Charge what your work is worth — and how to scale to it.
Hour-based, project-based, retainer. Onboarding fees that protect your margin. The tool-stack ROI math. And the PlanMyGrid Agency tier as the operations layer that turns billable hours into systems.
No credit card. White-label included on Agency from day one.
Pricing models
Hour-based, project-based, retainer — when each one wins.
Hourly looks safe and scales worst. Project-based works for one-off campaigns but invites scope creep. Retainers compound — predictable revenue, predictable client cycle time, room to invest in systems. The agencies that scale past $30k MRR almost always sit on retainers with a clear scope-of-work and a separate line item for ad spend or production. Use hourly only for ad-hoc work outside the retainer.
- Hourly: $75–$200/hr — discovery, audits, ad-hoc strategy
- Project: $1,500–$15,000 fixed — launches, brand refreshes, single campaigns
- Retainer: $1,500–$15,000/mo — ongoing content + community + light strategy
- Performance: % of ad spend (10–20%) or % of revenue lift (rare, hard to measure)
Client onboarding
Charge a one-time onboarding fee. Always.
The first 30 days of any client are unprofitable: discovery calls, brand kit setup, channel access, brand voice doc, content pillar research, first content calendar built from scratch. Bake it into a one-time onboarding fee — typically 50%–100% of the first month's retainer. It filters out non-serious leads, signals professionalism, and stops you from eating your own margin during ramp-up.
- Discovery + audit + brand voice doc
- Workspace + brand kit + channel access setup
- First content calendar (30 days)
- Approval workflow + reviewer chain configured
- One-time fee: 50%–100% of first month retainer
Calculator
Don’t guess the rate. Calculate it.
We built a free agency Instagram pricing calculator that backs out a defensible monthly rate from your target margin, hours per client, and overhead. Input target salary, billable utilization, hours per deliverable, and tool stack cost. Output: a retainer floor you can confidently quote.
- Target margin and salary inputs
- Per-deliverable hour estimates
- Tool stack cost rolled in
- Retainer floor + recommended ladder (3 tiers)
Tool stack ROI
Operations spend buys you billable hours back.
A planner-and-approval tool that saves 4 hours per client per month, across 10 clients, at a $100 effective rate, returns $4,000/mo. PlanMyGrid Agency at $129/mo is roughly 1 hour of recovered time. Everything past that is margin. The math gets sharper as your client count grows — every brand workspace under one login means one less context switch tax per week.
- 1 approval round saved per client per month ≈ 1–2 hr recovered
- Multi-brand workspaces eliminate context-switch overhead
- Reply-by-email cuts reviewer drop-off (no login = no friction)
- Real-time collaboration removes “wait for the file” delays inside your team
PlanMyGrid as the operations layer
$129/mo. White-label. 20 brands. The whole agency lane.
Agency tier is built to be the operations layer behind your retainer. Custom share domain so the deliverable looks like yours. 20 brand workspaces under one login. Sequential reviewer chains your senior strategist actually trusts. Manager / editor / viewer roles for your team. Real-time collaborative editing so two people on the same campaign don’t stomp each other. Reply-by-email so the client never has to learn a new tool. And 30% recurring on every account you refer.
- $129/mo — every Agency feature unlocked
- $49/mo Studio for freelancers and small teams (5 brands)
- Free 14-day trial of Agency, no credit card
- 30% recurring referral, paid monthly for the lifetime of the account
Pricing model cheat sheet
When each model wins, what it typically charges, and where it bites you.
| Model | Best for | Typical rate | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | Discovery, audits, ad-hoc work | $75–$200/hr | Caps your ceiling, invites scope debate |
| Project | Launches, brand refreshes, single campaigns | $1,500–$15,000 fixed | Scope creep without strict SOW |
| Monthly retainer | Ongoing content + community | $1,500–$15,000/mo | Underpriced if you skip the onboarding fee |
| Performance | Ecom with clean attribution | 10–20% of ad spend | Hard to measure, harder to defend |
| Hybrid (retainer + perf) | Mature accounts at $5k+/mo | Base + bonus | Complex billing if client churns mid-cycle |
FAQ
- What’s a healthy retainer floor for a social media agency in 2026?
- $1,500/mo is the floor for a serious retainer that includes content production, community management, and light strategy. Below that, you’re either competing with freelancers on price or eating margin on systems you can’t afford to invest in. Most agencies that scale past $30k MRR sit at $3,000–$8,000/mo per client.
- Should I charge an onboarding fee?
- Yes. Always. 50%–100% of the first month’s retainer. It filters non-serious leads, covers your unprofitable first 30 days, and signals you’re a real shop. Clients who push back on it are usually the ones who push back on everything.
- How do I price clients with very different deliverable counts?
- Price the bundle, not the post. Build three retainer tiers (e.g. $1,500 / $3,000 / $6,000) with deliverable counts that scale, then quote a tier. Charging per-post commoditizes you and locks you into hourly thinking.
- Hourly or retainer for ad-hoc work?
- Hourly, billed in 15-minute increments, with a minimum block (e.g. 2 hours). Retainer clients who exceed their scope get billed at your hourly rate against a documented surplus — not eaten as goodwill.
- How much should I budget for tool stack as % of revenue?
- 5–10% of MRR is a reasonable bound for the operations stack (planner, approval, scheduler, comms, project mgmt). PlanMyGrid Agency at $129/mo replaces a chunk of that — multi-brand planner, approval, scheduler, real-time collab, and white-label all in one.
- Where does the agency Instagram pricing calculator live?
- At /calculators/agency-instagram-pricing-calculator. Input target margin, hours per client, and overhead — it returns a defensible retainer floor and recommended tier ladder.
- Can I resell PlanMyGrid as part of my agency offering?
- Yes. Agency tier is white-label end-to-end — custom share domain, branded sender, branded emails, no Powered-by. Many agencies bundle the platform into their retainer at a markup and pocket the spread on top of the 30% recurring referral if they prefer that route.
Quote with confidence. Operate with margin.
Open the calculator. Then try the operations layer that buys back the hours you just calculated.