In the UK in 2026, digital marketing costs a small business £1,250 to £5,000 a month for typical agency support, plus whatever you spend on ads. One channel on its own costs less. SEO usually runs £750 to £3,000 a month, social media management £600 to £1,500, and Google Ads management £500 to £1,500 on top of the ad spend. Websites and branding are one-off costs, and a website redesign costs £5,000 to £50,000 or more.
That’s the range. The rest of this guide shows what pushes you up or down it, and what we charge. In pounds, on the page.
Here’s the thing nobody says out loud. “It depends” is true. It’s also handy for keeping you on the phone. Your price does depend on your business, but not so much that nobody can give you a number.
UK digital marketing prices at a glance
Digital marketing pricing comes in two shapes. Monthly fees for ongoing work, and one-off fees for projects. These are typical UK ranges for small and mid-sized businesses. Ad spend is always extra.
| Service | Typical UK price | How it’s billed |
|---|---|---|
| Agency retainer, one or two channels | £1,250–£2,500 a month | Monthly |
| Agency retainer, several channels | £2,500–£5,000 a month | Monthly |
| Larger agency programme | £5,000–£20,000+ a month | Monthly |
| SEO | £750–£3,000 a month | Monthly |
| Google Ads management | £500–£1,500 a month, or 10–20% of spend | Monthly, plus ad spend |
| Social media management | £600–£1,500 a month | Monthly |
| Email marketing | £500–£1,500 a month | Monthly |
| Fractional CMO | £3,000–£15,000 a month | Monthly or by the day |
| Website redesign | £5,000–£50,000+ | One-off |
| Brand identity | £5,000–£50,000 for most SMEs | One-off |
| AI automation with expert help | £10,000–£40,000 in year one | Project, plus tools |
What moves the price
What a digital marketing agency costs comes down to five things.
- Channels. One channel costs less than four. It’s the biggest lever you have.
- Seniority. Senior people cost more per hour. They also work faster and make fewer expensive mistakes.
- Competition. Getting a plumber found in one town is a different job from getting a national law firm found.
- Volume. Every post, page, video and ad takes time. More of them means a bigger bill.
- Location. London agencies charge 15–25% more than regional ones for the same work.
How much does a marketing agency cost?
Most UK agencies bill on a retainer. That’s a fixed monthly fee for an agreed amount of work. Marketing agency prices in the UK fall into four broad bands.
| Level | Monthly cost | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|
| Small business, basic | £1,250–£2,500 | One or two channels, basic delivery |
| Core SME | £2,500–£5,000 | Several channels, such as SEO and content, or social and email |
| Wider programme | £5,000–£10,000 | Strategy and delivery across most channels |
| Premium | £10,000–£20,000+ | A dedicated team and advanced strategy |
Below about £1,500 a month, a decent agency will struggle to give several channels proper attention. At that budget, buy one channel and do it well.
What’s in a small business marketing package
Most monthly marketing packages for small businesses sit in the first two rows. The price on the proposal matters less than what’s behind it. Before you sign, check these four things.
- What you get each month, in numbers. Posts, pages, keywords, calls. “We’ll manage your social media” isn’t a deliverable.
- Whether ad spend sits inside the fee or on top of it.
- The notice period. Month to month with 30 days’ notice is fair. A 12-month lock-in is a warning sign.
- Who does the work. The senior person from the pitch, or someone you’ll never meet?
Our marketing agency deliverables checklist shows what a fair month of work looks like at different budgets.
How much does SEO cost in the UK?
SEO, short for search engine optimisation, is the work that gets your website found in Google without paying for each click. SEO prices in the UK break down like this.
| Part of the job | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| SEO agency or consultant | £750–£3,000 |
| Content to go with it | £500–£2,000 |
| Tools | £100–£300 |
So what should you spend? Below £500 a month, progress is slow. Most small businesses need £1,000 to £2,000 a month to see real movement. Crowded markets need £3,000 or more.
SEO is slow to start, then it compounds. Expect three to six months before it builds, and six to twelve months before the traffic is worth shouting about. Anyone who guarantees rankings is guessing, or using risky tactics.
Not sure whether search or paid ads should come first? Read SEO vs PPC for small business, or see how we run content marketing and SEO.
How much does Google Ads cost in the UK?
Pay-per-click advertising, or PPC, comes with two bills. Keep them apart in your head.
