PRICING TIPS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS: AN A-Z GUIDE
Pricing is probably my favourite topic to talk about.
When I started my business as a social media manager, I didn’t have a clue about pricing.
I undercharged for my services, I’d drop the price if asked to and I spent more time stressing about how much I should ask for that in the end, whenever I’d receive an enquiry, I’d get a huge dollop of anxiety on the side.
Undercharging for our services and stressing about our price tag is common, especially for us women. I’m on a mission to end pricing struggles for social media managers so they can start earning what they deserve, making the money they need and therefore creating the life of their dreams.
I’m going to share with you an A-Z of pricing tips that’ll not only help you price your services but they’ll help you price them with CONFIDENCE.
A - ACCEPTANCE
First up, we’re talking about ACCEPTANCE.
In order to price your services with confidence, you need to accept two things:
1: to run a successful business, you need to take money on a regular basis
2: you deserve to be paid for your services
When we launch a business, we get so excited about what we’ll be offering, who we’ll be helping and the idea of generating a consistent income that allows us more freedom, but one of the biggest, most unexpected hurdles we come up against is asking for the sale.
We feel uncomfortable talking about money, we’re scared of rejection and we worry people we judge us for what we’re charging.
If you truly want to run a successful, profitable business, you need to ACCEPT that talking about money, charging for your services and asking for the sale is going to be a part of your daily life.
B - BELIEF
To feel confident about what you’re charging, you need to believe in 3 things:
What you offer
The results you can get
Yourself
You need to believe that what you’re offering will be a game changer for your clients and will help them solve their biggest pain point.
You need to believe that you can generate results for your clients that they’d be unable to create for themselves.
Lastly, you need to believe in yourself. You need to believe that no matter what, you’ll find a solution, fix a problem and support your client in the best way possible.
A great exercise to help with self belief is writing out empowerment lists. Write out 25 ways you can change your clients lives with the service you can provide them. Rewrite it every day (I’m not talking copy what you wrote, I mean write from scratch again) and you’ll begin to increase your self belief and therefore confidence in what you’re charging because you’ll know damn well, you’re worth it.
C - CONFIDENCE
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed out and undervalued, it’s easy for your confidence levels to dip. When you lack confidence, pricing your services is really hard and with an unconfident mindset, you’re more likely to lowball yourself.
However, on the days you’re feeling good about yourself, confident in what you’re doing and like the badass business owner you are, it’s a lot easier to work out what you need to be charging and you’re less likely to undervalue yourself.
Feeling confident is your responsibility, no one else's. Everyday you need to be working on increasing your confidence and feeling positive about yourself.
Exercises such as journaling, repeating positive affirmations and listening to audiobooks/podcasts can be done each morning before you begin your work day. Even just 15 minutes in the morning is enough to make a difference.
D - DREAM
Dream about what you want from your business - I’m guessing you’d like it to generate consistent income and pay you more than a 9 to 5, right?
Before you price your services, remind yourself of what you’re working for. Think back to why you started in the first place - obviously there’s the wanting to help people - but dig deeper than that.
Think about the life you want to create for yourself, your family, your children. If you’re charging too low and needing 10+ clients to cover your bills, you might as well go back to a 9 to 5 that pays you more so you can at least have some downtime in the evenings - harsh but true.
Remembering your why reminds you of why you need, and deserve, to make money.
E - EXPERIENCE
When you start out, you obviously need to charge less because you don’t have the same amount of experience and therefore expertise, as someone who’s been in the game for a year. However, less experience doesn’t mean you should undervalue yourself.
If you don’t have a lot of experience right now, think of ways you can gain some. Could you start a brand new profile and practise different strategies on it? Could you offer one month free social media management in exchange for a testimonial? Could you offer a discounted service for the first 3 months to gain more experience and generate some consistent income?
We all have to start somewhere. It’s your responsibility to gain that experience and not sit around and wait for it to magically happen.
F - FORMULA
This is my favourite tip because I’m sharing with you the formula I use to price my services. I’ve tested out many different pricing formulas in the past but I’ve found this one works the best if you want to achieve your income goal and get paid based on the value you deliver.
