If your business is under roughly £5m revenue, a limited budget is often better spent on media and effort. Agency fees can wait. DIY or in-house can genuinely be the right call at this stage. It’s not just a cheaper compromise.
How to Diagnose What You Actually Need
Before comparing costs, it helps to identify what’s actually limiting your marketing right now — because the right structure follows from that diagnosis, not the other way round. If the limiting factor is budget, DIY or a part-time freelancer usually makes more sense than either option below. If it’s time — you know roughly what needs doing but can’t fit it in — a single in-house hire or a narrow-scope freelancer can absorb that workload directly. If the limiting factor is strategic direction — you’re unsure what to prioritise across channels, or juggling SEO, PPC, and content without a coordinated plan — that’s specifically what an agency is built to solve, since coordinating multiple channels cohesively is harder to replicate with a single generalist hire.
| DIY | In-House Hire | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Lowest (your time) | Salary + overhead | £300–£2,500/month |
| Expertise | Limited, self-taught | Depends on hire | Broad, ongoing |
| Time investment | High, ongoing | Managed by you | Low, delegated |
| Best for | Very early-stage, tight budget | Larger, consistent workload | Established business, needs results without hiring |
When to Move from One to the Next
Most businesses move through these stages rather than picking one permanently. DIY or a freelancer typically covers the pre-revenue and early-trading stage, when marketing spend needs to stay close to zero. A single in-house hire tends to make sense once the workload is large enough and consistent enough to justify a fixed salary — usually once marketing has become a full-time job rather than something squeezed in around other work. An agency becomes the better fit once you need genuine strategic guidance across multiple channels rather than just execution of tasks you’ve already defined, and once the cost of a fragmented approach — channels working against each other rather than together — outweighs the monthly retainer.
Costs that don’t show up in the headline price
Each option carries a cost that isn’t in the number you’re comparing. DIY’s real cost is opportunity cost — the hours spent learning and testing marketing are hours not spent running the business, and early mistakes often cost more in wasted effort than a modest agency retainer would have.
An in-house hire adds recruitment and onboarding time before they’re productive, cover needed for holiday and sick leave, and a single point of failure if they leave. An agency’s hidden cost is usually management time — even fully delegated work needs some internal oversight, and strategic recommendations only pay off if someone on your side follows through on them promptly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, and it’s common. A typical split is handling something low-complexity in-house (social posting, a directory listing) while an agency runs the channels that need ongoing strategic management, like SEO or PPC.
Not Sure Which Stage You’re At?
We’ll tell you honestly if an agency is the right move yet.
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