The first is the ad spend. It goes straight to Google, and you choose the budget. Average UK clicks cost £0.95 to £3.65, depending on the industry. Competitive sectors such as B2B software, professional services and finance pay £5 to £7 or more.
The second is the management fee. It goes to whoever runs the account. It’s usually £500 to £1,500 a month, or 10–20% of your ad spend.
Percentage fees have a catch. When your budget goes up, so does the fee, even if the work stays the same. A flat fee is easier to judge.
Some quick maths. £1,500 a month in ad spend at a £3 average click buys about 500 clicks. Whether that’s good depends on how many of those clicks become enquiries. That’s why tracking goes in before the spend starts.
We recommend at least £1,000 a month in ad spend to start. Under that, you won’t get enough clicks to learn what works. Most of a paid search budget, usually 70–80%, should go on the ads themselves.
Paid social on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn works the same way. Expect £500 to £5,000 a month in ad spend, plus someone to run it. LinkedIn clicks cost more, often £5 to £15 each.
If you’re starting paid ads, see how we set up digital advertising. If you already spend and it isn’t paying back, start with paid media performance.
How much does social media management cost?
An agency or freelancer will charge £600 to £1,500 a month to run your organic social. Organic means the posts you don’t pay to promote. Doing it yourself costs 5 to 10 hours a week instead.
The price moves with:
- how many platforms you’re on
- how many posts go out each week
- whether they make the graphics and video, or you supply them
- whether they reply to comments and messages
Be realistic about what comes back. Organic social rarely brings in leads on its own. It builds the trust that helps your other marketing land. So pick one or two platforms where your buyers spend time, and run them for enquiries rather than likes. A report full of likes never paid an invoice.
We don’t publish a separate social media price. We scope it with the rest of your marketing, and the estimator shows you a range straight away. Here’s how we run social media campaigns.
How much does a website cost?
A website is a one-off project with a small running cost after it. In the UK, a redesign costs £5,000 to £50,000 or more. Hosting and maintenance for a small business site runs about £50 to £100 a month.
Here are our published starting points.
| Package | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | £795 | One page with one job, to convert. Mobile-friendly, contact form, basic SEO |
| Starter website | £3,950 | Five pages, and you can edit the content yourself |
| Full website | £7,500 | Ten-plus pages with a custom design and advanced SEO |
| E-commerce | £12,000 | An online store with payments and up to 50 products |
They’re guides. Integrations, how much content you need and unusual features all change the price. Most business websites take 8 to 12 weeks from discovery to launch.
One warning. A new website won’t bring visitors on its own. Something has to send people to it.
See how we approach website design and development.
How much does branding cost?
Branding runs from £500 for a basic logo to £250,000 or more for a corporate rebrand. Most UK SMEs spend £5,000 to £50,000 on a full brand identity, covering strategy, visual design and guidelines.
T40 Creative starts at £1,995 one-off for Launch. That’s a logo with two concepts and two revisions, a colour palette and typography, brand guidelines of 8 to 10 pages and every final file. Scale is £4,950. It adds a messaging framework, three logo concepts, three pieces of marketing collateral, and guidelines of 20 pages or more. Most identity projects ship in two to four weeks.
The full breakdown is in how much branding costs in the UK. Or see our brand strategy and identity work.
AI automation and systems
Why is this in a marketing price guide? Because leads leak after the marketing has done its job. They sit in inboxes, spreadsheets and people’s heads. Buying more leads while the follow-up leaks is filling a bucket with a hole in it.
Here’s what AI and automation cost in the UK, from our UK AI automation guide.
| Approach | Year-one cost |
|---|---|
| Do it yourself with tools | £2,000–£8,000 |
| Guided, with a consultant | £10,000–£40,000 |
| Larger agency build | £40,000–£150,000 |
Tools such as Zapier and Make start under £50 a month. The bigger cost is the time it takes to set them up well.
T40 Systems starts with an AI Strategy Session at £395, credited against the build. It is a 90-minute session with Ben, followed by a written brief within 24 hours and a fixed price for the fix. A business agent is an AI assistant set up around a role in your business. The initial setup starts from £2,500 plus VAT, and AI provider usage is paid straight to the provider. Every build includes a support period of 30 to 90 days, depending on complexity.
If leads are slipping through the cracks, start with CRM and sales pipeline. If the admin is the problem, see business process automation.
