Real numbers, on the page, with no form to fill out first. Our packages run $790, $1,390, and $1,890 a month, and single services start at $495. Below is where those numbers come from, what moves them up or down, and an honest read on when hiring us is not worth it.
Prices current as of
Main Course Media charges $790 per month for the Starter package (custom website plus local SEO), $1,390 per month for Growth (adds all-channel ad management), and $1,890 per month for Market Leader (adds full social media management and content). Individual services start at $495 per month for one advertising channel, $595 per month for SEO, and $600 per month for social media management. There is no setup, build, or onboarding fee — a website, plus its hosting and updates, is included in every package. Ad spend is billed separately by Google or Meta and we never mark it up or take a percentage of it. Plans are month-to-month, cancellable on 30 days’ written notice, with no early-termination fee.
Every package is a simple monthly plan — no long lists of add-ons to decode, and no setup, build, or onboarding fee. Your website is included from month one; ad spend on the Growth and Market Leader packages is billed separately. Not sure which fits? Tell us your goals and we’ll point you to the right one.
$790 /mo
The foundation every business needs: a custom website plus the local SEO to get it found.
No setup, build, or onboarding fee.
$1,390 /mo
Everything in Starter, plus done-for-you ad management across every channel — run one, two, or all three, whatever fits.
Ad spend billed separately.
$1,890 /mo
Everything in Starter and Growth, plus a done-for-you social presence that keeps you top of mind. You just share the photos.
Ad spend billed separately.
Only need one thing right now? You can start with a single service à la carte — one at a time. As soon as you want two or more working together, a package costs less and works better, so that’s where we’ll point you.
$595/mo
Get found first when local customers search for what you offer.
Website, hosting, and management not included.
$600/mo
A done-for-you social presence: consistent posting, SEO blogs, and real engagement. You just share the photos.
$495/mo per channel
Done-for-you ad management. Run one channel or stack them.
Ad spend billed separately.
Website design isn't sold à la carte — it comes inside every package, starting with Starter at $790/mo. A website with no SEO behind it rarely gets found, so we don't sell one without the other.
Marketing pricing is genuinely confusing because the same words describe wildly different work. Here is the honest map, including where we sit and what we are not.
The large national agencies serving home services and local business typically start in the $3,000–$10,000 per month range, often with minimum ad-spend requirements on top. That number is not a scam — it buys real things.
You are paying for a staffed team (a dedicated strategist, a paid-media specialist, an SEO lead, a developer, a designer, an account manager), enterprise analytics and call-tracking tooling, and the overhead that comes with it: offices, sales teams, layers of management. For a business doing $10M and up, that structure is worth it. The tradeoff is that you rarely talk to the person doing your work, minimum commitments are common, and a small local business is a small account that gets junior attention.
At the bottom of the market you will find $300-a-month "SEO," $99 website builders, and shared-lead platforms. Each is cheap for a specific reason, and the reason is usually the problem.
Cheap SEO retainers are almost always a template report and a handful of low-quality directory links: it looks like activity, and it produces no attributable jobs. Cheap websites are a stock template with no click-to-call, no service-area pages, and no conversion tracking, judged on whether the owner likes the look of it rather than whether it books work. Shared-lead platforms sell you the same lead they sold three competitors, at $80–$200 each, and a meaningful share are junk or out of area — which is why so many owners conclude "online leads do not work" when what actually failed was the model.
The real cost of cheap is not the invoice. It is six to twelve months of lost ground while a competitor compounds, plus the money already spent.
We are deliberately in the middle: more than a template vendor, well under a national agency. $790 to $1,890 a month, flat.
That is possible for two specific reasons, and neither is cutting corners. First, we are a small agency with almost no overhead — no sales floor, no account-management layer, no offices to fill. Second, we have spent the time training AI systems to execute the work the way we do it by hand, which means one experienced marketer can do what used to take a team. The efficiency is the discount, and it lands in your budget rather than our margin. A real person still sets strategy and checks every piece before it ships — that part we do not automate.
What we are not: we are not the cheapest option, and if price is the only variable that matters to you, you will find a lower number. We are also not a substitute for a national agency if you need a dedicated staffed team on site — at some size, you outgrow us, and we will say so.
Our packages are flat monthly rates, so the tier you need is what changes your price — not a meter running on how much you ask for. These are the things that push a business into a higher tier.