The magic formula is: Income goal / maximum number of platforms = Platform price
Now when I say max number of platforms I mean the maximum number you want to manage at any one time. Be realistic here - do you really want to manage 20 profiles in one go? I’m gonna guess not….
I’m against pricing by the hour because the more experienced you are, the faster you work and therefore the LESS you get paid. Not really fair to be paid less for being better is it?
For extra help using this formula and to feel confident in your pricing, check out The Pricing Academy®
G - GO ALL IN
When you know damn well that whatever you do, you commit to fully, you try your absolute best and you GO ALL IN, there isn’t space for imposter syndrome to tell you otherwise.
It’s really important to make sure you’re working with clients who you genuinely believe in, who you’re keen to see succeed and who you feel passionate about. When you know that without a doubt, you’ll give it your all, you’ll feel a lot more confident in your pricing because you’ll believe you have what it takes to deliver the best results to your clients.
A potential client will recognise your confidence, your passion and your desire to see them succeed on a call and one thing I’ve learned is that the more a client trusts you, the more they’re happy to pay. This means you feel valued so you deliver better results and in the long run, the client continues to work with you.
H - HANGOUT WITH PEOPLE WHO CHARGE MORE
One of the best things I did to feel more confident about pricing my services as a social media manager was hanging out online with the people who were charging £1k, £3k, some even £10k a month for their services.
Being surrounded by people who charged their worth and truly valued what they did encouraged me to do the same.
I see many people who’ve trained together to become social media managers and although they’ve learned social media skills, no one’s helped them understand things like pricing, proposals, attracting clients etc. so when a potential client asks what they charge, the only people they feel comfortable discussing it with are the people in the same boat.
No one knows what to charge and therefore they all UNDERCHARGE in the hope of signing the first client.
I - INCOME GOAL
It’s so important to know what you need to earn each month before you price your services.
Let’s say you decide to price your services at £15 an hour and your standard social media package is 20 hours per month - that’s £300 per month for one client.
Now let’s say your expenses are £300 and your personal income needs to be around £1500.
Already, you need to be earning £1800 before we’ve even considered tax or profit, which means you need 6 clients, just to cover your bills. That’s 30 hours a week BEFORE you’ve factored in communication with the clients, your own marketing etc
Is a 40 hour week really what you wanted to do when you quit your 9 to 5?
Before you price your services, work out your income goal. I break my into four categories: expenses, personal income/wage, tax and profit.
From there, use my pricing formula to stop charging by the hour and instead, start pricing in a way that covers all your costs.
J - JUST - AS IN AD-JUST
Letter J is all about ad-JUST-ing - see what I did there - your prices on a regular basis.
Last time I ran my pricing challenge, this question came up quite a bit and it was interesting to hear many people had been in business for months - some even years - without increasing their prices.
As your business grows, your expenses will naturally increase so you need to make sure you’re earning enough to cover them. I recommend adjusting your prices once a quarter so you can make sure they’re reflecting your income goal.
For help raising your rates including how to tell current clients about the increase, check out The Pricing Academy here.
K - KEEP IT SIMPLE
When it comes to your pricing, you need to KEEP it simple.
If, like me, you suffer with shiny object syndrome and feel excited by the idea of offering a brand new service to your clients, you’ll likely be spending more time trying to price the many different packages you offer instead of focusing on promoting yourself.
It’s important to keep things simple. Stick with one price and create bespoke packages for each client. That way the client gets what they need and you achieve your income goals each month.
If the client wants a lower price, remove some of the value. If they want more value, increase the price. Never drop the price and keep the value the same. Likewise, never increase the value and keep the price the same.
L - LOVE WHAT YOU DO
L is all about LOVING what you do.
If you love what you do, you feel happy, confident and excited for the day ahead.
When you show up for your clients with that awesome attitude, you naturally get them better results and therefore charging for your services feels easier.
If there’s any part of you that doesn't enjoy something you do, drop it. Drop the service you’re offering, drop the client who stresses you out and make sure you love everything about your business.
