Last Updated on August 6, 2026 by Ewen Finser
In every growing business, there comes a moment when leadership is faced with a dilemma: the marketing team needs more help; should we hire an in-house marketing team, or go with an agency?
Hiring in-house means you’ll have support for this project and all the future projects to come, but it can take a long time to recruit and onboard the right people. Hiring an agency means you’ll get up and running much faster and be working with people who have a lot of specialized experience, but they won’t bring any institutional knowledge or longevity to the role.
As a former marketing agency owner, I’ve seen business owners make the wrong play in both directions: hiring when they should have brought in temporary help through an agency versus expecting an agency to become part of the team forever. Both can be expensive mistakes.
If you were hoping I would tell you exactly who wins in the age-old agency vs. in-house marketing team battle, you’re going to be disappointed, because the answer (as with so many things) is, “it depends.” But there’s a clear framework you can use to help you decide which is right for you, right now.
Instead of agency vs. in-house marketing team, let’s reframe the question
In today’s rapidly changing marketing world, the question isn’t whether you should hire in-house or go with an agency, but rather when you’re going to apply each lever in your business. Because chances are, you’ll use both at different points in your trajectory.
In some situations, it’s much better to be building out capabilities that you own with a marketing team that will grow with your business as your needs grow and change. In other instances, the better play is to ramp up quickly with “rented” players who have specialized experience and can get you a faster result.
It all depends on how stable vs. changing your current needs are and where you’re headed in the near and long-term future.
In-House vs. Agency Marketing Teams: The Tradeoffs
Let’s look at the biggest tradeoffs between hiring an agency and hiring an in-house team from different angles so you can make the best choice for your situation.
Cost
Costs are always at the top of a smart business owner’s mind, but it’s rarely the only deciding factor, nor should it be. That’s because cost is about a lot more than just the top line “sticker price” of either option.
In-House
When you hire someone in-house, the baseline salary is just the starting point. Loaded costs also include:
- Benefits, payroll taxes, and bonuses
- Onboarding and management time
- Hardware or software for the new hire
- Turnover costs when an employee leaves
Vena Solutions, a financial planning and analysis company, estimates that an employee’s true cost to the company is 1.25–1.4 times their salary.
If you need specialist talent, it can be even more expensive than hiring for a junior role, and sometimes the most senior talent isn’t interested in joining a smaller or more niche company. Another caveat: if you hire for a full time role, but that person doesn’t have enough to do to fill their time after an initial project or rush, you’re paying for them to be idle.
Agency
On the other hand, hiring an agency can feel expensive or inexpensive depending on how you look at it, but the costs do add up over time. Depending on the role, agency pricing varies widely, anywhere from around $1,000 a month to over $20,000 a month; or you could work with an agency on a project basis for a flat fee to deliver an outcome.
In some cases, that may be a good deal. If you have specific project or intermittent needs, or if it’s too expensive to bring in a specialist full time, an agency might be able to fill that need in the short term.
The wrinkle to watch out for here is if you’re going to have ongoing needs. A maintenance plan on something the agency built, for example, might end up costing more over time than bringing that maintenance role back in house.
Bottom line: the cost question is really more about whether you have a long-term or short-term need rather than a straight dollars to dollars comparison.
Continuity
The next big differentiator between in-house and agency marketers is the question of continuity and institutional knowledge.
In-House
Both start at zero when it comes to institutional knowledge, but an in-house hire builds and retains that knowledge over time. A happy employee who stays for years will eventually be faster, more efficient, and need less from leadership because they’ve built a wealth of knowledge and experience.
Employees also bring continuity between projects. They remember what happened before, what worked and what didn’t, and can apply that knowledge without going through additional onboarding.
Agency
An agency, on the other hand, brings zero institutional knowledge and only has continuity if you work with the same team over multiple projects. All important knowledge has to be transferred during their onboarding process. There can be turnover at the agency that has nothing to do with your business that can also cause interruptions. Teams may also have split focus across different projects and clients, and it’s a reality of agency work that often the biggest clients get priority.
An advantage agencies do bring is proven, playbook- or framework-driven processes. They’ve done the same sorts of projects over and over again for a variety of clients, so they know exactly what works and what doesn’t, whereas a full-time employee may or may not have experience with a specific type of project and may have to “reinvent the wheel” so to speak.
Bottom line: If continuity and institutional knowledge are important for your work, a full-time employee will win; but for specific projects that require a proven playbook, an agency may have the upper hand.
Specialization and Depth
Another important question to consider is around how much specialization and depth of knowledge you need for your particular projects or roles.
When you have a limited budget and can’t hire a full team of specialists, it’s worth considering which is more important: someone with stable, core skills or someone with a specialized skill.
In-House
Full-time marketing employees in smaller teams tend to be generalists; they can wear many hats and do many things competently well. And while they may have a specialty, sometimes you need a different specialty depending on your projects and goals.
