-based VA, or $200 to $500 as a freelancer add-on, typical ranges |
| All of that, plus ads | An ads specialist, freelance or productized | Setting the ad budget; the offer the ads sell | Feedbird Meta ads management from $499 (read September 23, 2026; the page does not say whether ad spend is included); freelancers typically $300 to $1,000 plus spend, typical range |
| Everything, with strategy | An agency or a full-service team | Approvals, the ad spend, time on calls | $750 to $2,500 and up, typical range |
The common overspend is paying an everything price for a posting job.
A retainer that mostly delivers posts is a posting budget with an agency's overhead on top.
Write down which rows you actually need this year, and price only those.
Every price band and what it includes is in the cost and pricing guide.
If price is the first filter, affordable social media management compared ranks the low-cost options by the work each one removes, and what an affordable plan should include sets the floor for a sub-$100 price.
The order to hand the posting over
Hand work over in the order it costs you time, and keep the parts only you can do.
1. The writing, first.
Writing is the hours, and it is the first job to stop in a busy month.
Hand it to whoever has a real source for your business: a freelancer you brief well, a post service working from your brief, or software that reads your website.
2. Publishing, together with the writing.
A post that is written but not scheduled is still on your list.
Buy the two together, unless you are content to post ten finished posts yourself each month, which is the trade the cheapest row makes.
3. The approval, only if you mean it.
Approving each post takes about ten minutes a week on Boomp Core.
Handing the approval over as well makes someone else the last reader before a post goes public.
That is worth paying for when you truly will not look.
Agree in writing on what still comes to you first: anything with a price, a claim or a person's name.
Replies, ads and reporting are the add-ons; when to keep, skip or buy each is covered in social media marketing services for small businesses.
Who does the work
Six kinds of provider can take this work off your plate, sorted here by who does the work.
| Who does the work | What comes off your plate | What stays with you | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual assistant | Scheduling, formatting images, replies from a script you wrote, the monthly numbers | Writing from nothing, the source material, every judgment call | $5 to $15 an hour offshore, $20 to $45 an hour US-based, typical range |
| Freelance social media manager | Planning, writing, images from your photos, publishing, often replies | Supplying photos, approving posts; ads are usually quoted separately | $500 to $1,500, typical range |
| Productized post service, such as Feedbird | Ten posts a month; short video sold separately | Channels, brief and approval are not stated on the pricing page; ask | $99 for ten posts (Feedbird, read September 16, 2026); 20 and 30 post tiers, price on vendor site |
| Software that reads your website | Planning from your site, writing, images; on Boomp Core also a carousel, a video and publishing | Approving each post, or publishing yourself on Packs; replies; ads | $9 to $39 at Boomp |
| Software with a person approving | Everything the software does, plus the approval | Replies, ads, photo shoots, strategy calls | $275 at Boomp done-for-you |
| Agency | All of it, including ads, replies, reporting and strategy | Approvals, the ad spend, time on calls | $750 to $2,500 and up, typical range; Feedbird Pro, a full-service team with a dedicated senior lead, from $1,500 (read September 23, 2026) |
Read the table by the middle column, not the last one.
The price rises with each job that leaves your plate, and it jumps when a person takes over replies, ads or strategy.
A virtual assistant is hands, not a writer.
Give one a process and they will run it every week; ask one to write about a business they have never worked in and the posts come back generic.
The brief a VA needs is on the social media virtual assistant page.
A freelancer is one person you can call, and the range is wide because the scope is negotiated.
Rates with sources and dates, including Upwork's sample of $400 to $2,000 a month, are on the freelance social media manager rates page.
The post services and the software compete for the same job, the posts themselves.
They differ in the source: a person writing from a brief, or software writing from what your website already says.
If the posts are all you want, social media content services compared sets them side by side at the same post count.
For named vendors side by side, and the six questions to put to any of them before you sign, read how to choose a social media management company.
What no Boomp plan includes, and who does it
No Boomp plan includes replies to comments and messages, ads, photo shoots or strategy calls, on any tier, done-for-you included.
Replies stay with you or go to a virtual assistant with a script, ads go to an ads specialist or an agency, photo shoots go to a local photographer, and strategy calls go to a freelancer or an agency.
Feedbird Pro, from $1,500 a month, has a senior lead decide what runs (read September 23, 2026); ask whether that includes calls.
Which parts to hand off and which to keep yourself is covered in what to outsource in social media.
What the posts look like when software writes them
Boomp is software.
It reads your public website, writes posts about your business with the image, adds a carousel and a short video on Core and above, and publishes the ones that are approved to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Google Business Profile and the other channels it supports, nine in all.
A person writing for you works from a brief; the software writes from what you have already published: your services, your FAQ, your about page, the reviews shown on your site.
Here is a post Boomp wrote from one paying customer's website, a listing agent on the West Michigan lakeshore, shown without her name.
No brief produced that post.
The test for any provider on this page is the same: could this post run for the business next door unchanged?
If it could, the source was a template, not your business.
What stays with you, whoever you hire
Claims. Health, legal, financial and results claims are yours to approve, every time.
A provider should flag them to you, not decide them.
Permissions. A customer's face, name or words need their yes before they appear.
Keep the record.
Perishable facts. Hours, prices, availability and staff change.
Tell whoever posts for you the same day, or the post is wrong by Friday.
Regulated language. Fair housing wording and the advertising rules of your own trade stay your call.
The logins. Grant access through each platform's team roles, which you can revoke at any time.
Never hand over your own password.
The three doors at Boomp
If the posts are the job you want gone, the software does it three ways.
The price follows how much of the rest you keep.
- Packs, $9 a month. Ten finished posts by email link, written from your website, with images. You publish them. Nothing to connect.
- Core, $39 a month. Twenty posts, one carousel and one video, published to your connected channels after you approve each one in the app. About ten minutes a week of saying yes.
- Done for you, $275 a month. The same content, with Kathleen, Boomp's founder, approving every post. You never open the app. Not an agency: no ads, no replies, no photo shoots, no strategy calls.
No contract on any plan.
Plans and what each includes are on the pricing page.
Before you hire anyone, see what your website can already produce: ten finished posts made from your own website, with images, a carousel and a short video, sent to your email, with no account or card.
