Digital Marketing Agency Pricing Guide 2024

Digital marketing pricing varies depending on the services being provided, the location of the service provider, and your target audience. Learn more about how digital marketing companies price their services and what factors will impact your digital marketing budget the most.

People spend hours online every day; many immediately turn to the internet when they have a question, others search online when they need to make a purchase, and even more keep in touch with friends and family through email and social media.

This creates a great opportunity for businesses looking to connect with their target audience. As consumers spend so much time online, digital marketing has become one of the best ways for businesses to promote their products or services.

Whether you’re hoping to increase website traffic, build your brand, connect with customers, or increase sales, a digital marketing agency can help. Their specialists can help determine the best way to reach your audience and create a digital marketing strategy that will meet your business goals.

This digital marketing pricing guide will provide deeper insight into how much it costs to hire a digital marketing agency as well as the digital agency costs associated with different services. 

As illustrated in the chart above, there is a wide price band for hiring a digital marketing company. This is because the cost of digital marketing largely depends on the services being provided as well as the duration of the project.

Unlike other B2B industries that operate on a project-to-project basis, digital marketing projects are often ongoing. To effectively build their online presence, companies need to consistently be sharing content, building thought leadership in their industry, and growing brand recognition. As a result, digital marketing partnerships are often continuing as well and don’t have a specific end date.

Because of this, comparing hourly rates is a more accurate way to measure the cost of working with a digital marketing agency.

What is the Real Cost of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency?

The average cost of hiring a digital marketing agency on Clutch ranges between $25–$49 per hour. 

One of the best reasons to hire a digital marketing agency is because they create a bespoke digital marketing strategy based on your business goals and needs, whether you’re a small business or larger e-commerce enterprise. Digital marketing incorporates several different brand-building and advertising strategies, including social media management, content creation, and graphic design, and determining how to leverage each one depends on your audience, competitors, and industry.

Particularly if your business is new to digital marketing, digital marketing agencies can guide you through the process of identifying which digital marketing strategies will be most effective.

Whether you want to build more brand recognition, increase traffic, or grow sales, a combination of SEO, PPC ads, content marketing, email marketing, or social media marketing can help you meet your goals. Be upfront about what your team is looking for in a digital marketing service.

Digital Marketing Services & Agency Hourly Rates

Digital marketing is a broad term and refers to the use of several different digital efforts, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, and social media marketing (SMM).

Of course, many companies use multiple — if not all of these digital marketing strategies — to appeal to different audiences, retarget customers, and expand brand awareness. However, how a digital marketing agency charges may change depending on the service they’re providing.

Whether you want to employ just one or many digital marketing strategies, a digital marketing agency can help. This table breaks down what each digital marketing service entails as well as what a digital marketing company is likely to charge for their services.

Note: Price ranges above are in U.S. dollars

Digital Marketing Fees Don’t Include Ad Costs; Budget Accordingly

Advertising costs for services such as social media or PPC advertising are not included in agency fees and need to be budgeted for separately.

In addition to creating a budget for hiring a digital marketing agency, companies looking to use digital ads as part of their marketing strategy also need to determine how much they’re willing to spend to place an ad, depending on the platform and the pricing model being used.

Ad costs vary depending on the location, audience, industry, and length of campaign. Regardless, these are an additional expense that need to be budgeted for when crafting marketing campaigns.

Between agency fees and ad costs, the total cost of digital advertising is likely to be more expensive than other digital marketing services, such as SEO and content marketing.

This may be a factor when determining which digital marketing services to employ. Still, digital ads are a great way to reach target audiences and increase clicks quickly. Be sure to consider your business goals and communicate your budget with your digital marketing service provider as your project begins.

What Impacts the Cost of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency?

• Digital marketing services
• Agency size
• Years of experience
• Agency location 

While the scope of the project and the services being provided are the most important factor in determining project cost, there are other elements that can impact how much a digital marketing agency will charge for their services.

Large, well-known, and world-renowned digital marketing agencies are likely to charge more for their services because they have more demand. They have large portfolios and have proven their ability to deliver results, which means that large enterprises trust them and will pay more to work with them. A digital marketing freelancer or strategist will likely charge less or just focus on a monthly retainer because their work is likely done on a smaller scale. This might be a more cost-effective solution for business owners that are only looking at project-based work for their marketing channels.

Another important factor when hiring a digital marketing agency is where they are located. Like many other B2B industries, rates will increase in areas where labor costs are high. Often, company leaders looking to save money on their digital marketing efforts by working with offshore digital marketing agencies.

Digital Ad Costs Vary, Here’s Why

As discussed above, digital advertising is an additional expense that companies need to budget for. However, ad costs can range widely depending on the target audience, industry, location, and ad channel. Once companies have determined which digital channels will effectively target their audience, they will be able to create an accurate budget for their digital ad campaign.

Target Audience 

Many digital platforms allow companies to target audiences based on demographic information, user interests, and behavioral data. It costs more to advertise to certain demographics because of their likelihood to make a purchase for deliverables. Additionally, it costs more to advertise to broader audiences because you will reach more people and see more conversions.

Industry

Some industries are more competitive than others, making bidding prices more expensive. Particularly for B2B companies, a PPC campaign can be costly because the cost-per-click for relevant keywords are higher than the average. Other industries are notoriously expansive, too — keywords related to software have an average cost per click of $3.80, compared to the average of $2.32. Be sure to do some keyword research to understand the CPC for keywords in your industry and budget accordingly.

Location

More densely populated areas have higher digital ad costs because the ad will reach a broader audience. Therefore, it’s more expensive to advertise in large markets like New York City or Chicago, but smaller regions like Milwaukee or Montpelier may be more affordable. Still, it’s more important for companies to target people who are more likely to make a purchase. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, be sure to advertise to local audiences. 

Ad Platform

Each digital platform uses different pricing structures for ads, making it difficult to get an accurate estimate of how much it will cost to run an ad campaign. While some platforms, like Google Ads, charge per click (CPC), charge based on the number of impressions (CPM) an ad has.

Some marketing channels, like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, allow users to choose between paying based on CPM or CPC. Choosing which one is right for your project depends on your online marketing campaign goals and your audience. Remember that each could impact your overall project cost.

Read more about the cost of Advertising in Clutch’s in-depth ‘Advertising Agency Pricing Guide.’

Digital Marketing is Affordable, But Agency Prices Range Depending on Your Needs

Digital marketing is a collection of several marketing and advertising strategies. As such, how much you should invest in digital marketing depends on your business goals and the scope of your project. 

While a digital marketing agency’s hourly rates may not change much depending on the services they’re providing, the total cost of the project will thanks to varying ad costs. Digital marketing agency prices are more likely to be impacted by the location of the agency, their team size, and their experience.

With experience building custom digital marketing strategies to generate leads, increase traffic, produce quality content for target audiences, and grow brand awareness, these agencies can help your business meet your marketing goals.