Done-For-You Social Media for Real Estate Agents in 2026: 4 Options Compared (Real Cost + GCI Math)

Most agents shopping for done-for-you social media compare the headline retainer, sign with a generalist agency that posts twice a week, and three months later wonder why the only listings their feed pulled in are the ones they already had on their books. The mistake isn't the agency — it's the assumption that 8–12 posts a month on Instagram is "doing social media" in a category where the average commission is $8,800–$22,000 per close and the agent with the freshest, most-recent content owns the referral conversation in their geographic farm.

TL;DR: Done-for-you social media for real estate agents costs anywhere from $800/month for a freelancer to $7,500/month for an in-house manager, but ROI is decided by volume and farm-relevance, not headline price. Generalist agencies ship 20–30 posts/month at $1,500–$3,500 fully loaded. Real-estate-specialist agencies ship 30–60 posts/month at $2,000–$4,500. An in-house social hire costs $6,000–$10,500/month all-in. Prestyj's DFY social for real estate ships 1,000–1,500 posts/month at $1,497–$2,997 flat — roughly $1–$3 per post vs the $50–$175 per post every other option costs. One additional closed deal at $10K GCI pays for 3–7 months of the entire DFY plan.

Key Takeaways

• Real estate is the canonical "one deal pays for the year" category — at $10K average GCI, a single extra closed transaction covers 3–7 months of any DFY social plan
• The algorithmic threshold for real estate agents is roughly 30 posts/week (why 30 posts isn't enough) — most generalist agencies ship 2% of that
• Cost per lead via DFY social at scale lands $15–$60 for real estate vs $70–$280 on Meta paid ads in the same farm
• Referral compounding is the LTV multiplier — social-warm leads close at 2–3x the rate of cold paid leads and produce 2–4x more referrals in years 2–5
• Specialist real-estate agencies charge 30–60% more than generalists for the same post count — unit economics still favor high-volume models
• Geographic farm content is the highest-converting real estate pillar — a Reel about a specific neighborhood, school district, or HOA outperforms a generic "tip of the day" post by 8–25x
• The hidden cost of low volume is missed market-event windows — interest-rate moves, inventory shifts, and seasonal markets all reward agents who can ship same-day content

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DFY Social for Real Estate Agents: 4 Options Side-by-Side

Here's what real estate agents and teams actually pay across the four options. All numbers fully loaded — base retainer plus the fees that don't make the proposal.

Cost Category	In-House Social Hire	Generalist Social Agency	Real-Estate-Specialist Agency	Prestyj DFY Social
Headline price	$4,500–$7,500/mo (salary)	$1,500–$3,500/mo	$2,000–$4,500/mo	$1,497–$2,997/mo flat
Setup / onboarding	$5,000–$15,000 hire/ramp	$1,500–$5,000 one-time	$1,500–$5,000 one-time	$0 included
Posts per month	60–120	20–30	30–60	1,000–1,500
Platforms included	2–4	1 (others +$300–$800)	2–3	4–6 included
Reels / short-form	Their time	+$400–$1,500/mo	+$300–$1,000/mo	Included
Listing turnaround	Same day (if available)	5–10 days	2–5 days	Same day (24h SLA)
Strategy depth	High (one brain on staff)	Generic / template-driven	Real-estate playbook	RE playbook + AI swarm
Fair-housing compliance	Agent's responsibility	Often missing	Usually covered	Built into compliance layer
Revisions	Unlimited	1–2 rounds, then $50–$150 each	1–2 rounds	Unlimited
Reporting	Build internally	+$50–$200/mo or PDF only	Quarterly review	Real-time dashboard
Contract length	At-will employment	6–12 mo with 30–90 day exit	6–12 mo	Month-to-month
Real fully-loaded cost	$6,000–$10,500/mo	$3,200–$7,800/mo	$3,000–$5,800/mo	$1,497–$2,997/mo
Cost per post	$60–$175	$110–$260	$60–$160	$1–$3

The cost-per-post column is the one that decides this for most agents. Once the swarm clears the algorithmic threshold (~30 posts/week), every additional post at $1–$3 each does the work of an entire weekly batch from a generalist agency.

