What marketing costs in the UK: a price guide for small businesses

Our fixed-price projects start at £2,500. Most land between £2,500 and £8,000, websites run from £3,500 to £15,000, and every service has a named starter package with a fixed price. This guide puts all of it in one place, with what each includes and what drives the cost.

It also covers what the alternatives cost, including hiring someone in-house, using official salary figures rather than guesses; the ways marketing is priced; the costs that are easy to forget; and how to compare any quote you are given, ours or anyone else's. Where we have written a fuller guide to one kind of cost, it is linked.

Every service, and what it costs

We also take on fractional and part-time marketing lead work, where we lead your marketing for a set number of days a month; that is quoted after a call. Social media management is not something we offer, but we can introduce you to a partner agency, and our guide to choosing a social media agency covers what to look for.

Below, each service in a little more detail: what the starter package includes, and what moves the price within the band.

Strategy

The 90-day marketing plan covers where your marketing money goes now and what it earns, your customers and the competitors worth watching, a budget split channel by channel, a ninety-day plan with the jobs in order, and the two or three numbers to judge it by. The price rises within the band with the number of channels, products or markets to plan for, and how much data has to be untangled first. See do you actually need a digital marketing strategy?

SEO

The SEO audit and first fixes covers a technical audit and the fixes that matter most, the searches worth going after and the pages that should answer them, improvements to your most important existing pages, and your Google Business Profile. The price rises with the size and state of the site. Ongoing work on content and links is optional, month to month. Full detail: how much does SEO cost?

Paid ads

The Google Ads launch builds and launches an account properly, followed by 30 days of changes as the first data comes in. Ad spend is paid to the platform and is separate from our fee. Full detail, including how Google bills a budget and its 2% UK surcharge: how much do Google Ads cost?

Websites

Full sites run from £3,500 to £15,000, depending mostly on the number of pages, what the site has to do, and whether a developer is needed. The landing page sprint builds one page around the next step you want visitors to take, with two versions of the key section tested. Full detail, including the three-year cost of owning a site: how much does a website cost?

AI search visibility

The AI visibility audit looks at how ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini answer when someone asks for a business like yours, the competitors they name instead of you and why, and what they get wrong or cannot find about you, then gives a prioritised fix list, in about a week. A longer programme starts at £15,000.

Content

The content plan and first briefs sets out what to publish, for whom and in what order, with the first pieces briefed. The price rises with the number of topics and formats. See content strategy on a small team.

Brand and messaging

The messaging sprint produces the sentence that explains what you do, the points that prove it and the words to use everywhere, including a working session with you. See can you explain what you do in one sentence?

Analytics

The GA4 and tracking fix makes sure your enquiries and sales are recorded properly, so every other decision rests on real numbers. See the only five GA4 reports you need.

The four ways marketing is priced

None is wrong, but the wrong one for the job costs money. A common mistake is a monthly retainer sold before there is anything to run. We explain the differences in more depth in what a fixed-price project includes and how much a marketing consultant costs.

What the in-house alternative costs

For many businesses, the real comparison is between buying help and hiring someone. Here the figures are official. The Office for National Statistics' Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings gives these median gross salaries for full-time employees in the UK in 2025 (provisional figures):

The employer's cost is higher than the salary. Employers pay National Insurance at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year and a workplace pension contribution of at least 3% on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270. For a marketing manager on the median salary, that comes to about £62,329 a year before recruitment, equipment, software and management time. Eligible employers can reduce their National Insurance through the Employment Allowance, worth up to £10,500 a year.

An employee is usually the right answer when there is enough day-to-day marketing to fill a job. Outside help is usually the better answer for a specific piece of work, or for senior judgement a few days a month. We compare every option, from agency to in-house hire, in agency, consultant, freelancer or fractional?

The costs people forget

Whoever you hire, these are the costs that tend to be missing from the first quote:

• Platform spend. Money paid to Google, Meta and others for ads, separate from any fee for managing them.
• Words and pictures. Copywriting, photography and video, which some quotes assume you will supply.
• Software. Email platforms, scheduling tools, website plugins, analytics add-ons, consent tools. Small monthly fees that add up.
• Hosting and domains, for websites.
• Changes. How many rounds of revisions are included, and what happens after that.
• Implementation. Whether a plan or audit includes making the changes, or only recommending them.
• Your own time. Approvals, meetings, supplying information, and answering the enquiries that result.

What a year might look like: three examples

Individual prices only go so far. It helps to see how services combine over a year. These are illustrations built from our own published starter packages, to show the shape of a spend rather than to recommend one; the right mix depends on your business.

Getting the foundations right: £7,500. A 90-day marketing plan (£2,500) to decide where to spend, a GA4 and tracking fix (£2,500) so results can be measured, and an SEO audit and first fixes (£2,500) so people searching can find you. Most of the ongoing work afterwards can be done in-house.

Getting enquiries quickly: £6,000, plus ad spend. A landing page sprint (£3,500) to give ad clicks somewhere that converts, and a Google Ads launch (£2,500) with 30 days of changes. Ad spend is paid to Google on top, and is yours to set from your own numbers.

Being clear about what you do: £5,500. A messaging sprint (£3,000) to agree what you say and how, followed by a content plan and first briefs (£2,500) so the message reaches the people looking for it.

Each of these is a set of fixed prices, known before anything starts. None needs a retainer afterwards, though ongoing work is available if it is worth it.

When not to spend on outside help

Buying marketing help is not always the right move, and it is worth saying so.

• If you are at capacity, more enquiries will not help. Spend on delivery first.
• If the foundations are free and undone, such as a Google Business Profile that is incomplete or no system for asking customers for reviews, do those first. They cost time, not money.
• If you cannot say what a customer is worth, work that out before buying anything, because it is the number every other decision rests on.
• If the problem is the offer or the price, marketing will spread the word about something people do not want at that price. Fix that first.

How to decide how much to spend

We do not think there is a good percentage to copy. The most quoted figure, Gartner's 7.7% of revenue, comes from a survey of mostly very large companies, and the "7 to 8%" often attributed to the US Small Business Administration does not appear in its own marketing guide. A better method works from your own numbers: how many customers you need, what each is worth in profit, and what you can afford to pay to win one. We set it out step by step in how much should a small business spend on marketing?

How to compare quotes

Two quotes for "marketing" can differ by thousands of pounds and both be fair, because they are rarely for the same thing. Line them up on these points before comparing the price. The ticks are saved in this browser.

• Every deliverable is something I could point to when the work is finished.
• I know what is excluded, not just what is included.
• Platform spend, software and other third-party costs are shown separately from the fee.
• There are dates, and I know what is needed from me to hit them.
• I know who will actually do the work.
• Any accounts, websites and content will be owned by my business.
• Any ongoing or monthly work afterwards is optional, or the terms are short and clear.
• I know how success will be measured, and when.
• If it is a percentage of spend, I understand why that is the right model.

Once they line up, compare the price. Where they do not, the difference in price is usually the difference in what you are getting. For questions to ask any supplier, see how do I know if my marketing agency is doing a good job?

If you would like a straight answer on what your marketing should cost, ask for a free 30-minute call. You get a written plan with the scope, the fixed price and the dates within two working days.