Agency
Agencies are specialists, through and through. A company might even hire different agencies for different projects, like an SEO agency for organic traffic and an ads agency for paid. Agencies can also be a good choice when you have a finite need for a deep skill, like a branding project.
Bottom line: In-house teams are usually built around the core skills a company needs all the time, whereas agencies can be brought in to fill more specialized needs.
Scaling and Flexibility
This question really turns on how much your needs change from quarter to quarter, both scaling up and scaling down.
In-House
If you have steady, predictable marketing work, hiring in-house is probably the way to go. Building an in-house team can be slower to scale up and more painful to scale down. Remember that a full-time employee remains a fixed cost for your business even through a slow season or a downturn.
Agency
If you have spiky, seasonal, or project-based marketing needs, an agency can be a good fit, because even with a retainer model, there can be greater flexibility than hiring a full-time employee. Agencies are more nimble and can scale up faster because of their existing team and processes.
Bottom line: If your work or industry comes with a lot of variability, an agency may be a better fit; full-time teams work better and more efficiently with consistent demand and more predictable scaling.
Cultural Fit and Integration
Finally, think about how well this person needs to fit into your in-house team.
In-House
An in-house hire can be more thoroughly vetted and chosen for their alignment with the business. They can be deeply embedded in company culture and projects, understanding cross-team needs and functions better than anyone outside the company. That builds cross-functional trust between stakeholders. This can also be important if your company offers incentives like stock or employee ownership.
Agency
Agencies will, by definition, be less integrated and it may be harder to make sure there’s a strong cultural fit. Even if the agency leadership and sales team profess similar values and goals, businesses rarely get a say in the makeup of the team actually handling deliverables. Agencies also require more oversight early on, though that can improve with longer engagements as they learn your business. It’s also worth mentioning that there can be quality variations both by agency and by team member within one agency.
Bottom line: If cultural fit and integration are important to your company, hiring in-house is a better option to ensure a good fit.
There’s no clear winner for every situation
As you can probably tell now, there’s no one clear winner that fits every situation, and that’s okay. In today’s climate, most growing businesses opt for a blend of in-house and agency marketing support that fits their goals.
Your own company will likely make different decisions in different circumstances. For example:
- If you’re just starting to seriously market your business and it’s a long-term initiative, you might want to hire in-house for someone who can grow with the company.
- If you’re embarking on a big, but self-contained project, like branding, you might hire an agency with specialized expertise who can lead you through the project from start to finish.
- If you have ongoing and project-based needs, you might opt for a hybrid with a few people in-house who can manage all ongoing projects that require institutional knowledge, and an outside agency for needs that extend beyond that scope.
The best answer is the one that accounts for all the variables unique to your situation.
In-House, Agency, or Both? The New Marketing Playbook
Smart businesses are running a multi-modal model for their growing and changing marketing department that includes a core of one or more full-time employees with external expertise layered on. This is a problem some companies are starting to solve. If you want to go this route, here are a few worth checking out:
- Right Side Up — best for flexible, fractional support across multiple marketing roles. They offer search, recruiting, and placement for consultants, customized agency teams, and specialized full-time employees. Contracts aren’t long-term, so there’s less risk if the fit isn’t right. And if you find your unicorn, you can shift them into a full-time role down the line.
- MarketerHire — best for fast, self-serve hires in specific channels like SEO, paid search, or content.
- Creative Circle — best for creative and production-heavy execution work where speed matters more than ongoing strategic input.
This model works because it treats external expertise as a flexible layer that scales with a company’s needs, rather than a fixed cost. That said, this approach probably isn’t the right choice if you need to hire a permanent, full-time owner of a core function.
How to decide for your team
OK, so bottom line, your overall answer to the question of whether you should hire an agency or in-house marketing team is probably “both and.” But when you’re facing a specific hiring decision, ask yourself these questions:
- This function is…
A) core and long-term
B) temporary or spiky - You need…
A) a standing capability you’ll use continuously
B) one deep specialist skill you currently lack - Over the next 12 months, this need will…
A) stay steady and predictable
B) flex up or down - Recruiting A+ talent for this, you…
A) have the muscle to land and retain them
B) can’t easily land them at your stage/size - This work needs…
A) deep cultural embedding + aligned incentives
B) clear scope, deliverable-based - If you hired full time for this role, you could…
A) utilize them near capacity
B) not keep them busy full-time
If your answers tend more toward the As, you’re probably looking for an in-house hire. If you answered mostly B, you are probably looking for an agency or consultant.
And if you ended up with a mix? Well, then you’d probably benefit from a blend of an in-house role and an external layer of support. That’s the most common answer these days, and there are resources like Right Side Up that are built specifically to help you figure out what that mix should look like.
In the end, the right choice depends on your own needs and goals as you build out your marketing team.