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Why Social Media Matters Specifically for Real Estate Agents

Real estate is not a category where social media is a brand-presence nice-to-have. It's the lowest-cost referral-compounding surface in a market where 84% of homebuyers and 73% of sellers say they "vaguely remember" an agent from social media before they chose one, and where the average GCI per close justifies real spend on top-of-funnel attention.

The category numbers that move the math:

• Average residential GCI per side: $8,800–$22,000 (varies by market and price point)
• Average team production: 35–120 transactions/year
• % of buyers who research an agent's social media before signing a buyer agreement: ~68%
• % of sellers who check Instagram/Facebook before signing a listing agreement: ~62%
• Repeat + referral rate from social-warm clients: 38–55% (vs 18–28% from cold paid leads)
• Average buyer-agent relationship duration: 4–9 months from first touch to close
• % of agents currently posting fewer than 30 times/month: ~89%

That last stat is the entire opportunity. 89% of agents are posting at 2% of the algorithmic threshold. The agent who shows up consistently for 90 days has already lapped 9 out of 10 of their local competitors on the only channel where buyers and sellers are forming opinions before they call.

What "done for you" should actually include for a real estate agent or team

A DFY agency that cannot do all of the following is selling brand presence, not GCI:

1. Same-day new-listing content — Reel, carousel, Facebook post, GBP update, plus founder/team Story drops within 24 hours of any new listing going live
2. Just-sold and price-improvement content — momentum signals the algorithm and the farm both reward
3. Geographic farm content — Reels and posts referencing specific neighborhoods, school districts, ZIPs, HOAs
4. Market-update content — weekly or biweekly "what just happened in [market]" pieces tied to specific data points
5. Buyer & seller education — first-time buyer prep, listing prep, inspection negotiation, lender pre-approval, etc.
6. Behind-the-scenes / day-in-the-life — showings, open houses, closings, client moments (with consent)
7. Fair-housing compliance built into every caption — most generalist agencies are non-compliant here, which is a real legal exposure
8. Multi-platform distribution — Instagram is mandatory, Facebook still drives the older buyer demo, TikTok is the fastest-growing real-estate platform, LinkedIn matters for luxury and commercial

A generalist agency at $1,500–$3,500/month typically delivers items 4 and 5. A real-estate specialist will hit 5–6. The Prestyj engine ships all 8 every week.

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Content Pillars That Work for Real Estate Agents (with Post Examples)

The real estate accounts that compound run 6–8 clear pillars across every platform, every week. These produce calls, referrals, and listing appointments — not just impressions.

Pillar 1 — Listing & Just-Sold (the workhorse)

• Format: 9:16 Reel walk-through, carousel of best photos, Facebook market post
• Hook examples: "This [neighborhood] home is priced $40K under comp", "Just sold — here's what the buyer paid that nobody saw in the photos"
• Cadence: Every active listing × multiple cuts per week, plus 1–2 just-sold posts/week
• Why it works: The algorithm rewards listing freshness, and the farm rewards visible momentum.

Pillar 2 — Geographic Farm Content (the trust pillar)

• Format: Neighborhood-tour Reels, school-district carousels, HOA explainers, restaurant/coffee features
• Hook examples: "The 4 [neighborhood] streets nobody talks about", "What it actually costs to live in [school district] in 2026"
• Cadence: 4–6 per week
• Why it works: Triggers local-relevance signals on every platform. Differentiates you from the agent next door who posts generic content.

Pillar 3 — Market Updates (the authority builder)

• Format: Weekly Reel + LinkedIn explainer + carousel for Instagram
• Hook examples: "[Market] inventory just jumped 18% in 4 weeks — here's what it means", "Why the Fed move on Wednesday matters if you're closing in Q3"
• Cadence: 2–3 per week
• Why it works: Establishes you as the data-driven voice in your market. Sellers and buyers screenshot these.

Pillar 4 — Buyer & Seller Education (the lead magnet)

• Format: Carousels, voice-over Reels, lead-magnet drops, LinkedIn long-form
• Hook examples: "5 inspection items lenders will not let pass in 2026", "What your appraiser is actually looking at"
• Cadence: 3–4 per week
• Why it works: Converts ambient feed-scrollers into DMs and lead-magnet downloads.

