Most Wollongong businesses spend somewhere between $1,000 and $15,000 a month on digital marketing. That’s the honest range, and I’ll break down what sits at each end of it.
Most agencies won’t give you a number up front. Usually that’s not shiftiness, it’s that “digital marketing” describes about fifteen different purchases, and the price of one Google Ads account has nothing in common with the price of a rebuild plus SEO plus two ad platforms.
We publish ours anyway. There are live pricing pages for SEO, paid ads and websites, because you shouldn’t have to book a call just to work out whether you can afford us. Our actual figures are further down.
So here’s what sets the number, what each stage of business typically pays, and how to tell whether you’re getting your money’s worth.
The short version
Two agencies, same monthly price, completely different scope.
- $1,000 to $15,000 a month covers almost everyone. Where you land depends on how many levers are running, not on how good the agency is.
- Three billing models, three different risks. Hourly bleeds, project work drifts, retainers only work when the scope is written down.
- Ignore any “aim for 4x” benchmark. Your breakeven return is 1 divided by your gross margin, and it’s different for every business.
- Strategy is the invisible line item. It’s the first thing that quietly disappears when a retainer gets priced too thin.
- Our numbers are published. SEO from $1,500 a month, ad management from $500, websites from $8,997. Hold every other quote against them.
What actually sets the number
The scope of what you’re buying
Are you just after someone to run Google Ads? Or do you want SEO, content, paid ads, email and a new website rolled into one?
A full service agency costs more than a solo freelancer, and it should. You’re buying strategic oversight and a team that covers every discipline, not a set of tasks. Whether that’s worth it depends entirely on how many things you need working together.
How you’re billed
Three structures cover almost every quote you’ll receive.
- Hourly, roughly $100 to $250 an hour. Great for one-off tasks or consulting, but costs add up quickly. Costs also swing hard by industry, which is why the numbers sit in their own guides for tradies running Google Ads and for plumbers with two very different customers.
- Project based, roughly $2,000 to $20,000 and up. Used for defined deliverables like a website build or a brand strategy. Get the scope in writing or you’ll pay for “extras” that were always going to be needed.
- Monthly retainer, roughly $1,500 to $10,000 and up. Best for ongoing growth, because it buys you a team across strategy, design, content, ads and analytics at one rate.
If you’re weighing a retainer against putting someone on payroll, that’s a different sum entirely, and it’s covered in in-house versus a Wollongong marketing agency.
Our actual numbers, since I’m asking you to trust the ranges
Ranges are useful for orientation and useless for planning. So here’s what we charge, published, no call required.
- Paid ads. A flat management fee set by your ad spend tier, starting at $500 a month while you’re spending under $2,500, rising to $2,000 a month in the $10,000 to $15,000 band. Per platform, plus GST. Never a percentage of your budget, because charging a percentage rewards us for spending more of your money. Onboarding starts at $900. The full tier table is here.
- SEO. Three plans: Local at $1,500 a month, Growth at $2,750, and Scale from $4,500, all ex GST. A standalone audit is $1,500 and gets credited to your first month if you go ahead. The plans are here.
- Websites. Projects start at $8,997 and custom builds run to $30,000 and up, driven by scope rather than page count.
Use them as a benchmark whether or not you talk to us. A quote sitting well under those numbers isn’t automatically bad, but it’s a question worth asking out loud.
What businesses at each stage typically spend
These are guidelines, not gospel. The right number is the one that returns more than it costs and still leaves you room to scale.
| Where you’re at | Typical monthly spend | Where it should go first |
|---|---|---|
| Tradie or solo operator | $1,000 to $2,000 | Google Ads, the local basics, one landing page that actually converts |
| Established small business | $2,000 to $5,000 | Website fixes, paid ads, a content cadence you can sustain |
| Growth stage | $5,000 to $10,000 | Full funnel strategy, SEO, conversion work, email |
| Ecommerce or national | $10,000 to $20,000 and up | All of the above, plus the budget to scale what’s proven |
Two related breakdowns if you want to go deeper on a single line item: what paid advertising costs in Australia and what SEO costs in Australia. If a website build is in the mix, that has its own range and it usually sits in the first month or two.
What you should be getting for it
If your retainer is $5K and you’re receiving a handful of Canva posts plus an ad campaign someone glances at once a fortnight, you’re overpaying. Not because $5K is too much, but because that’s a $1,500 scope.
