This is an anonymous post from an Elpha member.

Am I undervaluing myself as a community manager?

Posted in:Community Managers Advice Compensation

Ladies, ever since the birth of my daughter I've put on a hold on my own business.

In the meantime, I've been working for other coaches in setting up their operations, biz dev, social media, design, copy, web, marketing strategy ... the whole shebang.

I've just accepted another job, with more focus on community management. It's for a coach whose approach I'm very aligned with and want to learn from though the pay is...19 USD an hour.

I'm based in Spain, and I guess for here that is a good price. Everyone who lives up north thinks it's peanuts though they (perhaps) don't know the job market for freelance VA, social media managers, community managers. Or is it I that is undervaluing myself?

I'd love to know what others are paying their community managers or if you are one, share anonymously your hourly wage / monthly retainer.

Let me just say it's not just any community management, it's for people who have experienced trauma. So they need a superstar - me hehe - with a tech background, be efficient in uploading contact details into CRM, be confident in doing my own FB lives around mindfulness/accountability/trauma, monitoring Zoom calls, responding to people's questions but most importantly ensuring people feel heard, seen and felt.

Appreciate the response :)

PS: My business will come, I know what's holding me back. It's a phase, and I will get through it.

Penelope132·Jan 15

Would love your opinion @frankie, @angelacoleman, @VictoriaMC, @brianafm, @boram, @lizaveta - thank you x

Iynna·Feb 15

Are you on the market, this might be of interest? https://elpha.com/posts/6i1bwm75/looking-for-a-superstar-relationships-building-community-manager

brianafm·Jan 16

Hey friend! Not gonna lie, that pay made me cringe, eek. Even being based on Spain, I can imagine you're doing a lot more than even the coach / company gets. Seeing all that you're doing, that sounds low for all the rockstar activities you can do! Double, minimum. And consider making it a flat fee for a specified number of hours. Hourly community management is tough because no 2 days are the same. Some days are slow and I'm like "is anybody online?" Other days I'm like "if I log off, everything's going to catch on fire". Flat rate for freelance makes me less resentful haha.

teresaman·Jan 16

Without knowing what community manager rates are like in Spain, my approach would be to find the average, and add onto it - since it sounds like you do quite a bit more!

Iynna·Jan 16

Similar to Teresa's comment: what's the average CM pay in Spain? And agreed that the scope of the role is a bit more expansive so you could certainly ask for more. The question though is what kind of budget are they workign with? You might not know for sure but if you can see how much money they charge clients, # of clients they have, you could guestimate the revenues and work from that so your range isn't totally out of the blue.