Pillar 5 — Agent On-Camera (the compounding accelerant)

• Format: Walk-and-talk Reels, podcast clips, retells of recent client interactions
• Hook examples: "The line I use when a seller wants to overprice", "Why I told a buyer to walk away last week"
• Cadence: 3–5 per week (the engine compounds 30–50% faster with founder/agent face on camera)
• Why it works: Buyers and sellers hire faces, not brokerages.

Pillar 6 — Behind-the-Scenes (the legitimacy layer)

• Format: Showing Reels, open-house clips, closing-day moments, team-meeting captures
• Cadence: 3–4 per week
• Why it works: Builds parasocial trust faster than any other format.

Pillar 7 — Past-Client & Referral Activation (the LTV pillar)

• Format: Testimonial Reels (with consent), anniversary check-ins, market-update follow-ups
• Cadence: 1–2 per week
• Why it works: Past-client referrals are the single highest-margin business in real estate. Social keeps you in their feed so they remember you when their cousin moves.

Pillar 8 — Lifestyle & Personal (the relatability layer)

• Format: Day-in-the-life Reels, coffee shop posts, family moments, hobby content (with the founder's veto list applied)
• Cadence: 2–3 per week
• Why it works: People hire people, not LLCs. The lifestyle pillar is what makes the rest of the funnel feel human.

Eight pillars at the cadences above ships 80–140 posts/week — exactly the volume the Prestyj content engine was designed to produce.

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Cost-Per-Post and Cost-Per-Impression Math

Cost per post

Option	Monthly cost (loaded)	Posts / mo	Cost per post
In-house social hire	$6,000–$10,500	60–120	$60–$175
Generalist agency	$3,200–$7,800	20–30	$110–$260
Real-estate-specialist agency	$3,000–$5,800	30–60	$60–$160
Prestyj DFY social	$1,497–$2,997	1,000–1,500	$1–$3

Cost per 1,000 impressions and cost per lead

A real estate account running 200+ posts/week typically lands organic CPMs in the $0.30–$1.40 range after 60–90 days of warm-up. Compare:

Channel	CPM	Cost per click	Cost per lead
Meta paid ads (RE)	$9–$32	$1.20–$5.50	$70–$280
Google Search (RE)	$35–$140 CPC range	$9–$60	$95–$310
Zillow Flex / referral fees	N/A	N/A	25–40% of GCI
Organic social at volume	$0.30–$1.40	$0.05–$0.25	$15–$60

An agent or team that reallocates a $3,500/month Meta budget into DFY social media at high cadence typically sees cost-per-lead drop 55–80% within 90 days. The compounding effect is even bigger: social-sourced leads close at higher rates and refer at higher rates, which multiplies the channel's ROI over 2–5 years.

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ROI: What This Means in Real Estate GCI

Lead-to-revenue per channel (representative single agent, 12 closes/year, $10K avg GCI)

Channel	Cost / mo	Leads / mo	Cost per lead	Close %	Closes / yr	GCI / yr
Meta paid ads	$2,500	22	$114	2%	5.3	$53,000
Zillow Flex	$4,000 (avg)	18	$222	2.5%	5.4	$54,000
Generalist DFY social	$2,500	5	$500	5%	3.0	$30,000
RE-specialist agency	$3,500	11	$318	6%	7.9	$79,000
Prestyj DFY social	$2,497	35–60	$25–$50	8%	34–58	$340,000–$580,000

Three things matter in that table:

1. Lead volume from high-cadence social compounds. Months 1–2 are below paid-ad volume. By month 3–5 the cadence has produced enough content for the algorithm to drive baseline reach well above 30-posts/month agencies.
2. Close rates on social-sourced real estate leads are 3–4x higher than paid leads because the buyer/seller has watched 10–40+ pieces of your content. They've already chosen you — the call is to confirm.
3. Referral multiplier: social-warm clients refer at 2–4x the rate of cold paid leads. That doesn't show up on a month-1 spreadsheet but it's the entire 2-year ROI.

One additional closed deal pays for the year

At $10K average GCI, one extra deal/year pays for 3–7 months of Prestyj DFY social. At $18K luxury GCI, one extra deal pays for 6–12 months. This is the single fastest payback math of any channel in real estate marketing.

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How Each Option Actually Performs for Real Estate

Option 1 — In-House Social Hire

Real cost: $6,000–$10,500/month fully loaded.

