What does social media management cost?
The difference between the cheap monthly retainer and the expensive one.
Prices vary wildly because "social media management" does not describe anything specific.
Ask about volume and type
- How many posts per month?
- Original designs or templates?
- Is the copy written or copied?
- Are replies included?
- Is there a monthly report with numbers?
Sensible ranges
- Basic — 8 to 10 posts with designs, without replies or campaign management.
- Full service — content, customer replies and campaign management; ad spend is always separate from the fee.
Ad budget is separate from the management fee. If a quote claims to include ads, ask how much actually reaches the platform.
What is worth paying for
Original design and copy that sounds like your customers. Templates make your page look like a thousand others.
Build a budget that survives the real project
A useful budget separates the build from the operating cost. The build covers discovery, design, development, testing and launch. Operating cost covers hosting, paid services, maintenance, content and advertising. Mixing them into one number makes a cheap first quote look better than it really is.
Compare quotations using the same scope and insist that every price is written in Egyptian pounds. Ask whether VAT, third-party subscriptions, support, content entry and post-launch changes are included. For services invoiced from abroad, record the actual Egyptian-pound charge shown by the bank on the payment date instead of promising a fixed conversion.
- Write the exact pages, screens, integrations and revision rounds.
- Separate one-time delivery from monthly and annual costs.
- Keep a 10–15% contingency for approved scope changes, not unclear requirements.
- Tie payments to visible milestones and a written acceptance checklist.
A topic-specific field checklist
- Separate content production, community management, ad management and media spend; they are different services.
- A basic monthly content package and a fuller service with replies and campaign management are priced differently, and ad spend sits outside both.
- Approve a content calendar and response policy before the month starts.
- Report qualified enquiries and sales contribution, not reach alone.
Details most proposals miss
A price becomes meaningful only when it is connected to deliverables and operating assumptions. The useful comparison is not “how much?” but “what business capability exists on launch day, what evidence proves it works, and what will it cost to keep reliable?”
- A scope matrix that ties every screen and integration to an owner and acceptance test.
- Three cost columns: build, recurring operation and optional growth work.
- A dependency list for content, licences, payment providers, hosting and client approvals.
- A change-control rule that prices only genuinely new scope.
- A handover pack covering accounts, source files, backups and support contacts.
The TechMate implementation layer
In a TechMate scope, the useful difference is the operational layer around the deliverable. The client sees where the money goes and receives a product that can be measured, maintained and handed to another qualified team if needed.
- Arabic and English scope reviewed separately, including RTL behaviour.
- Mobile acceptance on real screen sizes, not a desktop preview resized by eye.
- Analytics events agreed before development instead of added after launch.
- Egyptian integrations and invoice requirements treated as core scope.
- A launch checklist with evidence for forms, payments, speed, access and recovery.
Delivery phases that reduce risk
A sensible commercial plan releases money when uncertainty falls. This protects both sides and keeps early discovery from being confused with finished production.
- Discovery: confirm users, goals, constraints and existing assets.
- Specification: approve scope, exclusions, dependencies and acceptance evidence.
- Prototype: validate risky journeys before full production.
- Delivery: test complete scenarios with real content and accounts.
- Operation: monitor, support and price later improvements from actual usage.
Questions that reveal implementation quality
- Which line items disappear if the scope is reduced?
- Which recurring costs are controlled by third parties?
- What evidence releases each payment milestone?
- Who owns every account and editable source file?
- How are defects separated from new change requests?
A realistic scenario
Example: twelve posts may produce reach but no usable enquiries. A stronger scope links themes to offers, creates response templates, tags message sources and reports which content generated qualified conversations and sales follow-up.
Important: The figures shown are starting estimates in Egyptian pounds, not a fixed quotation. Scope, taxes and third-party services determine the final price.
Sources directly related to this guide
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