The first question most real estate agencies and independent agents ask me isn't "can you help us?" It's "how much does it cost?"
It's a reasonable question — and one that most providers in the Dominican Republic don't answer publicly. Only a handful of photographers, videographers, and marketing freelancers on the North Coast list prices. You have to reach out, wait for a response, and sit through a sales conversation before you know if the service is even in your budget.
This post changes that. Here's what real estate marketing actually costs on the North Coast — broken down by service, with context for what each price level actually delivers.
Why Pricing in This Market Is So Confusing
The Dominican Republic doesn't have a standardized market for real estate marketing services. A drone operator in Santo Domingo charges differently than a local operator in Cabarete. A freelancer who learned Photoshop last year charges the same as someone who has spent four years specializing in real estate content for international buyers.
The result is a market where you can pay $100 for drone footage and $800 for drone footage and have no idea why the difference exists — or which one is actually worth it for your listings.
Price alone doesn't tell you much. What matters is what's included, who's delivering it, and whether the person understands the specific context of selling property on the North Coast to buyers who are 6,000 kilometers away and making decisions based almost entirely on digital content.
How These Prices Were Gathered
The photo, drone, video, and website figures below come from price lists that North Coast and Dominican providers publish themselves — on their websites or on Instagram — reviewed in October 2026. I don't name them: the point is the range, not the provider. Prices change, so treat them as a snapshot, not a quote.
What stands out is that published prices fall into three clear tiers. They don't reflect three levels of quality so much as three different ways of selling: by the piece, by the package, or by the production.
Real Estate Photography: HDR and Interior Shoots
At the per-piece end, HDR photo sessions are sold by photo count: around $130 for 10 photos, $190 for 15, and $275 for 25. Package-based studios start listing photography — interior and exterior — at roughly $150 to $200 per property. At the production end, photography isn't sold on its own: 20 to 30 edited photos come bundled into video packages of $899 to $1,299.
These are camera-based shots — interiors, living spaces, terraces, kitchens, bathrooms. The goal is to show the property accurately while making it look its best. Whatever the tier, you should expect properly lit images that don't misrepresent space or color, delivered in a format ready for web and portal listings.
What separates one tier from another isn't always the equipment — it's the experience reading a property and knowing which angles sell and which ones don't. A photographer who has shot 200 North Coast properties knows that the terrace shot at 7 AM looks different than at 2 PM, and plans accordingly.
Drone Video and Aerial Photography
Aerial services have the widest price range of any real estate marketing service — and the most variation in what you actually get.
Sold as an add-on to a photo session, three aerial photos run around $45, six run around $75, and a basic aerial video clip about $100. At this level the aerial shots are added to a photo session: enough to show where the property sits and what surrounds it. Larger properties and developments usually need more flight time and editing, which is where package prices come in.
Package-based drone services start around $160 for aerial coverage, about $400 for interiors, exteriors, and drone on a property up to 500 m², and about $600 for full coverage with 4K drone video and a Matterport 3D tour. At the production end, drone footage is part of a full-day shoot in packages around $1,299.
For a complete drone package on a property you're marketing internationally — color-graded aerial stills, a cinematic listing video, and Reel-ready vertical clips — the package and production tiers are where the work starts to function as marketing rather than as a visual checkbox.
One thing that's rarely mentioned in pricing discussions: on the North Coast, the shooting window matters. The trade winds that make Cabarete one of the world's best kitesurfing destinations also make midday drone work unstable and visually flat. Morning sessions between 9 and 10 AM, or afternoon sessions between 4 and 5 PM, produce fundamentally different footage than a midday shoot at the same location. An operator who doesn't know this — or charges you for a session outside the optimal window — is costing you quality regardless of their listed price.
For a property listed above $300,000, the difference between a $100 aerial clip and a $500 aerial package is measurable in inquiry volume. Buyers from Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands are making six-figure decisions based on that footage.
Listing Video
Video follows the same three tiers. As an add-on, a walk-through video starts around $120 and a social media reel around $170, with the final price depending on property size and video length. Package studios combine photo and video from roughly $800. Production-based videographers sell fixed packages: about $499 for a short shoot and one video of up to 3 minutes, $899 for a longer shoot with a video, a reel, and 20 photos, and $1,299 for a full day with drone, three reels, and 30 HDR photos.
The difference between tiers is mostly time: one to two hours on location versus a full day planned around the light. For a property that has to sell to someone who will never walk through it before making an offer, that time shows on screen.
SEO for Real Estate Websites
Search engine optimization is the service most agencies underinvest in — and the one with the highest long-term return.
Entry-level SEO retainers in the Dominican Republic run $300 to $600 per month. At this level you typically get basic on-page optimization, some keyword tracking, and a monthly report. No content strategy, no technical audit, no link building.