Strengths: Owns your brand voice and can show up to listing appointments to capture content live.

Weaknesses: Caps at 60–120 quality posts/month. The hire is also typically your weakest brand-fit risk — they leave with their playbook.

Best for: Teams doing $20M+/year in volume that can pair the hire with an external content engine for atomization.

Option 2 — Generalist Social Media Agency

Real cost: $3,200–$7,800/month fully loaded.

Strengths: Templated, predictable, baseline presence.

Weaknesses: Doesn't know what "due diligence" means in your state. Cannot react to a Tuesday listing with Wednesday content. Often missing fair-housing compliance, which is a real legal exposure. Ships 2% of the algorithmic threshold.

Best for: Agents who want brand presence, not GCI.

Option 3 — Real-Estate-Specialist Social Media Agency

Real cost: $3,000–$5,800/month fully loaded.

Strengths: Understands listing-presentation, comp explanations, fair-housing language, MLS workflow. Right answer for an agent transitioning off a generalist.

Weaknesses: Still capped at 30–60 posts/month because cost structure is human-labor-per-post. Cost stays in the $60–$160/post range. Most are Instagram + Facebook only — missing TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn.

Best for: Agents who won't sit for a weekly capture and want competent baseline real-estate-specific content.

Option 4 — Prestyj DFY Social (Real Estate Configuration)

Real cost: $1,497–$2,997/month flat, month-to-month.

Strengths: The content engine ships 1,000–1,500 posts/month across 7 platforms from one weekly pillar shoot. Real-estate-specific playbook covers all 8 pillars above. Same-day listing turnaround. Fair-housing compliance built into the variation layer. Real-time dashboard. Marginal cost per post is dominated by infrastructure, not labor.

Weaknesses: Requires the agent to sit for one 60–90 minute pillar capture per week. Per-post approval is not part of the model — approval is at the rules layer.

Best for: Solo agents and teams doing $3M–$200M+/year who measure GCI, not impressions.

See the full DFY social offer →

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Hidden Costs Real Estate Agents Specifically Get Burned By

These come up in every agent's first 90 days with a generalist agency:

1. Listing-video upcharges — $200–$600 per listing for video content that should be the default product
2. Fair-housing rewrite fees — agencies that price-up compliance edits instead of building them into the base workflow
3. Geo-content surcharges — $75–$200 per neighborhood-specific Reel
4. MLS integration fees — $200–$500/month for "automated listing sync" that should be table stakes
5. Lead magnet design fees — $300–$1,000 per lead-magnet deliverable
6. Just-sold post fees — extra $50–$100 each because "just-sold" content sits in a separate template tier
7. Contract auto-renewal lock-ins — typical 12-month with 60–90 day cancellation windows

The Prestyj DFY plan rolls all 7 into the flat monthly. See the full hidden-cost breakdown.

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What Generalist Agencies Don't Tell Real Estate Agents

If you've sat through a sales call from a generalist social agency pitching a real estate package, you've heard a version of these five claims. Here's what they leave out.

Claim 1: "We do real estate content all the time."

What they leave out: "All the time" usually means 3–5 real estate clients sprinkled in among 40–120 clients across chiropractors, gyms, coffee shops, and dentists. The templates are shared. You're getting the same caption skeleton as the chiropractor across town with the noun swapped.

Claim 2: "We'll write all your captions."

What they leave out: Real estate captions live or die by fair-housing compliance. "Family-friendly neighborhood," "safe area," "walking distance to church" are all flagged as steering language under HUD's fair-housing rules. Generalist agencies routinely use this language because they don't have a real estate compliance layer. You're the licensed agent on the hook for what they post.

Claim 3: "We post twice a week. Industry standard."

What they leave out: Industry standard is 2% of the algorithmic threshold. Agents at threshold are shipping 30+ posts/week. The 8-posts/month "industry standard" was the standard in 2018. In 2026 it's the standard for invisible accounts.

Claim 4: "We'll grow your followers."

What they leave out: Follower count is meaningless in real estate. What you want is geographic-farm impressions — reach inside the 3–8 ZIPs you actually farm. A 50K-follower account in three states does less for your GCI than a 4K-follower account where 80% of impressions are inside your service area.

