Ask “what does marketing cost per month?” and you'll get answers from $29 to $20,000 — and all of them are real. The confusion isn't the prices; it's that each tier buys a fundamentally different thing. Here is the ladder, rung by rung, with current 2026 pricing and an honest account of what you get — and what you're still expected to do yourself — at each level.
The tier ladder
| Tier | Monthly cost | What it is | Who does the work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single DIY tool | $29–$249 | One channel's software | You |
| DIY platform / stack | $200–$890+ | Multi-channel software | Still you |
| Content subscription | $195–$3,000 | One channel done for you | Their writers; you do the rest |
| Automated department | ~$2,900 flat | All channels done for you | AI produces, human approves |
| Agency retainer | $3,500–$5,000 | Multi-channel human team | The agency |
| Fractional CMO / talent | $5,000–$20,000 | Senior human leadership | Strategy them, production you |
$29–$249: a single tool
AdCreative.ai starts at $29, Copy.ai at $36, Jasper at $49–$69, Hootsuite at $99–$249. Each is genuinely good at one job — ad variations, copy drafts, social scheduling. What you're buying is capability, not output: nothing happens unless you sit down and operate it every week.
$200–$890+: a platform or a stack
HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional runs about $890/mo (plus roughly $3,000 onboarding); Sprout Social is $199–$399 per user. Or you assemble a stack: Jasper + Hootsuite + AdCreative + an email tool lands in the $200–$400 range. Either way the software is capable and the labor is still 100% yours — realistically 10–20 hours a week to keep every channel fed.
$195–$3,000: content subscriptions
The first true done-for-you rung, but for one channel. BKA Content runs $195–$960/mo, ContentFly $375–$3,000/mo, and Content Cucumber $599–$2,400/mo — its top “Hand Off” tier is $2,400/mo for written content only. Worth it if writing is your only gap; expensive if you then still need social, email, SEO, and reporting handled elsewhere.
~$2,900: a flat automated department
The whole department — content, SEO, social, email, revenue, analytics, creative, plus a monthly human-reviewed report — run by software on a schedule with a human approving everything outbound. At about $2,900/mo flat it costs $500 more than one writing-only subscription's top tier and sits below the floor of a typical agency retainer. The trade-off: you're trusting a system plus your own approvals instead of a human team.
$3,500–$5,000: an agency retainer
Full multi-channel agency programs typically start around $3,500/mo, and only about 2% of agencies charge over $5,000 — so this band is what “hiring an agency” really costs a small business. You get humans across channels and an account manager; watch for slow onboarding and junior staff on the daily work.
$5,000–$20,000: fractional CMO or vetted talent
A fractional CMO runs $5,000–$20,000/mo (commonly $10–12k) for part-time senior leadership — strategy, not production. MarketerHire's tiers are $5,000/$10,000/$15,000 for a matched freelance specialist. The top of the ladder buys judgment and seniority; you still fund the hands separately.
Watch the multipliers
Sticker prices on the lower rungs are usually starting prices, and three multipliers do the damage. Per-user pricing: Sprout Social's $199–$399 is per user — a three-person team on the middle tier is already $897/mo. Per-location pricing: Birdeye's $299–$449 is per location, so a business with three storefronts triples the bill. Onboarding fees: HubSpot's Professional tier adds about $3,000 up front before the $890/mo starts. None of this is dishonest — it's all published — but it means a “$400/mo stack” on paper often clears $1,000/mo in practice, plus the 10–20 hours a week of your own labor that no tier of software removes.
Run a quick sanity check on your own plan: a typical DIY stack of Jasper ($69), Hootsuite ($99), AdCreative.ai ($29), and Copy.ai ($36) is $233/mo — cheap until you price your hours. Add a $599 content subscription to take writing off your plate and you're at $832/mo with social, email, and reporting still yours to run.
Picking your rung
The rule of thumb: pay for tools if you have time, pay for a department if you don't, and pay for seniority only when direction — not output — is what's missing. Before you decide, run your own numbers on the pricing brief (its calculator totals the stack you'd otherwise assemble), scan all 22 services on the worksheet, and if the automated-department rung looks right, see one built for your business before paying anything.