Agency, in-house or freelancers?
The short answer: hire in-house when marketing needs someone full-time in every meeting, use freelancers for single tasks, and use an agency when you need several channels working together quickly. Here is how they compare.
| In-house team | Freelancers | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Salaries, benefits, tools and management time for every role | Day or project rates; low commitment, but costs add up across several people | A monthly fee for the whole team; $1,499 to $3,499 a month with us |
| Time to start | Months to recruit, hire and onboard each person | Days to weeks per freelancer | Weeks: an audit, a plan, then the first work |
| Range of skills | As broad as the people you can hire and keep | Deep in one skill each; you connect them | Strategy, brand, web, search, paid and social in one team |
| Seniority | Depends on budget; senior marketers are costly to hire | Varies by person | Senior people on the work, with no hand-off to juniors |
| Management | You manage the team day to day | You brief, coordinate and check several people | One plan and one report; we manage the work |
| Knowledge of your product | Deepest, and it stays in the company | Limited to each freelancer's part | Grows through the engagement; documented in plans and reports |
| Flexibility | Hard to scale up or down quickly | Easy to change, but continuity suffers | Change plans as you grow; add or pause channels |
Which one is right for you?
Hire in-house when
- Marketing is central to the product and needs someone in every meeting
- You have the budget and time to hire, train and manage several roles
- You need one channel run full-time at large scale
Use freelancers when
- You need one specific task done, such as a logo or a set of articles
- Someone in-house can brief, coordinate and check the work
- The work doesn't need to connect to other channels
Use an agency like ours when
- You need several channels working together, quickly
- You want senior people without hiring a full department
- You want marketing judged on pipeline, with one team accountable
Many teams mix them: a marketing lead in-house, with an agency for the channels and skills they don't have. See our pricing or what we do.
Usually, when you need more than one skill. A single senior marketer costs a full salary plus tools and management time, while an agency gives you several specialists for one monthly fee. If you only need one channel run full-time, a hire can be the better value.
Yes. Many SaaS teams keep a marketing lead in-house and use an agency for the channels and skills they don't have. We work inside your CRM, analytics and ad accounts, alongside your team.
Freelancers are good for single, well-defined tasks. The challenge is coordination: someone has to plan the whole picture and connect the pieces, which is the part an agency takes on.
With us, most engagements start with a free growth audit delivered within 3 working days, then a plan agreed with your team in the first weeks.
Ready to make growth compound?
Tell us where you want to be in twelve months. We'll show you the channel-by-channel plan to get there.