This is your permission to let go and fall back in love with your offers, your clients and yourself.
Want help getting Clients with Confidence™? Click here now.
M - MAKE MORE MONEY
I see so many social media managers offering a month to month service but this uncertainty means you’ll constantly spend your time marketing yourself, sending proposals and stressing about where your income’ll come from next month.
Instead, I always recommend a 3 month minimum contract. 3 months is enough time for you to build a really good relationship with the client, to get a feel for what works best in terms of their marketing and also means you have a guaranteed income for 3 months.
It’s really important to have a signed agreement in place that states these terms so that both you and the client are protected.
And if you’re not charging upfront, please do so from now on.
N - NEVER DROP YOUR PRICE
If you remember one thing from this article, PLEASE let it be this.
If a client tells you you’re too expensive, don’t drop the price UNLESS you remove some of the value.
For example: Your price is £500 to manage Instagram for a month including engagement, daily posting and stories, hashtag research etc etc.
The client says that’s too much so you agree to 4 posts a week, less engagement and 5 stories a week instead for £400 a month.
By removing some of the value in the package, you’re not undervaluing yourself. You’re still delivering what the client needs at a price that reflects your worth.
Likewise, if the client wants MORE than you typically offer for £500, increase the price as well as the value.
O - OFFER ONE PRICE
Remember back to letter F where I shared my pricing formula with you? Once you have your platform price, be sure to only offer that price.
If you give a client options, there’s more decisions for them to make. Giving them one option of one price that covers everything they need means the only answer is yes or no.
If they say yes, pop the champers.
If they say no, you can discuss with them how to make it a yes.
If price is the issue, remember, you can lower the price as long as you remove some of the value of the package.
P - PACKAGES
If you’ve followed me for a while, (or were paying attention above) you’ll know I’m against charging by the hour.
Here’s the deal, if you charge an hourly rate for your services, the more experience you have, the less you get paid.
Quick example: A new social media manager takes 10 hours a week to create, schedule and engage. As they become more experienced and get in the flow, it takes them 5 hours a week to create, schedule and engage.
If their hourly rate is £20, as a newbie, they’d be making £200 a week but as someone with more experience, they’d be making £100 - personally, I don’t think it’s fair to be earning less money for being better at your job, do you?
Instead, package up your services using my pricing formula and then add in the value for that price.
If a client wants you to manage 3 platforms, you can always offer a discount as the content you share may be the same. Instead of £400 per platform, you could make it £1080 per month (10% discount). It’s entirely up to you but seeing this discount in a proposal will excite your potential clients and may even encourage them to say yes then and there.
Q - QUIT COMPARING
Comparisonitis is something we all suffer with - how many times have you found yourself in self doubt and scrolling through instagram for an hour comparing your business to someone else’s?
In this series I want you to quit comparing your prices to other people’s because the truth is, we all need to price our services differently based on our personal & business needs.
Just because Sally down the road charges £200 per platform, doesn’t mean you should. Sally might not have as many overheads as you or being doing it as a full time job and therefore needs less money each month.
Sally may also not be aware of my pricing formula.
So quit comparing and focus on your own prices.
R - READ PROFIT FIRST
Read Profit First. That’s it, read Profit First by Mike Michalowicz.
This book will be a game changer in not only managing your business finances but in making sure you always earn a PROFIT.
*Affiliate links: This means if you choose to purchase from them, I my receive a small commission. This will not cost you anything.
S - SELLING IS SERVING
I want you to remember this mantra: SELLING IS SERVING.
When you sell your services, you’re not being sleazy or slimy - unless you’re sending auto-DMs promoting yourself without ever having a conversation with that person - selling is serving.
You know that when a client signs up to work with you, you’re gonna have a big impact on their business. You’ll take their marketing off their hands so they can focus on other things and you’ll manage it in a way that gets them results, most likely resulting in more money for them.
When you remember selling is serving, it doesn’t feel so uncomfortable, does it?