SEO alone is the cheapest place to start. Adding paid advertising means campaign build, daily management, and lead tracking on top of it, which is the jump from Starter ($790) to Growth ($1,390). Adding social and ongoing content is the jump to Market Leader ($1,890).
Ranking a plumber in Plano against national brands and PE-backed consolidators takes more content, more citation work, and more aggressive bid management than the same business in a small market. This shows up mostly in the ad spend you need, not in our fee.
Local SEO works page by page. Every package covers up to ten service pages and five city pages in the initial build, each with genuinely local content, which is enough for the large majority of local businesses. A business selling twelve services across six cities needs more than that, and pages past the included scope are $150 per service page and $125 per city page — always quoted and approved in writing before anyone starts.
A five-page site for a single-location service business is straightforward. An e-commerce catalog, a booking system, or a migration off a neglected legacy site takes longer, and we will tell you that before you sign rather than after.
Just as usefully, here is what makes a business cheaper to serve — and where you can genuinely spend less with us.
If you only need one thing right now, a single service à la carte starts at $495 a month. It costs less because it is less. The moment you want two or more working together, a package is cheaper than stacking them, and we will tell you so.
A Google Business Profile that is already claimed and accurate, a site that only needs SEO rather than replacing, real photos of your work on hand — each of these removes work from the front of the engagement.
One or two services in one or two cities means fewer pages to build and rank. Businesses that try to market residential, commercial, and new construction at once pay more and get weaker messaging for it.
Photos of your actual jobs, answers to the questions customers really ask, the real numbers on what a customer is worth to you. Real input beats stock, and it means we spend our time on strategy instead of guessing.
Nearly every marketing agency sells good-better-best tiers, and the reason is real: marketing channels reinforce each other, so the right bundle outperforms the same money spent on one thing. A website with no SEO does not get found. SEO with no converting website wastes the traffic. Ads pointed at a weak site burn budget.
Where tiering goes wrong is when the cheapest tier is deliberately crippled to push you up, or when the tiers differ only in "hours." Ours are additive: each one is the whole previous tier plus one more channel, so the only question is how many channels you want running, not what got withheld.
Read any agency's tiers by asking three questions: what is actually delivered (not "hours"), is ad spend included or separate, and do I own what you build? Ours: everything listed on the package, ad spend always separate and never marked up, and you own the site and every account.
A monthly retainer is easy to underestimate. Here is the honest full-year picture, including the ad spend that is not in our fee.
| Package | Our fee (12 mo) | Typical ad spend (12 mo) | Total first year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter — $790/mo | $9,480 | $0 | $9,480 |
| Growth — $1,390/mo | $16,680 | $12,000–$36,000 | $28,680–$52,680 |
| Market Leader — $1,890/mo | $22,680 | $12,000–$36,000 | $34,680–$58,680 |
Ad-spend figures above assume one search channel at our recommended budget, not a quote. We recommend $1,000–$3,000 a month per search channel and $750–$1,500 for Facebook and Instagram — a business running all three would be at $2,750–$7,500 a month, and few start there. We never require a minimum: you set the budget, we recommend a number based on what a customer is actually worth to you, and it is always paid directly to the platform.
There is no setup, build, or onboarding fee, so month one carries far more value than $790 of work — that is when your website gets designed and built. Most dev shops charge several thousand dollars upfront for the same deliverable.
The moment you stop paying for ads, the leads stop that day. SEO, content, and reviews keep producing after the work is done — which is why the cheapest long-run position is usually SEO plus a converting site, with ads layered on when you need volume now.
A single in-house marketing hire in DFW runs roughly $55,000–$75,000 a year plus payroll taxes and benefits, and that one person will not be equally good at web development, SEO, paid media, and content. Market Leader is about a third of that, fully loaded.
We would rather tell you now than take a month of your money and part badly. Here is who should not hire us.
Marketing that works produces phone calls. If your calendar is full, you are not answering the phone, or you have nobody to send, more leads will just create missed calls and bad reviews. Fix capacity first — that is free and it will make you more money than we would.
Marketing should be funded by margin, not by hope. If a $790 monthly commitment would put real pressure on payroll, the honest move is to claim and optimize your Google Business Profile yourself, ask every happy customer for a review, and come back when there is room. We publish how to do the basics for free in our Resources section.
SEO takes months to compound. That is the nature of it, not a sales excuse. If you need the phone to ring next week, advertising is the only honest answer — and if there is no budget for ad spend on top of the fee, we cannot get you there.
