What Is The Cost Of A Digital Marketing Consultant?

When we talk about the two most common ways digital marketing consultants price their work is through two different ways. The first one is price per project and the other one is a straightforward hourly billing. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages and it will completely depend on the individual client and their own goals. 

When you are starting, many agencies offer free digital marketing consultation. This gives you a chance to vet these consultants before you agree to work with them. 

Two Ways You Can Pay The Digital Marketing Consultancy Cost

Per Project Pricing

When we talk about per-project pricing, we will typically mean ongoing SEO efforts, pay-per-click campaigns, strategies, managing social media, and more. 

It does not matter if it is a one-time project or if it is even a sort of recurring monthly project, the utmost value will be accrued here on an individual project basis. This also makes sure you know beforehand what you hope to receive from your consultants. 

Hourly Pricing

When you pay on an hourly basis, you will have a lot more flexibility about how you utilize their time according to your needs. In almost all cases, and unless you happen to be a digital marketing genius, it will almost always make more sense to pay on a project basis. 

Digital Marketing Consultants: The Different Types

One thing you need to understand is that there are different sorts of consultants and they will all charge drastically different rates to your business. For example, a freelancer living in a city/country with a lower cost of living will typically charge a lot less than a large digital marketing agency in Sweden.

Freelance Consultant

These are people who have expertise in the digital marketing landscape and they offer their expertise on a contract basis. Often, these people will be working remotely and they will have clients of varying sizes. They will have small and moderately medium-sized businesses as their clients. Startups and individual business owners are also typical clients of freelance consultants. 

Probably the biggest attraction of hiring freelance consultants is both the flexibility and the individual attention they give to their clients. These clients can work directly with freelancers and can build strong working relationships by utilizing clear channels of communication. Freelancers are almost always able to provide much more competitive pricing. You can even get freelancers at a by-the-hour rate. 

One thing to note is that freelancers are typically limited in terms of both resources and also bandwidth. Since they are working by themselves, often they cannot handle larger projects or be able to provide 24/7 support. 

Small Agencies

These are small digital marketing entities that operate like boutique firms. These firms are typically made up of a small group of professionals. They all specialize in the different aspects of digital marketing. Small agencies normally serve their local businesses, local startups, and mid-sized companies that want to capitalize on their digital marketing efforts. 

These agencies are the middle point of getting to work with freelancers and they also tend to have the resources of larger agencies. 

The smaller agencies have often been found to have better hands-on support. They are also able to provide customized strategies that can help businesses be better able to meet the individual challenges that they have. The services offered by these agencies are much more than typical individual freelancers can offer. 

They are better able to cover areas of interest like web design, email marketing campaigns, and data analytics. When you get to work with proper consultants, you will find that they make strategies according to both the current state of your business and the goals your business has. 

Expect to pay anywhere from 800 USD to about 3000 USD per month.

Large Agencies

These are full-service firms who often have a global reach, a lot of extensive resources, and a varied clientele across many different industries. They will typically have specialists dealing with the different aspects of digital marketing. 

They will have experts for SEO, SEM, content creation, analyzing data, social media management, and a whole lot more. 

The biggest advantage of working with such larger companies is the fact that they can offer so much expertise across multiple channels used for digital marketing and multiple platforms. Clients are better served by their state-of-the-art technologies, insights into the industry, and the best set of practices these agencies know will serve your business. 

These agencies are also really good for both flexibility and scalability. They can handle complex campaigns and a wide array of projects all at the same time. 

There are some things you should be aware of if you want to work with the larger agencies though. It is probably obvious but it still needs to be mentioned here that larger agencies will typically cost a lot more. 

Some agencies require to have a minimum monthly budget of around 50k USD per month if you want to work with them. Also, since these are much larger enterprises, you will have a much harder time building strong relationships with them. 

Large agencies are normally best suited for businesses that are looking at scaling their digital marketing practices significantly. 

What Is The Right Amount For You?

The simple answer here is that the right answer will depend a lot on the type of business you are operating. It will also depend on what industry you are working in, what the individual goals of your business are, and where you stand currently in the digital landscape. 

One thing that we can state confidently is that no proper and “good” digital marketing consultant will charge you less than an hourly rate of 60 - 100 USD. 

They will also, typically, spend a bare minimum of about 10 hours on just your site each month. That means the lowest possible estimate you have for digital marketing consultation is around 600 USD at the barest minimum. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Does SEO Cost In A Month?

SEO costs around $1,500 to $50,000 per month depending on the project size and complexity. 

Which aspect of digital marketing is best?

Social media is easily one of the most important and effective tools that digital marketers have at their disposal. Some businesses only use social media marketing, that is how important social media is these days.