Comparison
Agency, freelancer or in-house? Run your own numbers.
There is no universally right answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling one of the options. Below is an honest comparison of all four models, and a calculator that shows the first-year cost of hiring against a subscription using your figures, with the maths shown in full.
What a marketing hire really costs in year one
Change any input. The defaults are illustrative starting points, not benchmarks — your market, role and country will move them substantially.
Your numbers
Annual gross, before employer costs. Varies widely by country and seniority.
Payroll taxes, pension, insurance, paid leave — as a percentage on top of salary.
Agency fee, job ads, or the value of your own time spent hiring.
CRM, email finder, sending infrastructure, design software, social scheduler.
Months before the hire is fully productive. Charged here at half salary.
Hours a week you or a manager spend directing the work.
Launch $349 · Growth $749 · Domination $1,499 per month.
First-year cost
Difference in year one
$81,922
On these numbers, the in-house route costs about 10.1× the subscription in its first year — and that is before you account for the risk that the hire leaves in month nine.
How that in-house figure is built
- Base salary
- $52,000
- Employer costs (18%)
- $9,360
- Recruitment
- $4,000
- Tools & data (12 mo)
- $5,400
- Management time (52 wk)
- $12,480
- Ramp-up (3 mo at half pay)
- $7,670
- Total, year one
- $90,910
An estimate, not a quote. Defaults are illustrative starting points, not market benchmarks — salaries, employer costs and tooling prices vary substantially by country and role. Replace them with your own figures for a number that means something.
The four models, compared
Generalisations, inevitably — but these are the trade-offs that actually decide it.
| Factor | In-house hire | Freelancer | Traditional retainer | Productized subscriptionwhat we do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost & commitment | ||||
| Typical monthly cost | High | Low–medium | High | Fixed, published |
| Upfront cost | Recruitment + ramp | None | Often onboarding fee | None |
| Contract length | Permanent | Per project | 6–12 months typical | Month to month |
| Cost of stopping | Redundancy process | Just stop | Notice period | Cancel anytime |
| Capability | ||||
| Multiple skills covered | ||||
| Deep knowledge of your product | Varies | Builds over time | ||
| Available immediately | ||||
| Covers holidays and sickness | ||||
| Control & risk | ||||
| You direct the work daily | ||||
| Needs management from you | Yes, ongoing | Yes | Light | Light |
| Key-person risk | High | High | Medium | Low |
| Tooling costs included | Sometimes | |||
Which one you should actually choose
We sell one of these four. Here is when the other three are the better call.
Hire in-house when
- The work is continuous and high-volume enough to fill a full-time role
- Your sale is complex or technical and needs deep product knowledge
- You have a manager with real capacity to direct someone daily
- You can absorb three to six months of ramp before output is reliable
Use a freelancer when
- You need one specific skill, not a whole function
- The work is genuinely project-shaped with a defined end
- You can brief precisely and review the work yourself
- Continuity is not critical if they take on a bigger client
Take a retainer when
- You need senior strategy, not just execution
- Budget is large enough that a custom scope is worth the premium
- You want a named team and are willing to commit for a year
- Your requirements are unusual enough that packages do not fit
Take a subscription when
- You need output this month, not after a hiring process
- Nobody in the business has capacity to manage a new person
- You want to test a channel before committing headcount to it
- Predictable cost and the ability to stop matter more than deep control
If you are still unsure, the cheapest way to find out is to test the channel before you commit headcount to it. A subscription you can cancel in a month is a much smaller bet than a permanent hire, and whatever you learn transfers to the job description if you do end up hiring.
Talk it through for fifteen minutesCommon objections
No. Once the work is continuous and high-volume, a dedicated employee usually becomes cheaper per unit of output, and they build product knowledge no external team will match. The subscription wins in the first year, while the channel is unproven and while nobody has capacity to manage a hire. Run the calculator with your own figures rather than trusting either claim.
Test the channel before you hire for it
One month of a subscription costs less than a week of a bad hire. Start, see the work in your dashboard, and decide from evidence.
No contracts · Cancel anytime · Your own dashboard from day one