How much does a marketing agency cost per month for a small business?
Short answer
Agencies price their work as a flat retainer, a one-off project fee, or a percentage of what you spend on ads, and a flat monthly price for defined work is the easiest one to budget against. Instead of picking a percentage out of the air, start from what a new customer is worth to you and how many you need each month. Forward Dawn charges $297 to $997 a month, in three plans, with no ad spend included.
Reviewed
How do agencies usually price: retainer, project, or percentage?
All three, and each fits a different kind of work. A retainer is a flat monthly fee for ongoing work. A project fee is a one-time price for something with a clear end, like a website build or a rebrand. A percentage, usually a cut of your ad spend, only makes sense when the agency is managing paid ads. For SEO or content there’s no spend number to take a cut of.
How much should a small business budget for marketing each month?
There’s no honest single percentage to hand you. Start from what a new customer is worth to you over the time they stay, decide how many new ones you need this month, and work backward to a number you can justify. A business with a $3,000 average job and one with a $40 average ticket shouldn’t budget the same way.
What can I realistically do myself?
Quite a lot, early on. Keeping your Google Business Profile current, texting back a missed call, asking a happy customer for a review right after the job: none of that requires an agency. What gets harder to do yourself is anything ongoing that needs consistency over months, like a real SEO cycle, a content calendar you stick to, or follow-up that fires without you remembering it.
What is not included in an agency fee?
Ad spend, almost always; the fee covers managing the ads, not buying them. Also anything scoped as its own project: a full rebrand, a custom integration, a one-off campaign. And time: even a good agency needs weeks to build momentum on things like search rankings, so a low fee in month one buys less than the same fee in month six.
What does Forward Dawn charge, and what is in each plan?
Living Website is $297 a month, AI Front Desk $497 and Growth Engine $997, with a $749 one-time setup that’s waived if you go annual. The pricing page lists what’s in each. We don’t run paid ads, so nothing is priced as a cut of ad spend: every plan is a flat monthly fee for work written down before you pay for it.
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