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What will social media actually cost your Singapore business?

Five routes, side by side, in Singapore dollars. Every figure comes from a published rate card or salary dataset, and you can change any assumption you disagree with.

By Marcus Yip, Founder, ExcuseBee

Your numbers

12
Where do you post?
Do you need video?
Change the assumptions

These are our defaults, not facts about your business. Every one shows where it came from and when we checked it. If you disagree with a number, change it: the comparison is only useful if the inputs are yours.

Your DIY subscriptions
Monthly and annual cost of social media content in Singapore by route
RoutePer monthPer yearPer post
Singapore agencyS$1,500S$18,000S$125
Freelance managerS$1,800S$21,600S$150
In-house junior hireS$4,310S$51,714S$359
Do it yourselfS$739S$8,862S$62
ExcuseBee ContentS$49S$588S$4

Organic content production, scheduling and publishing only. Ad spend, photography and video production are excluded from every column. Agency and freelance figures are from each firm's own published rate card, checked August 2026.

What your numbers say

  • At 12 posts a month, an in-house hire only beats the agency on cost per post above about 35 posts a month.
  • Doing it yourself stops being cheaper than the agency once your own hour is worth more than about S$50.
  • ExcuseBee Content pays for itself if it saves you about 2.08 hours a month.

When this calculator says do not buy our software

A cost comparison published by one of the things being compared is worth exactly as much as its willingness to lose. So here is where the cheapest column is the wrong answer, stated plainly.

  • You need someone holding a camera. ExcuseBee does not photograph your food, your listing or your workshop, and it does not make video. If your content is fundamentally photographic, the agency or freelance column is buying you something this software cannot.
  • You need strategy, not production. If the real problem is that nobody knows what the business should be saying, a tool that produces posts faster will produce the wrong posts faster.
  • You post fewer than about four times a month. At that volume the DIY column is genuinely fine, and the honest advice is to keep your S$49 and spend the hour.
  • You need someone accountable to you. An agency answers the phone when a post goes wrong. Software does not.

Where every number here comes from

Each figure below is graded by how well we can stand behind it. A filled circle means we read it at the publisher's own page on the date shown. A half circle means it is second-hand or the original would not load. An open circle is our own assumption, and you should change it.

FigureValueSourceGrade
Agency rate per postS$125D'Marketing Agency, checked 2026-08-03 Checked at source
Freelance rate cardS$1,200 to S$2,400Chrispy Media / Chryme, checked 2026-08-03 Checked at source
Junior social media executive, monthly base salary3400 SGD/monthmarketingagency.sg (published 2026-03-28, updated 2026-06-14), checked 2026-08-03Midpoint of a published S$3,000 to S$3,800 range for 0 to 2 years of experience. An agency-published benchmark that cites no external dataset. Second-hand
Employer CPF contribution rate0.17 of ordinary wagesCPF Board, employer contribution rates effective 1 January 2026, checked 2026-08-03Verified at cpf.gov.sg on 3 August 2026: 17 per cent for employees aged 55 and below. Rates step down for older age bands and change between Budgets, so check the current table for your employee's age. The S$8,000 Ordinary Wage ceiling was not confirmed at source; it does not affect this model at the default salary. Checked at source
Annual Wage Supplement (13th month)13 months of salary per yearCommon Singapore practice, not a statutory entitlement, checked 2026-08-03AWS is customary rather than compulsory, and is set by the employment contract. Switch it off if you do not pay it. Our assumption
What an hour of your time is worth23.6 SGD/hourTalent.com, marketing executive Singapore, about 10,000 salaries, checked 2026-08-03A deliberately conservative floor. A business owner's hour is usually worth considerably more than a junior marketer's. Checked at source
Hours you spend per post2.4 hours/postDerived from 6.7 hours a week across roughly 12 posts a month, checked 2026-08-03Derived from a figure that is itself second-hand. Change it to what your week actually looks like. Our assumption
Hours you spend per video4.8 hours/videoOur assumption: roughly twice a still post, checked 2026-08-03Shooting, editing and captioning a short video takes most owners longer than a still post. This is a planning figure, not a measurement. Our assumption
US dollar to Singapore dollar1.282025 SGD per USDopen.er-api.com, mid-market rate, checked 2026-08-03A mid-market reference rate taken on a single day. It is not a bank quote and it is not what your card will charge you: card FX spreads and any foreign-transaction fee sit on top. Checked at source
Video production bandS$1,000 to S$5,000MediaOne, published 2026-04-20, checked 2026-08-03 Second-hand
ExcuseBee plan pricesS$19 / S$49 / S$129Read from the live product configuration, so this tool cannot show a price the product does not charge. Create at S$19 is export-only and cannot publish. Checked at source

Frequently asked questions

How much does social media management cost in Singapore?

On published Singapore rate cards, an agency charges about S$125 per post, which is S$500 a month for four posts and S$1,500 for twelve (D'Marketing, checked August 2026). A freelance manager runs S$1,200 to S$2,400 a month. A junior in-house hire costs about S$4,310 a month once employer CPF and a 13th-month AWS are added to a S$3,400 base salary. Doing it yourself costs roughly S$66 a month in software plus your own hours.

Is it cheaper to hire someone or use an agency in Singapore?

At low volume an agency is cheaper. A junior in-house hire costs about S$4,310 a month fully loaded, which buys roughly 34 agency posts at S$125 each. Below about 34 posts a month the agency is the cheaper route on cost per post. Hiring wins above that, or when you need someone physically present to shoot content, or when your ad spend is large enough that agency management fees exceed a salary.

Does this calculator include advertising budget?

No. Every figure here covers organic content production, scheduling and publishing only. No Singapore agency rate card checked in August 2026 includes media spend: ad budget is billed separately, straight to Meta, TikTok or LinkedIn, and agency management of that spend is typically charged at 15 to 30 per cent on top.

Why is video priced separately?

Because produced video is billed per video, not per post, at roughly S$1,000 to S$5,000 each in Singapore (MediaOne, April 2026). Averaging a S$5,000 video into a per-post number would flatter every route in the comparison, including ours. It is shown as its own line and left out of the totals.

What does this calculator leave out?

Photography and video production, paid media budget and its management fee, community management and replying to comments, influencer and KOL work, and strategy. It also cannot price the quality difference between routes, which is real and is usually the thing that actually decides the answer.

Which ExcuseBee plan does this assume?

It picks the cheapest plan that does what you asked for. If you said you want the tool to publish and schedule, the cheapest plan that can do that is Starter at S$49 a month: the S$19 Create plan generates and exports only and cannot connect an account, schedule or publish. Above about 120 generations a month the model stops rather than invent a price.

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