The Real Cost of Hiring In-House for Social Media Management…
The YOU Factor Edit:
THE ALGORITHM CAN’T REPLICATE WHAT ONLY YOU CAN BRING
As you're mapping out your 2026 hiring plans and finalizing your marketing budget, it's important to consider the overhead that can come with hiring an in-house marketing employee rather than hiring an agency.
The costs you may not be thinking about…
Training - Even if you're hiring someone with experience, they are going to need training to onboard into your systems, and they will need ongoing access to trainings to continue developing their expertise and stay relevant. Avg. cost: $2K-$5K up front, $2K-5K yearly.
Payroll (salary, annual salary increases, taxes) - This cost is the largest. Avg. cost: $95K-$120K yearly for a highly experienced Marketing Manager.
Benefits (Health insurance, PTO, 401K) - If you want to hire and retain your employees long term, you can expect an avg. cost of: $10K-$15K yearly.
Management - Whether you are managing the employee or someone on your team is, their time, energy, creativity and capacity also costs $. Avg cost: $12K-$30K yearly.
Fill-in costs - When your employees utilize their PTO and sick days, you will likely have some tasks/responsibilities that need to be managed in the interim. Avg. cost: $9K yearly + lost productivity.
Tools/office space - Between the costs of different marketing systems, tools such as a laptop, and office space provided to the employee…Avg. cost: $5K-$11K yearly.
A jack of all trades is a master of none - When you hire someone to manage EVERYTHING when it comes to marketing - Email marketing, paid advertising, funnels, social media marketing, print marketing, event marketing, text marketing, broadcast marketing, and everything in between…their energy is spread across multiple projects/areas which may affect their performance. This too, costs your brand $.
TOTAL PROJECTED COSTS: $133K-$190K/year
When you hire our Social Media Marketing Agency for $1,999-$3,499/month, all of the above is included. The difference in cost is STARK. Even if you were to hire multiple agencies with different areas of expertise for your marketing, you'd still save THOUSANDS of dollars.