Social media marketing packages for small business

Social media marketing packages for a small business are fixed monthly bundles: a number of posts, a number of networks, scheduling, sometimes replies and a report, sold in three tiers. Prices run from about €200 a month for a batch of template posts to €1,500 and up for an agency retainer. Open five package pages and the grids look alike, because they are built the same way: on what each line costs the seller to produce. Six patterns in that construction work against a business of one to five people. Here they are, with the mechanism behind each and the question that corrects it.

What does a social media marketing package include?

The standard grid has three columns. The first buys eight to twelve posts a month on two networks, scheduled, with a monthly report. The second adds a network, a few more posts and community management "up to a set number of comments." The third adds a strategy call, "all platforms" and priority support. Images usually appear in a footnote as "client to provide." A setup fee and a three-month minimum sit under the grid.

What every column leaves out is the one thing you are buying: a presence that stays steady, in your words, on the networks your customers check. The six patterns below are where the grid and that presence come apart.

Six patterns in how packages are built

1. Tiers that climb by post count alone

The symptom. The three columns carry the same bullets and a different number: 8, 12, 20. The names change, Starter, Growth, Pro. Nothing else does.

The mechanism. A seller's cost is hours per post. The count is the only dial that maps cleanly onto that cost, so it becomes the only dial in the grid. Nothing about your trade, your season or your review time enters the tiering. The top tier is the bottom tier multiplied.

Instead. Volume is not the problem. A week of posts that are close to right takes twenty minutes to approve; a week that misses your wording takes an evening to rewrite, and running social media as a small business survives on the first and dies on the second. Size the tier on the fit, not the count. Ask what changes between tiers besides the number. If the answer is "more," you are reading one package priced three times.

2. Networks sold as a surcharge

The symptom. "Two platforms included. Additional platform: €90 a month." The step up to the next tier is often nothing more than a third network.

The mechanism. For a human writer, each network is a rewrite, about thirty minutes per platform, so the grid bills it. But adapting one message to a network's length, tone and image ratio is the most mechanical step in the chain: inside a system that produces posts, it is the step that costs least to do well and the first to become automatic. The expensive step, finding something worth saying from what your business did this week, has no line in any grid. The surcharge bills you most for the step that costs least to do well.

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The surcharge bills you most for the step that costs least to do well.

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Instead. Set the network count by where your customers look before they buy, not by budget. Then ask that the price cover one message adapted to each of those networks as separate versions, not one post copied across all of them. If a network costs extra, you are funding the seller's adaptation time.

3. The padded column

The symptom. Five bullets per tier, of which three are not deliverables: hashtag research, trend monitoring, competitor analysis, brand consistency, monthly analytics.

The mechanism. A grid needs to look full. These lines cost the seller nothing to add because nothing in your feed can prove they happened. They sit in every column, and in every competitor's grid.

Instead. Strike every bullet you cannot verify by opening your own account. What remains is the package: posts, images, networks, replies, a delivery rhythm. Price that. The eleven terms a management proposal is written in each mean something specific at your size. The padded bullets mean nothing at any size.

4. The highlighted middle

The symptom. The middle column is shaded and labelled "Most popular." It costs roughly double the first tier and half the third.

The mechanism. The middle tier is the sale the seller wants. The third column exists to make it look reasonable; the first exists to look insufficient. None of the three was sized on a business with €50,000 to €300,000 a year in revenue and modest margins. They were sized on each other.

Instead. Read the grid from the bottom and ask one question of the first tier: does it produce a steady weekly presence? If it does, that is the package, and the rest is upsell. If it does not, the seller has put their minimum viable service in the middle and is charging you for the frame. Which of the four kinds of company is behind the grid tells you how much of that middle price is coordination.

5. Monthly price, batch delivery

The symptom. "Twelve posts per month," delivered as one document on the first, approved by the third, scheduled evenly across the month.

The mechanism. Batching is the seller's efficiency: one writing session per client per month. Every post then publishes two to five weeks after it was written. Nothing that happens inside the month can enter the feed: the early delivery, the price change, the special that sold out. Your feed becomes a record of what was true on the first.

Instead. Ask for the delivery rhythm, not the count. Weekly is the minimum for a presence that can react; a package that cannot turn this morning's news into a post has fixed the lag into its price. A restaurant that changes its menu weekly should not accept slower, and our guides for restaurants start from that rhythm.

6. Images supplied by the client

The symptom. Under every column, in smaller type: "Client to provide photos and brand assets."

The mechanism. For a human seller, the image is the most expensive line: a shoot, an edit, a licence. So it is excluded, and the package now depends on the single input you never have time to produce. The calendar stalls on the photo. The post slips. The month's count is billed anyway.

Instead. Count the posts in the package that can exist without a new photo from you. If the answer is none, you are buying a caption service. Ask what happens to a post when the photo does not arrive, then compare that with a system that generates the visual in line with your brand from what already exists on your site.

How to choose a social media marketing package

Rewrite the grid in your own units before you compare prices. Per week, not per month: how many posts reach the feed, on which networks, written how many days before they publish, with which images, and who answers the comments. Most grids collapse into one line once you do that, and one line is easy to price against your margin.

Whether to outsource at all, and which half, is the question that comes before any package. If the answer is the weekly production, the shape that fits one to five people is not a tier. It is a week, generated from your own website, adapted to each network, images included, that you review in one sitting.