Free agency calculator
Agency Instagram Pricing Calculator
Plug in your client brands, posts per month, hourly rate, and tool stack — get a cost-plus retainer, monthly billable hours, and annual revenue at this scale. Tweak the inputs to see what a fifth client (or a tighter margin) actually does to your numbers.
Defaults reflect a typical 5-brand boutique agency. Adjust to match your situation.
Inputs
All values update the math on the right in real time.
Count carousels, single posts, and Reels. Stories don't count here.
Default 3.5h = ~2h research/strategy + 1h creative + 0.5h scheduling/approval.
Scheduler, design tool, AI copy, analytics, etc.
Cost-plus pricing: retainer = cost ÷ (1 − margin).
Outputs
Cost-plus pricing math, rounded to the nearest dollar.
Hours per month
210hrs
60 posts × 3.5 hrs each
Suggested retainer per client (monthly)
$4,551
Cost-plus with a 30% margin, tools allocated across 5 brands.
Monthly revenue
$22,757
Annual revenue
$273,086
Where PlanMyGrid Agency tier saves you
Approval automation + scheduling + share-link prep saves roughly 0.5h per post. At your inputs:
How the math works
This is straightforward cost-plus pricing — the same model most accountants will recommend if you ask them how to price recurring services. Three numbers feed the retainer:
- Labor cost: posts per month × hours per post × hourly rate, divided across your brands.
- Tool cost: total tool stack ÷ number of brands. (If your tools scale per-brand, this approximation gets pessimistic — most don't.)
- Margin target: retainer = total cost ÷ (1 − margin). A 30% margin means the retainer is roughly 1.43× cost.
The default hours-per-post (3.5h) is conservative for full-service work. If you're doing copy-only or schedule-only, drop it to 1.5–2h. If your team also handles shooting/editing, push it to 5–6h.
The PlanMyGrid Agency savings line is based on the per-post coordination time we've measured replacing — share-link generation, reminder follow-ups, scheduler handoff, audit-log capture. The 0.5h/post number is conservative; agencies running 8+ brands often report higher.
Want the templates this calculator references?
Two free downloads: the 5-stage approval workflow PDF, and the multi-brand calendar template (Sheets + Notion).