Claim 5: "Listing content is included."

What they leave out: Usually "one post per listing" with a 5–10 day turnaround. The listing is dead on the MLS by the time the Reel ships. Listing content needs to run same-day across Reel, carousel, Facebook, GBP, and Story — then re-cut into 5–10 variants over the next 14 days while it's still on market.

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Common Mistakes Real Estate Agents Make With DFY Social

Mistake 1: Hiring an agency that doesn't sign a fair-housing addendum

If your agency cannot specifically explain how they avoid steering language, redlining-implication language, and protected-class references in captions, find another agency. The agent's license is on the line, not the agency's.

Mistake 2: Posting only listings

Listing-only feeds get demoted by the algorithm and read as "sales pitch" to buyers and sellers. Listings should be 25–35% of the feed, not 80%. The other 65–75% is farm content, education, agent-on-camera, market data, and lifestyle.

Mistake 3: Treating Zillow Flex and social as separate channels

The agents who beat Zillow Flex unit economics are the ones whose social engine warms up Zillow leads before the call. A buyer who saw your content for 8 weeks before showing up as a Zillow lead is converting at 4–8x the cold-Zillow rate.

Mistake 4: Skipping the agent-on-camera pillar

The biggest miss in real estate social is brand-only stacks with no agent face. Real estate is a relationship business. Buyers and sellers hire faces, not brokerages or branded logos. Brand-only stacks compound 30–50% slower for this reason.

Mistake 5: Ignoring LinkedIn entirely

LinkedIn is under-utilized by 90% of agents and over-utilized by lenders, attorneys, financial advisors, accountants — the exact referral partners agents need. One LinkedIn post per day for 12 months produces more referral partnerships than any "networking event" you'll ever attend.

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DFY Social TCO: Year-1 Cost Comparison

Let's run the 12-month math for a representative agent volume.

Scenario: Solo agent or small team doing 12–18 closes/year

Option 1: Generalist Agency

Cost Category	Year 1 Cost
Base retainer ($2,500 × 12)	$30,000
Setup / onboarding	$3,500
Listing video upcharges	$4,800
Platform add-ons	$4,800
Revision overages	$1,200
Year 1 total	$44,300
Posts shipped	~320
Cost per post	$138

Option 2: Real-Estate-Specialist Agency

Cost Category	Year 1 Cost
Base retainer ($3,500 × 12)	$42,000
Setup / onboarding	$3,500
Lead magnet design fees	$1,500
GBP / MLS sync add-on	$3,600
Year 1 total	$50,600
Posts shipped	~540
Cost per post	$94

Option 3: Prestyj DFY Social

Cost Category	Year 1 Cost
Flat monthly ($2,497 × 12)	$29,964
Setup	$0
Listing upcharges	$0
Platform add-ons	$0
Year 1 total	$29,964
Posts shipped	~15,000
Cost per post	$2.00

The cheapest option ships 47x more posts than the generalist agency and 28x more than the real-estate specialist at the same or lower annual cost.

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When Each Option Is Actually the Right Call

Pick an in-house social hire if: You're a team doing $20M+/year, your team leader runs strategy, and you can pair the hire with an external atomization engine.

Pick a generalist agency if: You only need a logo and you don't measure lead attribution. (Not recommended for any agent with growth goals.)

Pick a real-estate-specialist agency if: You won't sit for a weekly pillar capture, you want real-estate-specific content, and you're comfortable with 30–60 posts/month at $60–$160 each.

Pick Prestyj DFY social if: You're a solo agent or team producing $3M–$200M+/year, you'll sit for one weekly pillar capture, and you measure GCI, not vanity metrics.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best social media agency for real estate agents?

For 30 posts/month of branded presence, a real-estate-specialist agency at $3,000–$5,800/month all-in is the safest pick. For lead generation and referral compounding at scale — 1,000+ posts/month, same-day listing turnaround, multi-platform fan-out, fair-housing compliance built in — Prestyj DFY social at $1,497–$2,997/month flat is the only model where the cost-per-post math ($1–$3 per post) makes high-volume affordable. Generalist agencies are the worst pick because they often miss fair-housing compliance and can't service listing-day windows.

How much does social media management cost for a real estate agent in 2026?

