Agency, freelancer or in-house?
Three legitimate ways to run marketing, each with a real case for it. Here is the honest version, including the situations where we are not the answer.
| Alfa Pro Australia | A freelancer | In-house hire | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breadth of skills | Strategy, SEO, paid search, paid social, design, video and development in one team | One or two channels done well; gaps elsewhere | Whatever the one or two hires you made can cover |
| Speed to start | Days to weeks | Days | Two to four months of recruiting |
| Cost shape | Monthly fee, scalable up or down | Hourly or per project, cheapest per hour | Salary plus super, tools, leave and management time |
| Continuity risk | Team cover, documented accounts | If they are sick or busy, everything stops | One resignation takes the knowledge with it |
| Institutional knowledge | Patterns from many accounts and categories | Deep in their niche, narrow outside it | Deep in your business, narrow in the market |
| Best when | You need several channels working together and want senior attention without hiring | You need one specific skill, on a defined project, on a tight budget | Marketing is your core growth engine and you can fund a real team |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone.
The maths most people skip
A marketing coordinator on $75,000 costs closer to $95,000 once super, tools, leave and management time are counted — and that is one skillset, not five. That comparison, not the hourly rate, is usually the decision.
Choose a freelancer when
The job is well defined, single-channel, and you have someone internally who can brief and review the work.
Choose an agency when
You need several channels coordinated, senior judgement, and cover when someone is away.
Choose in-house when
Marketing is the growth engine, volume is constant, and you can fund at least two complementary hires.
Still not sure which you need?
Send us your situation. If a freelancer or an in-house hire is genuinely the better answer for you, we will tell you that — it costs us nothing to be straight about it.