Specialized SEO retainers — focused on real estate, with a content strategy built around the keywords international buyers actually use — run $600 to $1,200 per month. This is where you start to see real movement in rankings, because the work is targeted to your market rather than generic.
The distinction that matters: a generic SEO manager optimizes for keywords they know. A specialist optimizes for "beachfront condo Cabarete for sale" and "real estate investment Dominican Republic North Coast" — the terms a buyer in Amsterdam types when they're ready to make a move. That gap is where most North Coast agencies are losing organic traffic right now.
Social Media Management
This is the service with the most unrealistic expectations on both sides of the market.
I've seen agencies pay $400 a month for social media management and expect it to generate leads from day one without any advertising budget. The pattern usually ends the same way: three months later, the agency concludes that "social media doesn't work for real estate in Cabarete" and cancels. The problem wasn't social media — it was the expectation that organic content alone closes deals on $400,000 properties.
What social media management actually costs at different levels:
$400–$800/month: Basic content creation, posting schedule, community management. Typically no video production, no paid strategy, no analytics beyond follower count.
$900–$1,500/month: Strategy-led content with a mix of formats — Reels, carousels, stories — plus reporting on reach, saves, profile visits, and link clicks. At this level you should expect content produced specifically for the North Coast real estate market.
$1,500–$2,500/month: Full management including content production (photo and video), paid social strategy, and direct alignment with your sales pipeline. This is the level where social media starts to function as a lead generation channel.
One thing worth stating clearly: social media alone does not generate leads for high-ticket real estate. A $500,000 villa does not sell because of an Instagram post. It sells because a buyer found the property through search or a referral, visited your Instagram to verify the agency is real and active, and felt confident enough to reach out. Social media builds trust. Leads come from that trust combined with SEO, paid ads, and direct inquiry channels.
Web Development for Real Estate Agencies
Published prices for real estate websites in the Dominican Republic start lower than most agencies expect. A focused landing page for a single pre-construction project starts around $400. A complete real estate site where the agency manages its own property catalog starts around $950 — one provider includes a year of hosting and maintenance at that price. General business websites in the DR are listed from about RD$32,500 (roughly $550), and around RD$45,000 (roughly $750) with a catalog or integrations.
Outside the country, single-property website tools sell templates for $9 to $34 per property. They're do-it-yourself: you bring the photos, the copy, and the setup.
The entry price tells you what's possible, not what's included. Before comparing quotes for web development, ask whether the price covers SEO configuration, English content written for international buyers, bilingual structure, photos and video, and who keeps the site updated after launch. A site built from outside the Dominican Republic often misses the local part — that your buyers may be German retirees looking for oceanfront property in Cabarete, not domestic buyers. A full Houzez portal with all of that is a larger project than the entry prices above, and is usually quoted per project.
For an agency that closes one additional deal because its website actually works, the investment pays for itself quickly.
What a Full Package Costs
Most agencies on the North Coast don't need every service at once. But for an agency that wants consistent lead flow from digital channels, a realistic full-service retainer — SEO, social media management, monthly video content, and ongoing website maintenance — runs $1,800 to $2,500 per month.
That's the budget range where digital marketing starts to function as a system rather than a collection of disconnected efforts. Below that, you're typically paying for individual pieces that don't reinforce each other.
The Real Cost of Going Cheap
I've worked with clients who came to me after paying very little for marketing services that didn't deliver. The pattern is consistent: they paid a low price, got low results, concluded that digital marketing doesn't work in Cabarete, and went back to word of mouth and portal listings.
The problem wasn't that digital marketing doesn't work here. The problem was that they paid for the appearance of marketing — posts going out, a website that loaded — without paying for the expertise that makes marketing generate leads.
Low prices in this market almost always mean one of three things: the person is learning on your account, the work is being done in volume without attention to your specific market, or the deliverables look complete but aren't configured to actually perform.
None of those outcomes serve an agency trying to sell property to buyers who are comparing your listings against agencies in Punta Cana, Mexico, and Portugal — markets with significantly more sophisticated digital marketing infrastructure.
How to Decide What to Invest
The simplest framework: what's one additional closing worth to your agency?
If you sell a $250,000 condo at a 5% commission, that's $12,500. If your marketing investment is $1,000 per month and it generates one additional closing per quarter, the ROI is straightforward.
If your current marketing investment is $0 and you're relying entirely on portals and referrals, the question isn't whether you can afford to invest in marketing — it's whether you can afford not to.
If you want a clear picture of what your current digital presence is generating and what a targeted investment could realistically return for your specific situation on the North Coast, I offer a free audit with no pitch attached.