How much does a social media manager cost? And what tradesmen actually need

If you run a trade business, social media can feel like one of those jobs that is easy to start and hard to keep doing.

You finish a kitchen, extension, roofing job or landscaping project. You take a few photos. Then the next job starts, the phone rings, and the photos stay in your camera roll.

That is why many tradespeople start looking at social media managers. The question is whether you need a full marketing service, occasional help with posting, or simply a reliable way to turn finished work into consistent content.

The cost can range from nothing but your time to hundreds or thousands of pounds a month.

The short answer

For a UK trade business, typical options look roughly like this:

  • Doing it yourself: no direct cost, but several hours of your time each month
  • Basic freelance support: often around £200–£800 per month
  • A freelance social media manager with planning and content support: commonly more than £500 per month
  • An agency: roughly £400–£1,500 or more per month
  • An in-house employee: around £22,000–£35,000 per year before employer costs
  • A focused posting tool: Grafter is £29 per month after the first five posts

These figures are indicative rather than fixed prices. The more strategy, filming, editing, community management and paid advertising you include, the higher the cost becomes.

Doing it yourself

The cheapest option is to handle everything yourself.

You already have the most important raw material: the work. You have the photos, the knowledge of what was done, and the local context that makes the post believable.

The problem is consistency.

A single post every three months will not show much of an active business. The real cost of doing it yourself is the time spent:

  • Selecting photos
  • Cropping them
  • Writing captions
  • Choosing hashtags
  • Remembering which platform to use
  • Uploading everything
  • Replying to comments and messages

If you have plenty of time and enjoy that process, doing it yourself can work. If you are already fitting jobs around quotes, suppliers, invoices and customer calls, it is usually the part that gets skipped first.

Hiring a freelancer

A freelancer can be a good middle ground.

You might pay for a set number of posts each month, caption writing, scheduling, or occasional content planning. Some freelancers will work from photos you send. Others will visit jobs and create the content themselves.

The important question is what the monthly fee includes.

A lower-cost package might only cover posting supplied photos. A more involved package could include:

  • Content planning
  • Caption writing
  • Photo editing
  • Scheduling
  • Comment replies
  • Monthly reporting
  • Short-form video
  • A visit to film or photograph work

Those are very different services, even if both are called “social media management”.

For a trade business that already takes decent photos, the main need may not be a full manager. It may be removing the small amount of admin between finishing a job and sharing it.

Hiring an agency

Agencies usually cost more because they provide a wider service.

That might include brand strategy, several social platforms, campaign planning, paid advertising, video editing, reporting and account management. For a business with multiple locations or a bigger marketing budget, that wider support can make sense.

For a sole trader or small local trade business, the risk is paying for more marketing than the business actually needs.

If your main problem is that finished work is not being posted consistently, a large strategy package may not solve the immediate issue. You might need a simpler workflow first.

Employing someone in-house

An in-house marketing employee gives you the most direct access to a person, but it is also the most expensive route.

The salary is only part of the cost. You also need to consider:

  • Employer National Insurance
  • Pension contributions
  • Holiday and sick pay
  • Equipment and software
  • Training
  • Office or workspace costs
  • Management time

This can be worthwhile for a larger company with a steady stream of work and enough marketing activity to keep someone busy. It is rarely the first step for a small trade business that mainly wants regular proof of completed jobs.

Where £29 a month fits

Grafter is not a full marketing department and it does not replace strategy, paid advertising or community management.

It is aimed at a narrower problem: turning the work you have already finished into clear, professional social posts without adding another dashboard to your day.

You send one photo or several photos from the same job to WhatsApp with a sentence. You get caption options and branded images back, ready for Instagram or Facebook.

That means the comparison is not really “a marketing agency for £29”. It is:

What is the simplest reliable way to stop finished jobs disappearing into the camera roll?

For some businesses, the answer will still be a freelancer or agency. For others, especially those with good photos and little spare time, a focused workflow is enough.

What should you pay for?

Before choosing a service, decide which problem you are trying to solve.

If you need a new brand, a campaign strategy, paid adverts and regular video, speak to a professional marketing provider.

If you need someone to visit jobs and create content, pay for photography or content production.

If you mainly need help posting the work you already have, do not automatically buy the biggest package.

Start with the simple weekly social media routine for tradesmen, and compare it with the practical guidance in what tradesmen should post on social media.

The right choice is the one that matches the actual gap in your business.