Social media marketing companies for small business come in four kinds, and the kind decides the price more than the company does.
- Agencies sell a retainer that covers strategy, content, ads, replies and reporting, typically $1,500 a month and up.
- Productized services sell a fixed package of human-made posts to your brief, $99 to $500 a month at Feedbird and Socinova (read September 16, 2026) and $99 Social (read September 13, 2026).
- Freelancer collectives and solo freelancers sell a person's time, typically $500 to $1,500 a month for a small business.
- Software reads your website and writes the posts, $9 to $275 a month at Boomp depending on who publishes and who approves.
This page owns the four kinds and what each costs.
Once you know the kind, how to choose a social media management company owns the choosing checklist.
The rest of this page compares the kinds by scope, by price and by what still lands on your desk, so you can pick the kind before you pick a name.
Start with the jobs, not the company
Every company on a "top social media marketing companies" list describes itself in the same words.
Strategy, engagement, growth, brand voice.
Those words hide the only question that matters, which is what they will actually do each month and what you will still have to do.
A small business's social media is six jobs.
- Deciding what to post.
- Writing the caption.
- Making the image or video.
- Checking it for anything wrong, out of date or not allowed.
- Publishing it on a schedule that holds through slow months.
- Everything else: ads, replies, messages, campaigns, reporting.
Agencies do all six.
Productized services do the first five to a brief you write.
Freelancers do whatever you agree on, and the agreement is the product.
Software does the first three from your website, hands you the fourth, and does the fifth once you say yes.
Write your list before you read on.
If it has ads and replies on it, you are shopping for a person.
If it is the posts, you have more and cheaper options than the lists suggest.
The jobs themselves, and who sells each one, are laid out in social media marketing services for small businesses.
The four kinds, compared
| Kind | Who does the work | What is in scope | Typical monthly cost | What stays with you | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | A team with an account manager | Strategy, posts, ads, replies, reporting, sometimes video and photo shoots | $1,500 and up, typical range | Approvals, brand decisions, the monthly call | A business with an ad budget and a launch calendar |
| Productized service (Feedbird, $99 Social, Socinova) | Their writers and designers, from your brief | A fixed number of posts a month; video on some tiers | $99 to $500, read September 13 and 16, 2026 | The brief, photos, approvals, everything outside the package | A business that wants human-made posts at a fixed price |
| Freelancer or small collective | One person, or two or three | Whatever the agreement says, usually posts plus some replies | $500 to $1,500, typical range | Briefing, media, approvals, covering their vacation | A business that wants one human it can call |
| Software from your website (Boomp Packs) | The software, from your site | Ten finished posts a month with images, by email link | $9 | Publishing them, and reading them first | A business that will post itself but never wants to write again |
| Software from your website (Boomp Core) | The software, from your site | Twenty posts, one carousel, one video, published to your channels | $39 | Approving each post in the app, about ten minutes a week | A business that wants it handled and will say yes to each post |
| Software with a person approving (Boomp done-for-you) | The software, with Boomp's founder approving | The same twenty posts, carousel and video, published | $275 | Nothing; you never open the app | A business that never wants to open the app |
Freelancer and agency figures are typical quoted ranges, not a survey.
Get three quotes in your own city before you trust any number on any page, including this one.
The productized services, by name and price
These are the companies a small business most often meets after searching for a social media marketing company, because they advertise a price and an agency rarely does.
Each price below carries the date it was read from the vendor's own pricing page.
Plan builders change often, so confirm before you buy.
Feedbird.
Read September 16, 2026.
Social media posts, $99 a month for ten posts.
Twenty and thirty post tiers are sold, price on vendor site.
Short-form video is a separate service, $149 a month for five videos.
The pricing page says most clients combine two to four services and spend $300 to $600 a month.
That combined figure is where the productized kind starts to meet the agency kind.
More on which part of Feedbird you wanted in the Feedbird alternative.
$99 Social.
Read September 13, 2026.
$99 a month for ten posts on one channel.
Each extra channel is $10 a month.
Larger post counts are sold, price on vendor site.
Billing is month to month, with at least seven days' notice to cancel.
More in the $99 Social alternative.
Socinova.
Read September 16, 2026.
Trial, $99 for twelve image posts.
Standard, $199 for twelve image posts plus two reels or videos.
Advanced, $349 for twenty image posts plus four reels.
