Agency, freelancer or in-house... what's right for your marketing needs?

If you run a growing business, at some point you'll face this question: how do we get better marketing, creative and design work done - without breaking the bank or making a decision we'll regret?

This piece is going to piss some people off as we are making generalisations and there are exceptions to every rule! Our goal is to give you the potential strengths and drawbacks of each option.

We've spent parts of our 100,000 hours of experience in all of the above - inside big agencies and small ones, as freelancers, and even in-house.

Obvious note: we're not impartial… there's a reason 100,000 Hours exists - but you have to wait until the end for that!

What do you get from a marketing or creative agency?

Agencies are the most familiar option, and for good reason. At their best, they bring a breadth of skills under one roof — strategy, creative, design, copywriting, media - coordinated by people who work together all the time.

They're also more flexible than holding a full team in-house. You can brief an agency, ramp up, and if it's not working you can, depending on the contract you have, move on. Changing staff is a much bigger deal.

Where agencies can fall short for SMEs

Here's something most agencies won't tell you: if you're a smaller client at a larger agency, you are probably not their priority. Big agencies are big for a reason - they have incredible sales teams who will make you feel like the centre of their universe, and if you don't go with them your business will fail. The senior team that pitched to you, most likely won't be doing your work. You'll be handed to a more junior staff whose time is spread across multiple clients and your budget, however meaningful it feels to you, is relatively small to them.

If you're an SME, a smaller agency will almost always serve you better. You'll matter more. The people who sell you the work will tend to be more hands-on and closer to the people doing it.

Agencies work well when: you need a range of disciplines in one place, you have enough budget to be a meaningful client, and you want strategic input not just execution.

Watch out for: being passed to juniors after the pitch, long minimum commitments before you've seen any work, and fees that eat budget before anything gets made. And of course finding the right agency for you can be a lengthy process.

When does building an in-house team make sense?

There's a big appeal to having marketing and creative people in-house. They know your business. They're always available. You have complete control and you're not paying agency margins.

But the economics only work if you have enough work to keep them genuinely busy. A talented marketing manager, or design team sitting idle is a total bummer.

The hidden costs most SMEs don't factor in

Good people aren't cheap — and the most talent people tend to be drawn to agencies, where the variety of work is greater and their craft gets sharpened faster. Additionally, people who've been in-house for a long time can become set in their ways, doing things the way they've always been done and they won't be getting fresh inspiration from other client work.

There's also a management consideration that's easy to underestimate. A creative team needs a Creative Director. A marketing function needs a Marketing Director. They aren't cheap - and without them, standards slip.

Most SMEs also underestimate how many disciplines are involved. Design, copywriting, digital, social, paid media, strategy - covering all of these with staff alone requires a team that few SMEs can justify. A hybrid approach eg one or two in-house people plus flexible external resource, is often the smarter answer.

Works well when: you have consistent high-volume work, strong creative leadership, have lots of repetitive, low creativity work and/or deep institutional knowledge matters more than fresh thinking.

Watch out for: the true total cost including NI and management time, creative insularity, and the difficulty of covering every discipline you actually need.

What about freelancers?

Freelancers are often the most cost-effective option, and the best ones are fantastic. They work on a project basis, you speak directly to the person doing the work, and there's no long-term commitment.

Where freelancers can get complicated

Most freelancers have a specific skill set. A great designer isn't usually also your strategist or copywriter. Covering all the disciplines you need means managing multiple relationships, which eats management time you may not have.

Finding good freelancers is also tricky. If you have a recommendation great, but if you use a freelance agency that solves one problem by creating another: cost. A chunk of margin goes back on.

It's also worth noting that agencies are where disciplined skills gets built: briefs, feedback, craft, standards, and working across different clients and sectors is a formative experience. Some freelancers who haven't had that background show it in their work.

Works well when: you have a specific, well-defined project, you know what you need, and you have the time to find and manage the right people.

Watch out for: the coordination burden of multiple freelancers, inconsistent quality, and the difficulty of managing people across different disciplines without someone holding it together.

So where does 100,000 Hours fit in?

The cliffhanger question that's had you on the edge of your seat! We built 100,000 Hours because we kept seeing the same problem: SMEs falling between the cracks of all three options above.

Too small to get the senior team at a big agency. Not big enough to justify a full in-house department. And lacking the time to stitch together a network of freelancers and manage them all.

We're a collective of senior marketing, creative and design specialists — people with decades of experience across big agencies and small ones, huge clients and growing ones. We work together, which means you get the breadth of an agency without the overhead. And because we work on a project basis with no long-term commitment, the risk of trying us is low.

We have a process which simple and progressive. Including, thorough briefing, often ignored, which is the only way to create work that can be judged against the right goals — and it means no expensive surprises halfway through.

One more thing, which we see as a benefit to our clients, is that we don't specialise in any sector. If every business in your industry is using the same sector-specialist agencies, they all start to look and sound the same. We bring fresh eyes and we ask the questions insiders stopped asking years ago. Our job is to make you stand out in your sector… not look like everyone else in it.

We're not right for everyone. If you want the brand reassurance of a large agency name, we're not that. Very large clients with complex, multi-market briefs genuinely need a full agency infrastructure. But if you're an ambitious SME who wants senior people doing the actual work, transparent pricing, and no lock-in until you're confident it's working then we'd love to talk.

So what's the right way to resource your marketing right for your business? A checklist…

Choose an agency if you have the budget to be a meaningful client, need multiple disciplines coordinated, and want strategic leadership alongside execution. Go smaller rather than larger.

Build in-house if you have consistent high-volume work, strong creative leadership already in place, and enough disciplines to justify the headcount.

Use freelancers if you have a specific well-scoped project, know exactly what skill you need, and have the time to find and manage the right people.

Talk to us if you want senior expertise across all the disciplines you need, on a project basis, without the agency overhead or the management burden of multiple freelancers.

100000hours is a collective of senior marketing, creative and design specialists working with growing SMEs. No retainers, no lock-in, no juniors doing the work. Why not email us and we'll arrange a chat?