Costs and pricing
Part of How to budget for employer branding costs with a worked example
Seven lines your employer branding budget template must carry
Most employer branding budget templates fail because they list spend without owners. Here are the seven lines to carry and the build sequence to follow.
What to take away
- The mistake most teams make is treating the template as a spend list. A budget template is a decision record: every line needs an owner and a stated assumption.
- Seven lines cover most England-based programmes, from media and content production to tooling, events and contingency.
- Label every figure as a quoted price or an illustrative example, because an unlabelled number is a guess finance will challenge.
- Build the template before you brief suppliers, so quotes arrive against a structure you control.
- Revisit assumptions each quarter.
Why do most employer branding budget templates fail?
They start with a total and work backwards. A headline figure is divided across channels until the lines add up, which hides which roles are hardest to fill and what an open vacancy costs.
A template built from vacancies and channels survives scrutiny better than one built from a round number.
Which seven lines should the template carry?
- Paid media, split by platform and campaign objective.
- Content production, including photography, video and copywriting.
- Careers site and tooling, covering hosting, applicant tracking add-ONS and licences.
- Agency and freelance fees, separated from media spend.
- Events and campus activity, with venue and travel listed apart.
- Measurement, including survey panels and analytics tools.
- Contingency, set as a percentage of the lines above.
Give each line a named owner and a review date. For worked figures behind these headings, the cost and budget guide for England sets out typical ranges and the assumptions behind them.
Seven budget template lines
- Paid media, split by platform and objective
- Content productionphotography, video, copywriting
- Careers site and tooling, hosting and licences
- Agency and freelance fees, separate from media
- Events and campus activity, venue and travel apart
- Measurementsurvey panels and analytics tools
- Contingency, set as percentage of lines above
Paid media is where quotes move fastest. The LinkedIn ad best practices explain how targeting and format choices affect cost per application, which belongs in your media line notes.
How should you build the template step by step?
How should you build
- List the roles you expect to recruit in the period, with location and seniority.
- Note which roles historically take longest to fill and why.
- Map each line above to those roles, so no line exists without a purpose.
- Collect supplier quotes and date each one.
- Enter quoted prices, and labelled illustrative examples where no quote exists.
- Add contingency and total the sheet.
- Circulate to finance and the hiring managers who own the roles.
Step five is where most templates weaken. If a supplier has not quoted, write "illustrative example" beside the figure. For example, a team paying £400 a month for a job board subscription should label that as an example, not a market rate.
What figures need a label?
Every figure needs one of two labels: a quoted price with a date, or an illustrative example. Mixing them is how budgets lose credibility in review meetings.
Use official labour market data to sanity-check demand, not to set prices. The ONS people in work statistics give vacancy and employment context when you defend a media line.
If the template covers talent pooling or speculative candidate contact, compliance sits alongside cost. The ICO's step-by-step guide to direct marketing covers consent and lawful bases, so budget time for it.
Should you use day rates or project fees?
Both can work, but the template must show which you have chosen. Day rates suit ongoing content work; project fees suit one-off films, research or site builds.
If suppliers quote in different ways, normalise them before comparing. Pricing models used in England explains how retainers, day rates and project fees translate into annual cost, which makes the comparison fair.
How often should the template be updated?
Quarterly is enough for most teams. Update expired quotes, check contingency against actual spend and remove lines that no longer serve a live role.
Keep the previous version, because comparing two quarters shows whether costs are drifting from your choices or the market.
Common questions
How many lines should a small team use?
Seven is workable for most England-based teams. A single recruiter may merge events and content, but keep media, tooling and contingency separate.
Do I need quotes before finance sign-off?
Not for every line. Label unquoted figures as illustrative examples and note when you expect a firm price.
Where does compliance time sit?
As a named line, usually within tooling or agency fees. The ICO guidance above explains the work, so do not leave it unpriced.
Can the template cover more than one year?
Yes, but keep each year on a separate sheet. A two-year total hides which assumptions moved.
