Marketing is one of those jobs that can keep expanding as your business grows. There’s always another campaign to plan, a website to improve, or something that could use a little more attention. And while you can handle plenty of marketing yourself, bringing in professional help can save you time and give your business access to expertise you might not have in-house.
That leaves you with an important choice: should you hire a freelancer or work with a marketing agency?
Both can do excellent work, although they differ quite a bit in how much they charge, what they offer, and how they work with clients. Depending on your needs, either could be the better investment.
In this guide, we’ll compare marketing agencies and freelancers to help you understand those differences and decide which option makes the most sense for your business.
Marketing Agency vs Freelancer: Cost Comparison
Freelancers generally cost less than agencies, especially if you only need help with one part of your marketing. Still, a cheap quote isn’t much use if it leaves half the job uncovered. And agency retainers can be surprisingly different in what they include.
How Much Does a Freelance Marketer Cost?
Freelancers may charge hourly, daily, per project or through a monthly retainer. According to YunoJuno’s rates report, the average day rate for marketing and communications freelancers was $557. That’s a useful reference point, although an experienced strategist may charge considerably more than someone handling routine social media work.
For a specific job, such as auditing your website or setting up an ad campaign, a fixed project fee can be convenient. You’ll know what you’re spending upfront, provided the deliverables and revision limits are agreed.
How Much Does a Marketing Agency Cost?
Agencies usually have higher overheads, and their fees may cover input from several specialists alongside account management. Pricing estimates published by Wise put core agency retainers at roughly $1,650–$4,650 a month, while broader full-service arrangements can cost considerably more.
Monthly retainers are common, but agencies also quote for individual projects. One thing to keep in mind is that a retainer doesn’t mean a team is working on your business full-time. You might be paying for a set number of deliverables or a limited amount of specialist time, so the proposal matters more than the impressive-looking team page.
Which Offers Better Value for Money?
At the $557 benchmark, 4 freelancer days would cost $2,228. That could be great value if you need one experienced person to manage a well-defined workload. But if those 4 days don’t cover design or campaign planning, you’ll either need to handle that yourself or pay someone else.
An agency could make more financial sense when several specialists need to work together, particularly if it takes responsibility for coordinating them. Check whether advertising spend, software costs and VAT are included in either quote. Comparing the actual work you’ll receive is far more useful than comparing monthly totals alone.
If you’re hiring someone for SEO or GEO, it’s also worth considering how long you’ll need their services. SEO results generally take time to develop, whether you’re working with a freelancer or an agency, so the first month’s performance won’t necessarily tell you much about the value of your investment. The factors that affect this can be found in the guide to how long SEO takes.
At Growth Hackers, we helped an insurance client commit to a long-term SEO and GEO strategy combining technical optimization, content development, and authority building, increasing organic traffic from 9,000 to over 100K monthly visits within 12 months.
Do you want to partner with a no-fluff digital marketing agency?
Contact Growth Hackers
Scope of Work and Expertise
The kind of marketing work you need can make a big difference to which option suits you better. Freelancers often specialise in particular areas, while agencies may have several professionals handling different parts of a campaign. Both arrangements have their advantages, especially when you consider how much work needs doing.
Freelancers: Specialized Expertise for Specific Tasks
One of the biggest advantages of hiring a freelancer is that you can find someone who’s spent years mastering the exact skill you need. An experienced SEO consultant, for example, may know far more about technical SEO than a generalist marketer working at an agency.
This makes freelancers particularly appealing when you already know what needs doing. If your website needs regular blog content, hiring a specialist writer can be a great arrangement. You’ll work directly with someone who understands the job, without paying for services you have no intention of using.
Of course, freelancers aren’t necessarily limited to one skill. Many offer several related services, and some collaborate with other independent professionals. However, the range of work they can personally handle may be narrower than what a full-service agency offers.
Agencies: A Wider Range of Marketing Services
Marketing agencies generally have an advantage when your project requires several different skills. Depending on the agency, you might have access to SEO specialists, designers, advertising experts and content writers under one roof.
Imagine you’re launching a new product. You’ll probably need a landing page, promotional content and advertising campaigns to get people interested. An agency offering these services can coordinate the work internally, which means you won’t have to find and manage a separate professional for every task.
However, agency services vary considerably. Some specialize in one particular area, while others outsource parts of their work. It’s worth checking who’s actually going to handle your project rather than assuming you’ll have an entire team of experts at your disposal.
At Growth Hackers, we approach integrated marketing like conducting an orchestra, where SEO/GEO, paid advertising, content, and CRO each play a different role, helping one eCommerce client achieve 4.7 ROAS in just 3 months through coordinated execution.
What Happens When Your Marketing Needs Grow?
Agencies may also have an advantage as your marketing workload increases. If you’re expanding into new advertising channels or producing significantly more content, an agency with the right staff may be able to assign additional people to your account.
A freelancer can also grow alongside your business, although their availability will naturally have limits. Some work with other freelancers to take on larger projects, which can be a perfectly good arrangement.
If you’re expecting substantial growth, it’s worth discussing future capacity before hiring either provider. You don’t want to discover halfway through a campaign that your marketing partner has already reached their limit.
Communication, Flexibility and Reliability: What’s It Like Working With Each?
The way you work with a marketing provider can affect your day almost as much as the results. When a campaign needs an urgent change or you have a question about last month’s report, who can you actually speak to?
Communication and Working Relationships
With a freelancer, you’re usually talking to the same person who does the work. You can discuss an idea, get a straight answer about whether it’s feasible, and often make changes without involving several people. That’s a pretty convenient arrangement when the freelancer is responsive and knows your business.
