What does marketing for an accounting firm cost in Australia?

What you’ll pay by channel

Here are the typical monthly ranges we see across the Australian market. For the paid channels, the fee below is the management retainer — your ad spend sits on top of it.

So management fees generally land at $1,000–$1,500/month for Google Ads and Facebook (budget roughly the same again in ad spend), $500–$2,000 for SEO, and $1,500–$3,000 for LinkedIn.

Why local SEO ranges so widely: if you just want to rank locally — Google Maps and local search — you’re at the lower end. If you also want to rank inside AI search engines like ChatGPT, that takes more work and sits at the higher end, but it tends to bring in more, and higher-quality, clients.

Before the channels comes the foundation. Every firm should first have the basics in place — a CRM, Google reviews, a reputation strategy, social profiles, and email plus SMS. That foundation runs only about $2,000–$4,000 a year, and if it wins you one extra client it’s already paid for itself.

Book a free Accounting Firm Growth Audit → — we’ll tell you exactly what your firm should spend, and on which channel, before you commit to anyone.

Why the real cost is a retainer with no results

Price isn’t the risk. The risk is paying month after month for the wrong strategy.

Google is the lowest-risk channel — but only when you work with an expert who knows which strategies actually apply to an accounting firm. Hand it to a generic SEO agency and they can run the wrong playbook entirely, and that ends up costing you far more than the retainer, because you’ve paid for months with nothing to show for it. Work with someone who understands the accounting industry and you can get results quickly. In some cases we’ve delivered results inside the first month — even from SEO — though SEO’s real strength is how it compounds from there.

That’s the difference that matters far more than whether you’re paying $1,000 or $1,500 a month.

Which channel gives the best return?

SEO is the lowest risk and the highest ROI. It compounds, it’s predictable, and once it’s working it keeps producing without you topping up ad spend. Its one drawback is targeting — you can’t hand-pick exactly who sees you the way you can on paid social.

Facebook and LinkedIn give you better targeting. You can go after specific types of clients directly. If you target advisory-type or CFO-type clients, the return can be higher — but so is the risk, because those campaigns take more skill, more iteration, and a strong sales process behind them.

As a rough sense of what good looks like: we’ve had clients land a $1,000-per-month retainer client for around $1,500 in ad spend. Results vary by firm, market and offer — but that’s the kind of maths that makes paid channels worth it when they’re run properly.

So what should your firm actually spend?

Start with the channel that fits your goals and your appetite. If you want the lowest-risk, highest-ROI path, begin with SEO and your local market. If you want to target a specific type of client and you’ve got the sales process to convert them, layer in paid. Most firms don’t need every channel at once — they need one channel run well.

FAQ

About the author — John Kim is the founder of JSK Advisory, a former accountant and former account executive in the accounting software industry. He helps professional-service firms across Australia grow online. Connect on LinkedIn.