Pricing
Most agencies hide the number until they have you on a call. We don't. Here's what digital marketing really costs in 2026 — and exactly how Spec prices it.
No mystery pricing — you see the number and the plan up front, scoped to the channels your business actually needs.
The terms
Public sources · checked July 23, 2026
Agency pricing is not comparable until scope, period, media, production, software, team, and ownership are normalized. These dated public figures show the width of the market without pretending that unlike engagements belong in one average.
$25–$49/hour overall; $100–$149/hour for listed SEO, PPC, social, content, and email specialties; reviewed projects commonly $10,000–$49,999
Clutch says the guide is based on pricing data from 106,043 digital marketing companies. Hourly and project figures are not interchangeable with a monthly retainer.
Visible listings include $1,000–$10,000+ minimum projects and disclosed hourly bands from $25–$199
A July 23, 2026 directory snapshot. Listings include agencies located in and serving Los Angeles, with materially different team sizes and service mixes.
Websites from $750 once; social from $1,500/month; SEO from $800/month; photography from $250/shoot; custom software from $5,000
Agency-published starting prices for a Glendale studio focused primarily on Los Angeles food businesses. These are separate service prices, not one integrated scope.
$5,000–$10,000/month for a focused 90-day SEO engagement; integrated SEO, paid, content, and reporting from about $12,000/month
Agency-published Los Angeles pricing. The page positions the integrated retainer for a broader and more complex scope than a single-channel package.
Spec Social
Integrated retainers from $2,500/month
Spec's current starting price. Media, third-party software, unusual production, and one-time project costs are separated in the written scope.
Snapshot, not a recommendation or rate guarantee. Source pages can change after the observation date. Request a written scope and separate agency fees, media, software, production, internal labor, and one-time work before comparing totals.
Retainers start at $2,500 a month. The exact number depends on which channels you run — you see the full price and plan up front, before any work starts. You're month to month.
No. Spec separates the management fee from the money paid to Google, Meta, and other platforms. Some providers bundle media into one invoice, so every proposal should state the actual media allocation, markup, payment path, account owner, and what happens when the engagement ends.
Because the alternative is making you book a call just to learn whether you can afford us. We'd rather you know where you stand up front. If $2,500 a month is out of range today, that's useful for both of us to know now.
Spec scopes the channels, owner, deliverables, dependencies, reporting, media, software, production, and one-time work before the engagement starts. The management retainer begins at $2,500 a month and stays separate from media and third-party costs so the fully loaded investment can be measured.
Calculate the customer and qualified-lead economics your budget must produce, or book a call and we'll scope the number to your business.