What does a marketing agency actually cost?

For a US home-services business, between $500 and $10,000 a month, depending on what is in the fee. The range is that wide because almost no agency puts a price on its own site. Below are the ones that do, quoted to the page and dated.

Why the number is so hard to find

Most agency sites answer this with a contact form. Scope does change the price, and a number on a page loses the argument before anyone picks up the phone.

You still need to know whether this is a $600 decision or a $6,000 one. So we collected the prices agencies put on their own sites, and what practitioners say they charge in public, and dated every one. Each figure below names the page or thread it came from.

What moves the price

Three things move it most. Whether your ad budget sits inside the fee or goes on your own card. Whether a website build is bundled or charged up front. And whether someone works on your account every week, or the fee buys a monthly report.

The last one separates a fee from a subscription, so ask about it directly. Ask what happens in week three.

A better question than the price

Ask what it costs per booked job, and who does the counting.

Most agencies report leads, impressions or calls. A lead is not a job. If nobody can point at work that got done and paid for and tell you where it came from, you have no way to check whether the fee earned itself, or whether renewing it is worth anything.

What the sources say

Hook Agency sells a contractor website as $12,000 total, split into 12 months, with no separate build fee^[1]
Hook Agency's starting prices are $2,800 a month for local SEO, $2,000 for pay-per-click and $3,000 for Meta ads, each footnoted as a starting price^[2]
WebFX publishes $1,000 to $10,000+ a month for comprehensive digital marketing, $500 to $5,000 for SEO, and $1,500 to $15,000 for PPC, as agency-wide ranges^[3]
Paid-search practitioners put their Google Ads management floor at $1,500 a month, with 15 to 20 percent of ad spend as the usual hybrid on top of a retainer; one names $750 a month for a low-touch account^[4]
A boutique agency serving local service businesses charges $1,000 a month for one channel (paid ads or SEO) and $1,750 for both, with a three-month minimum, after raising prices from around $500^[5]

What we would do about it

Scope and quote per business, because the honest answer to what it costs depends on what is broken
Keep your ad budget on your own card, unmarked-up, so the fee and the spend never blur
Report in booked jobs and cost per booked job, not leads or impressions

Sources

1.hookagency.com/pricing, the Standard Website line and its footnote · read 2026-09-02
2.hookagency.com/pricing, the four service lines · read 2026-09-02
3.webfx.com/digital-marketing/pricing, page titled "Digital Marketing Pricing: How Much Does It Cost in 2026?" · read 2026-09-02
4.r/PPC, "How much do you charge for an account?", 2026-08-10, the top comment and four replies · read 2026-09-02
5.r/agency, "Closed 5 new clients this month after raising prices", 2025-12-27 · read 2026-09-02

What does a marketing agency actually cost?

Why the number is so hard to find

What moves the price

A better question than the price

Want this looked at on your own numbers?