Why Marketing Prices Vary So Much

And Why 200 Dollars A Month Will Not Buy You Custom, High Level Marketing

If you are a broker or team leader, you have probably seen it all.

• Social media managers for 200 dollars a month

• “All in one” marketing subscriptions for less than your coffee budget

• Freelancers charging more than some agents’ car payments

On paper, everyone promises the same thing:More content. Better brand. Less work for you.

So why do prices vary so much?And why can you not pay 200 dollars a month and get someone to post on your social media with fully custom everything?

To answer that, you have to look at what good marketing really requires behind the scenes.

The Real Work Behind “Just Posting”

From the outside, social media looks simple. You see a square graphic and a caption. Maybe a reel. Maybe a story. That can trick you into believing it is a five minute task.

In reality, even basic brand aligned content requires:

• Brand understanding

• Topic planning

• Content batching

• Visual creation

• Caption writing

• Hashtag and hook strategy

• Scheduling

• Engagement monitoring

• Performance tracking

If you want it to be custom to your brand, market, and audience, add:

• Research on your niche and competitors

• Voice and tone that matches you

• Templates that feel like your brand, not Canva page one

• Coordination with your other marketing email, events, listings

None of that is “one click.”It is time. Time is the real cost driver.

What 200 Dollars A Month Actually Buys

Let’s be honest about the numbers.

Say someone charges 200 dollars a month. After taxes and software costs, they might keep 150 dollars.

If they invest even 5 hours a month into your account, they are paying themselves 30 dollars per hour before expenses.If they invest 10 hours, they are at 15 dollars per hour.

At those rates, one of two things usually happens:

1. They take on far too many clients to make their income work. Your account gets minimal attention, lots of copy paste content, and very little strategy.

2. They are brand new, using your business to practice. That is not automatically bad, but it rarely delivers the kind of thoughtful, integrated marketing a serious real estate brand needs.

Can you get someone to log in, drop a few generic posts, and keep your feed from going dark? Possibly.

Can you get a strategic partner who understands your brand, builds systems, and helps you grow into the high end of your market for that price? No.

Custom Marketing Is Not The Same As Customizing A Template

This is where the confusion really hits.

• Custom marketing means thinking from scratch about your brand, your audience, and your goals. It includes strategy, planning, creative direction, copy, and design that are unique to you.

• Customizing a template means taking a premade design or caption and swapping out your name, colors, and maybe a photo.

At Urban Marketing Edge, we use templates in a smart way. We build brand specific templates for your brokerage or team so your marketing is consistent, fast to produce, and still on brand.

That takes work upfront:

• Clarifying your positioning and audience

• Defining your voice and non negotiable standards

• Designing a bank of reusable assets that do not look like everyone else’s

Once that foundation is there, you can absolutely work more efficiently.But the foundation itself is not a 200 dollar job.

What You Are Actually Paying For With A Serious Marketing Partner

When you hire a real marketing partner, you are not just paying for posts. You are paying for:

1. Thinking time Strategic brains that can look at your business, your market, and your goals and decide what to say, where to say it, and how often.

2. Experience Understanding of what works in real estate, what luxury clients expect, and how to avoid the “cringe” factor that cheap marketing often creates.

3. Systems Content calendars, workflows, brand guides, approval processes, and reporting that keep you organized instead of adding chaos.

4. Consistency The discipline to show up every week, on time, across platforms in a way that feels unified.

5. Creative execution Writing, design, video editing, and campaign building that actually makes your brand look the way you say you want it to look.

That is why you see serious marketing retainers in the four figure range, not 200 dollars. You are buying a slice of an experienced marketing department, not just a person with a Canva login.

The Hidden Cost Of “Cheap” Marketing

The cheapest option is rarely just “low risk, low reward.” In marketing, it often comes with real costs.

• Brand dilution Generic designs and captions make you look like everyone else in your market. That hurts your positioning, especially if you are trying to play in the luxury or boutique space.

• Missed opportunities If your marketing is not aligned to your real business goals listing growth, recruiting, higher price point work you are leaving money on the table.

• Time drain You still end up reworking things, rewriting captions, or trying to fix off brand content. So now you pay in cash and time.

• Rebuild costs later Eventually you will have to go back, clean up your online presence, and rebuild your brand story correctly. That is more expensive than starting strong.

Cheap marketing can keep you active. It rarely helps you grow into the business you actually want.

Why Marketing Prices Vary So Much

Marketing prices are not just made up. They float based on five main factors:

1. Scope Are you asking for 3 simple posts a week, or a full content ecosystem that connects social, email, listings, events, and recruiting?

2. Depth Is this light production using templates and basic copy, or are you expecting elevated design, original writing, and advanced video work?

3. Strategy vs execution Some offers are “we post what you send us.” Others include full strategy, planning, and direction. Strategy costs more because it saves you from random, disconnected activity.

4. Experience and niche Someone who understands real estate, the Side model, and luxury clients brings more value than someone who only knows how to schedule posts.

5. Support level Do you want quick approvals and monthly reports, or ongoing calls, coaching for your agents, and campaign planning? Each layer adds time.

Once you see those layers, the price difference between 200 dollars, 1,000 dollars, and 2,500 dollars per month makes a lot more sense.

How Urban Marketing Edge Fits Into This Picture

At Urban Marketing Edge, we are very clear about what we are not.

We are not a 200 dollar content mill.We are not a generic “done for you” package with the same posts for every client.

We work with:

• Side partners

• Boutique brokers

• Team leaders who want their marketing to feel organized, intentional, and on brand

We build:

• A strategic content plan tied to your actual business goals

• Custom brand templates that belong to your brokerage, not the Canva explore page

• Systems that your agents and staff can actually use without burning out

• High quality content and campaigns that support both your current listings and your future brand equity

You are not just buying posts. You are buying a marketing function that makes your brand an asset.

Ready For More Than 200 Dollar Marketing

If you are tired of wondering why your marketing is not matching the level of business you are trying to build, the problem is not only your effort. It is the level of support behind it.

You can keep piecing things together with low priced, low impact services.Or you can invest in a partner who treats your brand like the asset it is.

If you are ready for real marketing support, hire Urban Marketing Edge.

Start the conversation by filling out the contact form on our site or calling 614.725.9441 to schedule a consult.