Fully loaded: $3,200–$7,800/month for a generalist agency, $3,000–$5,800/month for a real-estate specialist, $6,000–$10,500/month for an in-house hire, $1,497–$2,997/month flat for Prestyj DFY social. Headline retainers rarely include listing-video upcharges, fair-housing rewrites, geo-content surcharges, or MLS integration fees. Always ask for fully-loaded TCO.

Should a real estate agent outsource social media?

Yes, almost always. The labor-cost math doesn't work for an in-house hire below ~$20M/year in team volume, and the volume math doesn't work for any agency shipping fewer than 50 posts/week. Outsource to a specialist if you won't capture weekly content; outsource to a high-volume DFY engine like Prestyj if you will.

How many posts per month does a real estate agent actually need?

The algorithmic threshold is roughly 30 posts/week across the account stack (~120/month minimum). For compounding breakouts and consistent inbound DMs, 200–400 posts/week. Most generalist agencies ship 20–30 posts/month — about 2% of the volume required. See why 30 posts isn't enough.

What's the ROI of social media for real estate agents vs paid ads?

Organic social at scale produces real-estate leads at $15–$60 each vs $70–$280 on Meta paid ads and 25–40% of GCI on Zillow Flex referrals. Close rates run 5–8% vs 2–3% on paid-only leads. The biggest multiplier nobody models: referral rates from social-warm clients are 2–4x higher than from paid leads, which compounds the channel's ROI over 2–5 years.

Does fair-housing compliance get handled by DFY social media agencies?

Most generalist agencies do not handle this well — they reuse templates across verticals and accidentally include language that's non-compliant under HUD's fair-housing rules. Real-estate-specialist agencies usually handle it. The Prestyj engine has fair-housing checks built into the variation layer (Pipeline 6 in the content engine) — flags route to a human reviewer before any caption ships. See fair-housing AI bias for enterprise brokerages.

What about social media for real estate teams and brokerages (not solo agents)?

Teams and brokerages have a multi-account stack — broker brand + team brand + individual agent accounts. The high-volume DFY model is the only one that scales economically across that stack because the marginal cost per post is dominated by infrastructure, not labor. A generalist agency would charge $1,500–$3,500/month per account. The Prestyj engine runs all of them at one flat monthly per stack.

Do real estate agents need to be on camera?

Yes, almost always. Real estate is a face-business. Brand-only stacks work but compound 30–50% slower. The agent-on-camera pillar is what builds parasocial trust — and buyers/sellers hire people they trust, not brokerages.

How long until we see results from DFY social media for real estate?

Month 1 is algorithmic cold start. Month 2 produces first breakouts. Month 3 is when compounding kicks in. By month 4–6 you typically see inbound DMs replacing a meaningful chunk of paid-lead spend. The referral compounding is a 12–24 month story — and it's the part that pays for the next decade of your business.

Will DFY social media replace my Zillow / Realtor.com / paid-lead spend?

Not month 1. Probably yes by month 6–9 for most agents. The reason is unit economics: a social-warm lead at $25–$50 cost per lead and 8% close rate produces more closed business per dollar than a $200 paid lead at 2.5% close. Most agents transition off Zillow Flex within 9–12 months of running a high-volume social engine — but we recommend keeping paid-lead spend running for the first 90 days while the social engine warms up.

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Related Reading

• How We Ship 50+ Posts a Day Across 7 Platforms — The content engine, behind the scenes.
• Hidden Costs of Done-For-You Social Media (2026) — Every line item generalist agencies leave off the proposal.
• Why 30 Posts a Month Isn't Enough in 2026 — The algorithmic threshold math.
• Best AI Tools for Real Estate Teams 2026 — Where social fits in the rest of the RE stack.
• Fair-Housing AI Bias for Enterprise Brokerages — Compliance you should be asking your agency about.
• Best-For: Real Estate Teams — Prestyj playbook for real estate teams.
• Best-For: Social Content for Real Estate Teams — Social-specific playbook for RE teams.
• Best-For: Real Estate Team Leaders — Strategy for team leaders.
• AI Content Department — The AI agent for social media: pricing tiers, volume model, and the fully managed offering all on one page.
• Pricing — All plans, flat monthly, no hidden fees.

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