Facebook advertising agency and consultant rates

Facebook ads are still the newest addition to the go-to marketing channels for most companies. We still will frequently be told “Oh, our audience isn’t on Facebook” when speaking with prospective clients looking to hire an agency here at Credo.

The reality is that EVERYONE (and their mother, literally) is on Facebook and it is an incredibly powerful channel for advertising and business. When they began slashing organic reach in 2014, advertising became even more important to reaching your audience on Facebook.

The important takeaways from this section are:

• Facebook advertising firms on average charge $137.50 per hour for their work;
• 53.54% of reporting firms charge between $101-$200 per hour;
• Only 1 reporting firm (out of 127) charges $300 or more per hour, and none charge over $500 per hour.
• Only 8.66% of worldwide FB ads firms in our dataset charge less than $50 per hour. Only 3 of these are US-based and all of those have less than 5 years of digital experience.
• Facebook ads agencies seem to charge more than Facebook ads solo consultants currently.

Let’s get into the numbers.

Facebook ads firms worldwide rates

For this 2019 survey, we had 127 firms respond that they do Facebook advertising for clients.

Facebook ads firms hourly rates

We found that on average, firms reporting that they run Facebook ads for clients charge $137.50 per hour for their work.

Here is their breakdown of reported hourly rate ranges:

And the raw data:

The important callouts here are:

• 53.54% of all reporting firms charge between $51-$150 per hour;
• 53.54% also charge between $101-$200 per hour;
• Only 8.66% of worldwide FB ads firms in our dataset charge less than $50 per hour. Only 3 of these are US-based and all of those have less than 5 years of digital experience.
• Only 1 reporting firm charges $300 or more per hour, and none charge over $500 per hour.

Facebook ads firms US-only hourly rates

Here are the average hourly rates for US-based Facebook ads firms (all company sizes including solo consultants):

Here is the raw data:

Here you can see that the percentage charging between $100-$200 per hour is even more than worldwide at 66.23% of all our respondents!

From this, we can see that most of the lower-charging firms in our dataset are not US-based.

Facebook ads firms project minimums (worldwide)

Here are the project minimums as reported by the 127 Facebook ads respondents in our dataset:

The raw data:

Facebook ads firms monthly retainer minimums (worldwide)

Here are the monthly retainer minimums worldwide as reported by the 127 Facebook ads respondents in our dataset:

The raw data:

Facebook ads agencies rates

Here the rates for the Facebook ads agencies (2+ full time employees) within our dataset.

Facebook ads agencies hourly rates (worldwide)

Here are the worldwide Facebook ads agency average hourly rates for our dataset. There were 96 respondents in this bucket:

Here is the raw data:

The interesting numbers for us are:

• 25% of worldwide Facebook ads agencies charge under $100/hr;
• 59.37% of worldwide Facebook ads agencies report $101-$200/hr as their hourly average;
• 72.91% report charging between $101-$300 per hour, which is about to be expected;
• Only 14.58% of our respondents report charging more than $200/hr for Facebook advertising services.

Facebook ads agencies single project minimums (worldwide)

Here are the worldwide Facebook ads agencies single project minimums according to the 96 respondents in our dataset:

The raw data:

Facebook ads agencies monthly retainer minimums (worldwide)

Here are the worldwide Facebook ads agencies monthly retainer minimums according to the 96 respondents in our dataset:

The raw data:

Facebook ads agencies hourly rates (US)

Here are the hourly rate numbers for the 58 US-based Facebook ads agencies in our dataset:

And the raw data:

The interesting callouts are:

• 70.49% of Facebook ads agencies in the US charge $100-$200 per hour. This is higher than the worldwide 59.37%;
• 19.67% of US-based Facebook ads agencies charge over $200 per hour;
• Only 8.2% of our agency respondents in the US charge less than $100 per hour, which is heartening to see for the value they provide.

Facebook ads consultant rates

Here the rates for the Facebook ads consultants (only 1 full time employee, may work with outside freelancers) within our dataset.

Facebook ads consultants hourly rates (worldwide)

Here are the numbers for the Facebook ads consultant from within our dataset, of which there were 31. The raw data is important to pay attention to below the chart:

The raw data:

Facebook ads consultants single project minimums (worldwide)

Here are the single project minimums for the 31 Facebook ads consultants from within our dataset:

The raw data:

Facebook ads consultants monthly retainer minimums (worldwide)

Here are the monthly retainer minimums for the 31 Facebook ads consultants from within our dataset:

The raw data:

Facebook ads consultants hourly rates (US)

Here are the average hourly rates as reported by the US-based Facebook ads solo consultants from our dataset, of which there were 16:

The raw data:

From this data it looks like US based solo Facebook ads consultants charge less per hour for their work than Facebook ads agencies. We don’t quite have enough consultants to say that for sure though.

That would not surprise us a lot though as it would be similar to how the SEO world evolved – agencies got more expensive then consultants specialized and raised their rates as they had the years of experience.