# What will managed advertising cost?

> Price Google, Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok ad management: setup, management level, platforms, new creatives, ad spend and a bracketed campaign commission.

Canonical page: https://webvelopment.co.za/pricing/paid-media/

Language: en

Paid media calculator

Choose your platforms and management level, set how many new ads you need each month, and enter your ad budget. Our fee and your ad spend are shown separately.

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- **R850/hour**One rate for every service

- **40% deposit**to start the work

- **Up to 12 months**to pay larger projects

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## Price another service.

Each one uses the same R850/hour rate and the same payment terms, so you can price a single service or combine several in the [full agency calculator](https://webvelopment.co.za/pricing/full-agency/).

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## How paid media is priced

You pay three things: **our management fee**, **a campaign commission** and **your ad spend**.

The management fee is the time we spend planning, building, testing and optimising campaigns. It depends on the management level, the number of platforms and how many new ads you want each month. Each platform needs a three-hour setup and about two hours a month to manage.

Ad spend goes to Google, Meta and the other platforms at cost. The **campaign commission** is charged on that monthly spend in brackets, the same way income tax works: 30% on the first R50,000 of monthly spend, 20% on the next R50,000 and 10% on anything above R100,000. Each rate only applies to the part of the spend inside its bracket, so the commission always grows with your budget while the overall percentage falls: 30% at R50,000, 25% at R100,000 and 20% at R150,000.

## What every paid media programme includes

These items are in every quote, whatever you choose further down, because the work can’t be done properly without them. Together they come to 8 hours at R850 an hour.

- **Conversion tracking setup.** Tag Manager, GA4 and platform pixels with verified conversions. (4 h)

- **Campaign strategy and audience plan.** Channels, budgets, targeting and KPIs. (4 h)

## Basic, Standard and Premium compared

The management level sets how much time goes into optimising your campaigns each month. Platforms and new creatives add to it, and ad spend is separate.

**Campaign management level**

| Level | What you get | Hours | Price |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Basic: Managed | Monitoring, bid management and a monthly report. Budget and bid management; Negative keywords and exclusions; Monthly report. | 4 h | R3,400/month |
| Standard: Optimised | Active testing and optimisation every week. Everything in Managed; Weekly optimisation; A/B ad testing; Monthly review call. | 8 h | R6,800/month |
| Premium: Performance | Full-funnel growth with landing page testing. Everything in Optimised; Landing page CRO; Audience and creative experiments; Fortnightly reporting. | 16 h | R13,600/month |

## How the work runs

- **Tracking.** Conversion tracking is set up and verified before any money is spent.

- **Strategy.** Channels, audiences, budgets and KPIs are agreed in a strategy session.

- **Build.** Campaigns, ads and landing pages are built and approved by you.

- **Launch and learn.** The first weeks find which keywords, audiences and ads convert.

- **Optimise and report.** Budget moves to what works, with a monthly report on cost per lead or sale.

## Ways to manage the budget

- **Start with one platform.** Prove it’s profitable before spreading budget across more.

- **Fix tracking first.** Spending without verified conversions is the most expensive mistake in paid media.

- **Refresh creatives steadily.** A few new ads each month beat a big batch that goes stale.

- **Use a landing page.** It usually lowers cost per lead enough to pay for itself.

## Before you request a quote

Have these ready and the formal quotation will be faster and more accurate:

- Access to your ad accounts, if you have them

- What a lead or sale is worth to you

- Your monthly ad budget

- The products, services or offers to promote

- Your target areas and audiences

- Results from any past campaigns

## Paid media pricing questions

A few useful answers before you decide.

### What's included to get started?

Conversion tracking with Tag Manager, GA4 and platform pixels, plus a campaign strategy and audience plan. That’s 8 hours, plus a 3-hour setup for each ad platform.

### Why is there a commission as well as a management fee?

The management fee covers the fixed work of running each platform and producing ads. The commission scales with the budget we’re responsible for, because larger budgets carry more campaigns, more testing and more at stake. Higher brackets carry lower rates, so larger budgets pay a smaller share overall.

### How is the management fee worked out?

From your management level (4, 8 or 16 hours a month), 2 hours a month per ad platform, and an hour for each new ad creative. The campaign commission on ad spend is shown as its own line.

### What's a sensible starting budget?

For local search campaigns, R5,000 to R10,000 a month is enough to learn what works. Competitive national campaigns need more. We’ll recommend a budget in the strategy session.

### Do we pay the platforms directly?

Usually, yes. Ads run from accounts in your name and billed to your card, so you keep ownership of the account and its history. We can also invoice spend on your behalf if you prefer.

### How does the campaign commission work?

It’s charged on your monthly ad spend in brackets: 30% on the first R50,000, 20% on the next R50,000 and 10% on anything above R100,000. On R75,000 of spend that’s R15,000 plus R5,000, so R20,000 (26.7% overall). On R150,000 it’s R30,000, or 20% overall. The quote shows the rand amount and the effective rate for the budget you set.

### Which platforms should we advertise on?

Google Ads for people already searching for what you sell; Meta and TikTok for reaching people before they search; LinkedIn for business audiences. Most businesses start with one or two and add more once those are profitable.

### Is video production included?

Static ads and copy are included in the creatives. The video add-on covers short edits from footage you supply; full video shoots are quoted separately.

### How soon will we see results?

Search campaigns usually produce enquiries in the first weeks. The first month or two is mostly learning which keywords, audiences and ads convert, and performance improves as budget moves to what’s working.

### Do we need a landing page?

Sending ads to your homepage usually wastes budget. A dedicated landing page that matches the ad converts better. Add one per campaign, or use an existing page if it’s built for the purpose.

### What do the reports show?

Spend, clicks, conversions and cost per lead or sale, broken down by campaign and platform. Add the live dashboard to see all platforms in one place at any time.

### Is there a contract?

Monthly services are on a 12-month contract with a 3-month minimum, and the contract renews for another 12 months unless you give one calendar month’s notice before it ends. If you need to stop early, you pay 3 months’ fees after the month you give notice, starting with your one calendar month’s notice. For example, notice in month 3 means you’re billed for months 1 to 6. The commitment covers our fees, including campaign and boosting commission; ad and boost spend paid to the platforms isn’t included.