Growth, $500 for thirty posts plus four reels.
Every plan comes with an account manager, a monthly content calendar, and the chance to approve or edit before publishing.
Advanced and Growth add a monthly strategy consultation and analytics.
Put side by side, the productized kind costs $99 for ten to twelve posts and $349 for twenty with video.
The writing comes from a brief you fill in, and that is the trade the next section is about.
Where the posts come from decides what they can say
Every kind of company on this page ends the blank page.
They start from different sources, and the source shows in the posts.
A team working from a brief knows what the brief says.
If it says "family dental practice, friendly, welcoming," the posts are friendly, welcoming and about family dentistry, and so are the posts for the next practice that filled in the same form.
The team can take a campaign, a sale or a hard week and write about it, which is the thing software cannot do.
A freelancer knows what you tell them on the call and what you send them.
The posts are as specific as your briefing and your photo folder.
When you are busy and the folder is empty, the posts get general.
An agency knows your business better than anyone above, because it is paid to.
Strategy calls, a content calendar, a brand document.
That knowledge is what the retainer buys, and it is worth it when you have ads to run and a launch to plan.
Software that reads your website knows what your website says.
Your services page, your about page, your FAQ, your service area.
Here is one Boomp wrote for a listing agent on the West Michigan lakeshore, a paying customer, shown without her name.
No brief produced that post.
The test to hold every company to, whatever kind, is the one that post passes: could it run for a competitor unchanged?
What each kind costs at the same post count
Companies sell at different sizes, so compare at one.
Ten posts a month is the floor most small businesses can hold, two or three a week.
Twenty is a weekday cadence.
At ten posts a month: Boomp Packs $9, Feedbird $99, $99 Social $99 on one channel, Socinova $99 for twelve.
At twenty posts a month: Boomp Core $39 with a carousel and a video, Socinova $349 with four reels, Feedbird and $99 Social at a price on the vendor site.
A freelancer at twenty posts usually quotes somewhere in the $500 to $1,500 range.
An agency rarely quotes by post at all, because the posts are a fraction of what it sells.
The gap between the software row and the productized rows is the cost of a human writing from a brief instead of software writing from your site.
Pay it when you need what only a human can do, a campaign, a sensitive announcement, a reply.
For the recurring posts, the software row is the cheaper one.
What stays with you, whoever you hire
No company, of any kind, should take these off your plate, and the good ones will say so.
Facts that expire.
Prices, hours, staff, the seasonal menu.
Whoever writes the post is working from something you gave them or something your website says, and both go stale.
Ask how they catch it.
Claims with rules around them.
Medical, legal and financial results.
Anything about who a home or a neighborhood is for, which is fair housing.
Before-and-after photos.
The person or software writing the post should flag these, and you should be the one who approves them.
Permissions.
A customer's face, a customer's name, a review quoted in full, a photo from a job site.
Get it in writing before it becomes a post.
Anything that commits you.
A reply that promises a refund, a quote in the comments, a date.
Agencies and freelancers who handle replies need a written line about what they may promise.
Software that only publishes posts never faces this.
Every kind of company on this page can be asked the same question on the first call: who reads each post before it publishes, and what would they catch?
The answer tells you more than the portfolio.
How to choose in one sitting
1. Write your list of jobs from the section above.
Circle ads, replies and strategy if you need them.
2. If anything is circled, you are hiring a person.
Get three quotes, one agency and two freelancers, at your budget.
The agency page has a short test for whether you need one at all.
3. If nothing is circled, you are buying posts.
Decide the cadence, ten or twenty a month, and compare the productized services and the software at that size.
4. Ask each one for a real month of work for a real customer, and read one post against the competitor test.
5. Take no contract past a month for the first quarter, whatever kind you choose.
The three doors at Boomp
Boomp is software.
It reads your website, writes posts about your business, and publishes the ones you approve, to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Google Business Profile and the other channels it supports, nine in all.
The price follows how much of the job you keep.
- Packs, $9 a month.
Ten finished posts with images by email link.
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.
- Done for you, $275 a month.
The same content.
Boomp's founder approves every post and you never open the app.
Not an agency: no ads, no replies, no photo shoots, no strategy calls.
No contract on any of the three.
Before any of them, the free door: ten finished posts made from your own website, with images, a carousel and a short video, before any email, account or card, so you can read the writing against your own site before you pay any company of any kind.