Fractional CMO and marketing strategy costs
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing director you hire part time. In the UK they charge £600 to £1,600 a day, or £3,000 to £15,000 a month on retainer. Light-touch advisory, a few hours a month, costs £500 to £1,500.
How much does a marketing strategy cost? It’s mostly senior thinking time. At those day rates, a focused plan of three to five days costs roughly £1,800 to £8,000. Extra research and extra markets push it up.
Our Growth Accelerate plan is £2,950 a month for one day a week. Two days a week is quoted on request. Mark Ingleby leads our fractional CMO work.
The full breakdown is in how much a fractional CMO costs in the UK. Here’s how our fractional CMO and CTO work runs.
What T40 charges
We publish our prices. You shouldn’t need three calls to find out whether you can afford us. Every price below excludes VAT.
| What | Price | What’s in it |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing Launch | £795 a month | One channel, SEO or PPC. Set-up and technical audit, a 90-day plan in month one, two pages improved or one new page each month, call and form tracking, Google Business Profile tidied for local firms, 20 keywords tracked, monthly report and monthly 30-minute call. If we don’t deliver the agreed monthly work, that month is free. |
| Marketing Scale | £1,450 a month | SEO and PPC together, two search-led articles a month, 50 keywords tracked, strategy calls every two weeks |
| Creative Launch | £1,995 one-off | Logo, colour palette, typography and basic brand guidelines |
| Creative Scale | £4,950 one-off | Messaging framework and a complete identity |
| Websites | From £795 | Landing page £795, starter site £3,950, full site £7,500, e-commerce £12,000 |
| AI Strategy Session | £395, credited against the build | 90-minute session with Ben, written brief within 24 hours and a fixed price for the fix |
| Agent setup | From £2,500 | AI provider usage paid separately |
| Growth Accelerate | £2,950 a month | One day a week. Two days a week is quoted on request. |
The small print, in plain English:
- Ad spend is separate. You pay Google or Meta directly, so you can see every pound of the media budget. We recommend at least £1,000 a month.
- Marketing runs month to month. Cancel with 30 days’ notice.
- Creative projects over £2,000 are split 50% upfront and 50% on completion.
- Third-party fees, licences and travel are separate unless we say otherwise.
Launch at £795 is a real start on one channel. It won’t guarantee rankings or win a crowded national market on its own. If that’s the fight you’re in, we’ll tell you what it takes before you spend a penny.
Why do the numbers look like this? Two senior principals lead every engagement, and there’s no junior account manager passing messages between you and the people doing the work. Bigger or unusual jobs are scoped and priced in writing. See how our pricing works.
How to split a marketing budget
- Start with revenue. UK small businesses typically put 7–12% of revenue into marketing. A £500,000 business at 10% has £50,000 a year, about £4,200 a month.
- Split by confidence. Put 70% on channels that already work, 20% on close bets such as new audiences or new creative, and 10% on experiments.
- If you’re buying senior direction, give it 20–30% and keep 70–80% for doing the work. A strategy with no budget behind it sits on a shelf.
- Fund two or three channels well before you add more. £5,000 a month across seven channels starves all seven.
The full method, with a template, is in how much small businesses should spend on marketing in 2026.
How to get a number for your business
Looking for a digital marketing cost calculator? Ours is the T40 estimator. It asks six to eight questions about the outcome you want and the work involved, then shows you a range. You see the number before we ask who you are.
The range excludes VAT and stays indicative for 30 days. It’s a guide, not a formal quotation. We agree the final scope and price with you before any work starts.
Common questions
What’s the cheapest way to start digital marketing?
Pick one channel and do it properly. You can start with about £500 a month if you focus on email and content, and do some of the work yourself. Add paid ads once you can put at least £1,000 a month into ad spend.
Do I need a long contract?
No. Month to month with 30 days’ notice is fair for a marketing retainer. Treat a 6- or 12-month minimum as a warning sign unless there’s a clear reason for it.
Why do prices vary so much between agencies?
Mostly seniority and scope. One £2,000-a-month proposal can hold twice the work of another. Compare the deliverables, not the headline number.
Real prices. No waffle. And if we’re not the right fit, we’ll say so.
Related: How to Choose a Marketing Agency | Digital Marketing for Small Business: The No-BS UK Guide | Affordable Marketing for Small Business