At any level, the work should include:
- Planning sessions where someone brings a point of view, not a status update
- Reporting on leads and revenue rather than impressions and reach
- Campaigns actually executed and adjusted across platforms
- Ongoing work on the website or landing pages, because that’s where paid traffic either converts or dies
- Testing and tracking, so next month’s decisions are based on something
The ROI question, answered properly
You’ll see the “aim to make $3 to $5 back for every $1” line everywhere. Please ignore it.
A universal multiple is meaningless without your margin. The same 4x return leaves a 70 percent margin business very comfortable and a 20 percent margin business quietly going backwards.
The number you actually need is your breakeven, and the maths is short: breakeven return equals 1 divided by your gross margin. On a 50 percent margin you break even at 2x. On a 25 percent margin you need 4x just to stand still. Your target sits above that, with enough room to cover overheads and leave a profit.
Work it out properly with the honest version of what a good ROAS is, or put your own numbers into the ROAS calculator and get your floor in about ten seconds.
Timing matters too. Anyone promising overnight returns or guaranteed number one rankings is either lying or still running ads on MySpace. Paid can move within weeks. Search is slower, and it’s worth knowing how long SEO really takes before you judge the spend, because ROI also depends on your industry, sales process and average order value.
Two businesses on the same $4K retainer can receive completely different things, and the invoices look identical. The difference never shows up in the price, it shows up in whether anyone is deciding what not to do. My favourite question when someone shows me a competing quote is simply “what happens in month one?” A thin scope answers in deliverables, and a real one answers with a decision. You learn more from that than from any line item.
How to get more out of the same budget
The answer isn’t posting more on Instagram.
- Fix the destination before you buy more traffic. Paying for clicks that land on a page nobody optimised is the most common way to waste a budget.
- Use paid ads for speed and search for compounding. They do different jobs, and running both is usually cheaper over a year than running either alone.
- Track properly. You can’t scale what you can’t attribute, and most accounts I inherit have been flying blind for months.
- Hire someone who talks in revenue. If the first meeting is about reach and impressions, the reporting will be too.
Free, no deck
Find out what you’re actually buying.
Send me the quote you’re considering. I’ll tell you what’s in the scope, what’s missing, and what I’d change, whether or not you hire us.
What I’d ask before signing anything
Price is the easiest thing to compare and the least useful. These four questions surface the scope, which is where quotes actually differ.
- What happens in month one, specifically?
- Which number are we trying to move, and how will we know?
- Who does the work, and who decides what work to do?
- What’s not included that I’ll end up needing?
The last one is the important one. Cheap quotes are rarely cheap because the agency is efficient. They’re cheap because something has been left out, and it’s usually the strategy, because it’s the only line item a client can’t see. There’s more on spotting the difference in how to choose a digital marketing agency in Wollongong.
Marketing that doesn’t grow the business is just expensive decoration. Done properly, it’s the line item that pays for the others.
Frequently asked questions
How much does digital marketing cost in Wollongong?
Most local businesses spend between $1,000 and $15,000 a month. Solo operators and tradies usually sit at $1,000 to $2,000, established small businesses at $2,000 to $5,000, growth stage companies at $5,000 to $10,000, and ecommerce or national brands above that. What moves you along the range is how many disciplines are running at once.
Is a retainer better than paying per project?
For ongoing growth, generally yes, because the work compounds and nobody has to renegotiate every time something needs adjusting. Project pricing is better for a defined build like a website. Hourly is best kept for advice, since it gets expensive fast once real execution starts.
What return should I expect from digital marketing?
Ignore any universal benchmark. Your breakeven return is 1 divided by your gross margin, so a 50 percent margin business breaks even at 2x and a 25 percent margin business needs 4x just to stand still. Set your target above your own breakeven, not above someone else’s average.
Why won’t agencies quote a price on their website?
Usually because digital marketing describes about fifteen different purchases and a single number would be wrong for most people reading it. We publish ours anyway, with live pricing pages for SEO, paid ads and websites. An agency that won’t give you even a range after hearing what you need is being cagey, and that’s worth noticing.
How long before marketing spend pays for itself?
Paid ads can move within a few weeks once the learning phase settles. Search is a three to six month conversation before it’s fair to judge. A good agency will tell you which part is working now and which part is compounding for later, instead of promising both at once.