We report leads, calls, and cost per booked job. If your expectation is a monthly deck of traffic charts, another agency will make you happier.
Past roughly $5M in revenue, or with multiple locations and an in-house marketing team to coordinate, you likely need a staffed agency with a dedicated bench. We will tell you when that is where you are.
The math is simple enough to do on the back of an envelope. If your average job is worth $500 and you close half your leads, Starter at $790 a month needs to produce about four extra leads to pay for itself. If your average job is a $3,000 panel upgrade or a $9,000 remodel, one job every couple of months covers Market Leader. Work out your own number before you talk to us — if it does not clear comfortably, do not sign.
These are our current prices, and they are the prices we launched with — Main Course Media is a young agency, so there is no long price history to report. We would rather say that plainly than imply a track record we have not earned yet.
What has changed across the wider market is worth knowing: agency retainers have risen steadily as paid-search costs climbed, and cost per click in competitive home-services categories has grown materially over the last several years. That pressure is on ad spend more than on agency fees. Our own efficiency gains from the way we work are why we have been able to hold our fee where it is rather than follow the market up.
If we ever raise the price of an existing client's plan, your rate is locked for your first twelve months regardless, and any increase after that comes with at least 60 days' written notice — you will hear it from us directly rather than discover it on an invoice, and you are free to cancel without penalty if you do not accept it.
Expect a wide range: roughly $300–$800 a month at the low end (usually template work with little attributable result), $800–$2,500 a month for a small or boutique agency doing real work, and $3,000–$10,000 a month plus minimum ad spend for a large national agency with a staffed team. Main Course Media sits in the middle at $790–$1,890 a month, flat, with ad spend billed separately and never marked up.
Our packages are $790 a month (Starter: custom website plus local SEO), $1,390 a month (Growth: adds all-channel ad management), and $1,890 a month (Market Leader: adds social media management and content). Single services à la carte are $495 a month per advertising channel, $595 a month for SEO, and $600 a month for social media management. Website design is only available inside a package.
No, and deliberately so. Your ad budget is paid directly to Google or Meta and stays in your own account, and we never mark it up or take a percentage of it. Our management fee is separate and does not change when your budget does. We recommend $1,000–$3,000 a month per search channel and $750–$1,500 for Facebook and Instagram, on top of the package price. We never require a minimum — you set and control the budget, and we will recommend a specific number based on what a customer is worth to you before you commit.
Your website is included in every package rather than sold separately, starting with Starter at $790 a month, and there is no setup, build, or onboarding fee — your first month is the whole cost of getting started. You see a first design concept within ten business days and the site goes live within thirty days of your approval. We do not sell websites à la carte, because a site with no SEO behind it rarely gets found. For comparison, a custom site of the kind we build typically runs several thousand dollars upfront at a traditional dev shop.
No. Plans are month-to-month with no minimum term and no early-termination fee — cancel any time with 30 days' written notice. You own the site and every account we touch, so if you leave, you leave with everything. Fees for work already delivered are not refunded, and anything prepaid for a period we did not work is returned pro-rata. We ask for a fair shot — SEO genuinely needs a few months to compound — but that is a recommendation, not a lock-in.
A single service à la carte, starting at $495 a month for one advertising channel or $595 a month for SEO. That is the lowest-cost way to work with us. Be aware that one channel in isolation underperforms the same money in a package, so as soon as you want two or more things running together, a package costs less and works better — we will point you there rather than let you stack à la carte services.
No. There is no setup fee, no build fee, and no onboarding fee on any package or à la carte service. Your first monthly payment is the entire cost of getting started, and on a package it includes the website.
Your first monthly fee is due when you sign, and every month after that is charged on the same calendar day by recurring automatic payment through our payment processor — you enter your card or bank details directly with them, and we never store them ourselves. Because the fee is already a flat monthly amount with no upfront build cost, there is nothing to finance and no separate payment plan.
Cancel any time with 30 days' written notice — email counts — and there is no early-termination fee. You pay through the end of that notice period. Within seven days we hand over your data, account access, and creative assets, and we keep hosting your website free for 60 days while you decide what to do with it. You can take the complete source files at no charge, have us keep hosting it for $150 a month, or have it converted to a self-editable WordPress site for a one-time $1,500. The site is yours either way.
Still not sure which plan fits? Tell us your goals and we'll point you to the right one — including telling you if the answer is "not yet."
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