Agencies tend to put an account manager between you and the specialists. This can be useful when several people are involved, as there’s someone keeping track of requests and deadlines. But sometimes, you may find yourself explaining changes that would have taken a 5-minute conversation with the person doing the work.
Availability, Deadlines and Continuity
Freelancers can be quite flexible about taking on last-minute tasks, particularly if you’ve built a good working relationship. Their calendar is still finite, though. If they’re ill, on holiday or busy with another client, your project may have to wait.
A well-staffed agency can usually redistribute work when someone is unavailable, although smaller agencies may face the same limitations as freelancers. Neither arrangement guarantees faster delivery, so agreeing on response times and realistic deadlines is worth doing before work begins.
Accountability and Project Management
When you hire a freelancer, you may need to manage the schedule yourself, approve deliverables and coordinate any additional contractors. Agencies often handle more of this work internally, which can save you quite a bit of time if your marketing involves several people.
However, it’s worth finding out how involved you’ll need to be. Some agencies provide regular progress reports and take care of most day-to-day decisions, while others expect considerable input from clients.
Getting the work delivered properly is particularly important. In Setup’s survey, 48% of clients cited delivery issues as the leading reason for ending an agency partnership. That’s a good reminder to establish who’s responsible for meeting deadlines and how problems will be handled when something doesn’t go according to plan.
Before signing with either, make sure you understand how revisions are handled and who controls your advertising accounts and marketing assets. You’ll want to retain access to your accounts and completed work if you eventually decide to switch providers.
Now is the right time to hire a seasoned online marketing agency!
Work with Growth Hackers
When to Hire a Freelancer and When to Hire a Marketing Agency
Both freelancers and agencies can be excellent choices, but certain business circumstances make one more appealing than the other. It helps to consider how much marketing support you need and how involved you want to be in managing the work.
When Hiring a Freelancer Makes More Sense
If you know exactly what needs doing and have someone who can oversee the work, a freelancer is often the more sensible hire. Say your website is doing well, but you want to publish 2 properly researched articles each month. A good freelance writer can take that off your hands without bringing an entire agency into the picture.
Freelancers are also a good option for smaller businesses testing a new marketing channel. You can commission a specific project, see how things go and decide whether ongoing support is worthwhile.
The main consideration is that someone still needs to make the bigger marketing decisions. If you’re comfortable taking that responsibility, working with a freelancer can be a great arrangement.
When Hiring a Marketing Agency Makes More Sense
An agency becomes particularly appealing when your marketing involves several moving parts and you don’t have the time or expertise to supervise everything.
According to Fiverr’s Small Business Survey, 70% of respondents spent fewer than 5 hours a week on marketing. That’s not much time to plan campaigns and keep everything running, especially when you have a business to manage. If you’re in a similar position, having an agency handle the coordination could be worth the extra expense.
For example, a growing eCommerce business might need regular advertising campaigns alongside website improvements and content production. Having one provider coordinate this work can save quite a bit of management time.
Agencies can also make sense for businesses planning substantial growth or looking for ongoing strategic support. Just make sure the agency has experience with businesses like yours and that its proposed services justify the price.
At Growth Hackers, we replaced scattered marketing efforts with a coordinated growth strategy for a fashion eCommerce client, helping turn 2,000 monthly organic visitors into 46K+ within a year while freeing the business to focus on operations.
Can You Work With Both?
Absolutely! There’s no reason you have to commit exclusively to one arrangement.
You might work with an agency on your ongoing marketing campaigns and occasionally hire a freelance designer for a special project. Alternatively, you could keep a trusted freelancer for your everyday marketing work and bring in an agency when something larger comes along.
Whichever arrangement you prefer, reviewing previous work and discussing expectations before signing a contract can help you find someone who’s genuinely suited to your business.
Marketing Agency vs. Freelancer | Making the Right Choice for Your Business
A good freelancer can give you expert help without the cost of a full agency, especially when your marketing needs are fairly focused. An agency may be worth the extra expense if you need several services managed together and would rather have one team keeping everything moving.
Of course, neither arrangement guarantees great results. What matters most is finding someone who understands your business, has the experience to deliver what you need, and is someone you’ll enjoy working with.
Growth Hackers is a results-driven growth marketing agency helping funded startups (Seed Rounds, Series A and Series B), small businesses and established companies grow and scale. Since our inception back in 2016, we’ve worked with the following industries:
- B2B SaaS Companies
- Tech Startups
- Healthcare Organizations
- eCommerce Stores
- Manufacturing Companies
- Local Service Providers
- Law Firms
We go beyond just providing blog posts, Google ads or social media marketing. Here’s what we deliver:
- Demand Generation
- Lead Gen
- Growth Marketing
- SEO & GEO (Search & Generative Engine Optimization)
- Sales Funnels
- Marketing Automation
- Acquisition Economics
- CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
- Ai-Powered Content Distribution
When we work with B2C or B2B bysinesses, we don’t bother tracking vanity metrics such as likes, followers, impressions, reach or clicks. Instead, here are the KPIs we track on a weekly basis:
- CPL (Cost Per Lead)
- AOV (Average Order Value)
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
- MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio)
- CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)
- Churn Rate
- Deal Size
Do you want to grow your business at cheetah speed? You can take the first step by scheduling a free consultation with me or one of my colleagues. We will take a deep dive on your products or services, website, direct/indirect competitors and buyer personas to come up with an actionable growth plan and a 120-day strategic roadmap. What do you think?