T - TRUST
To price your services with confidence, you need to TRUST that you can deliver incredible results and that you’ll make a big difference to their business.
If you don’t trust that you can generate results, you shouldn’t be offering it as a service. To increase your trust in yourself, practice different strategies on your profiles, ask to work with someone for free for 2 weeks to gain some experience and a testimonial or take a course to increase your confidence.
If you still don’t trust that you’ll do a good job, drop that service and stick to what you’re really awesome at.
U - UNDERPROMISE, OVERDELIVER
This is the motto I run my business by: UNDERPROMISE, OVERDELIVER.
Now I never make promises to ANYONE because you can never guarantee results 100% but when I work with a client, I’ll tell them what I’ll be delivering on the sales call and in the proposal but throughout our time together, I’ll deliver a little extra.
Whether that’s an extra call, a special gift, a welcome video or workbook - it doesn’t matter.
When you underpromise and overdeliver, you really WOW your clients and that’s what makes them want to stick around.
V - VALUE
To feel confident with your pricing, you need to know in your heart that you’re delivering incredible VALUE to your clients.
Once you’ve worked out your prices using my pricing formula (income goal/maximum number of platforms = platform price) you can begin to add in the value to your package.
Let’s say your platform price comes out at £500 per month: you add in what the client wants - management of one platform, daily posting, engaging etc and then you add in extra value to make it worth that price such as monthly analytics reports, welcome packs, a monthly strategy call and a weekly check in video that you record and send to them at the end of each week.
When you know you’re delivering a tonne of value to your clients, you’ll feel a lot more confident in your prices.
For more support with this, join The Pricing Academy®.
W - WORTH
I’m talking SELF WORTH.
It’s so important as a business owner you do whatever it takes to increase your self worth. Lack of self worth causes us to undercharge, to lower our prices, to take on shitty clients and to overwork so we become burnout.
To increase your self worth, I recommend exercises like empowerment lists (for example, 30 reasons I know I’m worthy of success), reading or listening to audiobooks such as I’m Worth More by Rob Moore and using positive affirmations like “I believe in myself”, “I know I’m worthy” or “I love myself”.
X - X-PERT
We’re onto letter X (which was a really hard one!) and we’re talking about being the E-X-PERT. When pricing your services, you need to remember that you’re the expert.
Being the expert doesn’t mean you know everything there is to know and get the best results every time. Being the expert means you’re a few steps ahead of the person who’s hiring you to do their social media.
Remember that your potential client either doesn’t have the time or the knowledge to generate the results they want, which is why they’re hiring you as the expert to come in and do it for them. They don’t want someone to do a half arsed job and will therefore be happy to pay you for your services.
If there’s a potential client that wants everything done as cheap as possible, run. They won’t understand the importance of social media or the skill behind it and therefore won’t appreciate your hard work.
Y - YOU’RE AWESOME
We’re up to letter Y and I couldn’t decide between these two things I want you to remember so I’m gonna share both with you.
1: YOU’RE AWESOME
Don’t let anyone tell you any different and repeat “I’m awesome” in your head all day everyday.
2: YOU NEED ME, I DON’T NEED YOU
Remember that Ed Sheeran song? I want you to remember this when pitching to clients because for me, this was the biggest mindset shift I had when it came to selling my services as a social media manager.
When I realised that actually, the client needs me to generate results, to grow their brand, to build a community and to generate leads, I realised that whilst there were a tonne of other potential clients out there, there wasn’t another me who’d give the same damn about their business.
Z - ZAP THE MIND MONKEYS
Ok,the final tip is ZAP THE MIND MONKEYS.
The biggest thing holding you back from feeling comfortable with your prices is those pesky mind monkeys or in other words, imposter syndrome.
You’re scared of judgement, rejection and you don’t feel worthy enough to increase your rates because of the negative nora inside your brain.
From now on, you need to take daily action to work on zapping the monkeys. Surround yourself with other confident social media managers, sign up for my pricing training, read books, watch YouTube videos on confidence building and imposter syndrome.
No excuses now, it’s your responsibility to feel confident about your prices so, what are you waiting for?
