Costs and pricing
Part of How to budget for employer branding costs with a worked example
Employer branding: what the contract does not cover
The employer branding items a contract does not cover: extra production rounds, platform licence fees, content upkeep, accessibility and legal input.
What to take away
- Hidden costs cluster in five placesextra production rounds, ongoing platform fees, content upkeep, accessibility fixes and legal or HR input.
- Ask every supplier for the exclusions list before you compare headline prices, because the cheapest quote often carries the most gaps.
- Hold a contingency of 10 to 20 per cent of the project fee, for example £1,000 to £2,000 on a £10,000 programme, and name who approves it.
- Score each quote against the same rubric below so a low day rate does not hide a high total.
- Check the Employer brandingcosts and budget guide for England before setting a ceiling, because it maps the cost lines you will approve.
Additional production rounds
Most quotes include a fixed number of revision rounds. A second film edit, a reshoot day or extra banner sizes usually sits outside that count.
Extra edit day cost example
- £4,000campaign film cost
- £600one extra edit day
- 1extra edit day
For example, a team paying £4,000 for a campaign film might be billed £600 for one extra edit day. That figure is illustrative, not a market rate.
Ask what counts as a round and what triggers a new one, then get the answer in writing.
Ongoing platform and licence fees
Careers site hosting, applicant tracking add-ons and social scheduling tools carry monthly or annual fees. These rarely appear in a project quote.
The licence lines usually sit with the applicant tracking system you already run — products such as Workday, Greenhouse and Teamtailor — plus the careers site platform and any scheduling tool. Ask for each licence in writing, because a one-off build fee does not usually cover them.
Platforms change features on their own schedule. LinkedIn publishes a quarterly product release for its hiring products, so a workflow you budgeted for can shift within a year.
Read the quarterly product release notes for LinkedIn Talent Solutions before assuming a feature stays free.
Content upkeep after launch
A careers page is not a one-off build. Salaries, benefits, office locations and team profiles change, and someone has to edit them.
Content upkeep annual cost
- 4hours per month
- £35internal hourly rate
- £1,680annual upkeep cost
Estimate the hours and price them at your internal rate. Four hours a month at £35 an hour is £1,680 a year. Those figures are illustrative.
If you cannot name the person doing this work, the cost is real but invisible.
Accessibility and compliance fixes
Recruitment pages sit inside the Equality Act 2010 in Great Britain, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) enforces those equality duties. Public sector employers must also meet the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, which use WCAG 2.1 AA as the technical standard. Northern Ireland has its own equality legislation, overseen by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.
If you advertise beyond England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, translations add another line.
Audits, alt text, captions and contrast changes are the usual extras. Budget for one remediation pass rather than assuming the build covers it, because fixing accessibility after launch costs more than building it correctly.
Legal, HR and dismissal input
How you describe turnover and exits affects reputation, and the rules on dismissals shape what you can say. The detail sits in the Employment Rights Act 1996, which sets out redundancy rights, and in the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures.
Collective consultation duties apply when an employer proposes 20 or more redundancies at one establishment within 90 days, so the timing of any announcement is a legal question as well as a communications one.
Read the GOV.UK guidance on dismissing staff and redundancies before publishing any messaging about restructuring, and check Northern Ireland separately, where employment law is set out in its own legislation.
Legal review time is a cost line, even when it is internal.
Audience segmentation and data work
Targeting needs data. Pulling occupation and sector breakdowns takes analyst time, and that time has a price.
The ONS publishes employment by occupation data (EMP04) that teams use to size audiences.
If nobody owns this task, you buy it back later at a higher price.
Agency retainers and change requests
A retainer covers agreed work. New requests, new markets and new job families fall outside it, whether the supplier is an employer branding consultancy, a recruitment marketing agency, a video production house or a media buyer.
Compare how each supplier prices change. The Employer branding pricing models in England page sets out the common structures, which shows where a retainer ends and a change request begins.
What the contract should spell out
- The exclusions list in writing, before you compare totals with another supplier.
- How a revision round is defined, and the rate card that applies beyond the included rounds.
- The notice period for change requests, for ending a retainer and for cancelling a platform licence.
- Who approves extra spend, and the threshold that needs a second signature.
- Which platform and hosting licences the supplier holds, and which of them transfer to you at the end.
Internal time nobody invoices
Briefing, reviewing, approving and chasing all consume salary. Add those hours before judging value, because a programme that looks cheap can cost more once internal time is counted.
Scoring rubric for comparing quotes
Use the same weights for every supplier and record the evidence behind each score.
| Cost area | What to check | Weight | Score 1 to 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production rounds | Number included, price per extra round | 20% | |
| Platform fees | Monthly and annual charges, notice periods | 15% | |
| Content upkeep | Who edits, how often, at what rate | 15% | |
| Accessibility | Audit, fixes and captions included or not | 15% | |
| Legal and HR | Review time and approval steps | 15% | |
| Change requests | Rate card and turnaround | 20% |
Common questions
Are hidden costs the same across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Most employment law is consistent across the UK, but it is not identical. The Equality Act 2010 covers England, Scotland and Wales, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission enforces it; Northern Ireland has its own equality legislation, enforced by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. Check the position for each location you recruit in.
How much contingency should I hold?
A range of 10 to 20 per cent of the project fee is a workable starting point, for example £1,500 on a £10,000 programme. That example is illustrative, not a benchmark.
Should I choose the cheapest quote?
No. Compare totals using the rubric, then weigh the risk of each excluded item. A higher quote with fewer exclusions can cost less overall.
Who should sign off extra spend?
Name one approver and a threshold before work starts. Without that, small extras accumulate and nobody notices until invoicing.
