Marketing agency or in-house: how to choose

The wage and overhead figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: the Occupational Outlook Handbook page for marketing managers and the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release. The account ownership facts come from Google's help page about Google Ads manager accounts. We give no agency fee figures, because we found no primary source for them; you get the cost items to price instead. Where something is our own view, we say so.

The short answer

Our view: most small businesses get the best value from one person inside the business who owns the plan, the budget and the accounts, plus outside specialists for the work that needs skills or tools you would not use every week. A full in-house team starts to make sense when marketing work fills several full-time roles all year. A fully outsourced set-up works when nobody inside has time, as long as the business still owns everything the agency builds.

Whichever way you go, start from a written marketing plan and a marketing budget. Without them, you cannot judge either an agency proposal or a job description.

What an agency does well

• Range of skills. One contract can cover paid ads, SEO, design, video and analytics. Hiring each of those as a person is rarely realistic for a small business.
• Speed to start. An agency can usually begin in weeks. Recruiting, hiring and training an employee takes longer.
• Tools and comparisons. Agencies pay for tools across many clients and see how campaigns behave in other accounts. Ask what they will use for you and whether you keep access to the reports when you leave.
• Easy to scale down. You can pause or end a contract under its notice terms; letting staff go is harder and slower.

The weak spots, in our view: an agency knows your product and customers less well than your staff, your account may get less attention than larger clients, and work done in the agency's own accounts can be hard to take back. Our guide to working with an agency covers how to run the day-to-day relationship once you have hired one.

What an in-house team does well

• Knowledge of the business. Staff hear sales calls, see support tickets and know the product. That shows in the copy, the offers and the ideas.
• Speed of small changes. A price change, a new photo or a quick post does not need a ticket and a quote.
• Knowledge stays. What was tested and learned stays with the business instead of leaving with a supplier.
• Focus. An employee works only on your marketing.

The weak spots: one or two people cannot be experts in every channel, you pay salaries whether campaigns are running or not, and when someone leaves, their knowledge and sometimes their logins leave with them unless you planned for it.

Costs to compare

Compare a full year, not one month, and put the same work on both sides.

In-house. Salary is only the start. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that "The median annual wage for marketing managers was $166,790 in May 2025." That is a national median for a manager role; specialist and junior roles, and local pay, differ, so look up the role and area you would actually hire for. On top of pay come benefits: for private industry workers in June 2026, BLS reports that wages and salaries made up 70.0 percent of employer costs and benefits the remaining 30.0 percent. Then add:

• Recruiting time and any hiring fees.
• Training and the months before a new hire is fully productive.
• Software: ad tools, design tools, email platform, analytics, scheduling.
• Freelancers for the skills the team does not have (video, photography, development).
• Management time from you or a manager.

Agency. Ask every agency to price the same list so the proposals compare:

• Monthly retainer or project fee, and exactly which hours or deliverables it covers.
• Set-up or onboarding fees.
• How ad spend is billed: paid by you directly to the platform, or through the agency with a markup or a percentage fee.
• Tool or software costs passed on to you.
• Rates for extra work outside the scope.
• Minimum contract term and notice period.
• Your own staff time to brief, review and approve.

Ad spend itself is the same on both sides, so keep it out of the comparison and compare only the cost of the people and tools that run it.

Hybrid set-ups

In our view, a mix is the most common good answer for a small business. Some set-ups that work:

• In-house owner, outside specialists. One marketer or owner sets the plan and the budget and handles content and social; an agency or freelancer runs paid search or a technical SEO project.
• Agency for strategy, staff for daily work. An agency builds the plan, campaigns and templates; your team publishes and replies day to day.
• Project work only. An agency does the big, rare jobs (a rebrand, a new website, a launch) and the team runs things afterwards.

The rule for any mix: one named person in your business owns the goals, the budget and the access list, so nothing falls between the two sides.

Who owns the accounts, data and logins

This matters more than the choice itself. Whoever does the work, the business should own:

• The ad accounts (Google Ads, Meta, Microsoft and others), with billing on your own payment method or profile where you can.
• Analytics and tag manager accounts, Search Console and your Google Business Profile.
• The domain, the hosting and the website admin, and the email platform with its subscriber list.
• Social media pages and the creative files: designs, photos, video and copy you paid for.

Agencies usually work through a manager account. Google describes a manager account as one that "lets you view and manage multiple Google Ads accounts" from one place, and notes: "Your manager account can also be given ownership of a client account." It also says that users with administrative access to a client account "can terminate the relationship with the manager account at any time by unlinking their account from the manager account." So: create the account yourself, keep admin access for someone in your business, and link the agency's manager account to it, rather than letting the agency create the account inside its own manager account and own it.

The same goes for staff. Give each person their own login instead of sharing one password, and remove access the day they leave. Our website ownership and handover guide lists what to collect, and a development contract is the place to write down who owns code and content.

A decision checklist

• Do you have a written plan and a budget for the next 12 months?
• How many hours of marketing work a week does the plan really need, and in which skills?
• Would those hours keep one or more people busy all year, or do they come in bursts?
• Who inside the business will own the goals, the budget and the account access list?
• Have you priced the full in-house cost (pay, benefits, tools, recruiting, management) and the full agency cost (fees, set-up, markups, tools, minimum term) for the same work?
• Are the ad, analytics and website accounts in the business's name, with admin access you control?
• What happens to the work, the data and the reports if you end the contract or someone leaves?
• How will you measure results each month, and who reviews them?

If you go the agency route, our guide to choosing a web developer has questions and red flags that apply to marketing agencies too.

Frequently asked questions

Is a marketing agency cheaper than an in-house team?

It depends on how much work you have. Compare a full year of the same work: for staff, pay plus benefits (benefits were 30.0 percent of private employer costs in June 2026 per BLS), tools, recruiting and management; for an agency, fees, set-up, ad spend markups, tools and the minimum term.

Who should own the Google Ads account when an agency runs it?

In our view, the business. Create the account yourself, keep admin access, and link it to the agency's manager account. Google notes that admins of the client account can unlink it from the manager account at any time.

Can I combine an agency and in-house staff?

Yes. A common set-up is one person in the business who owns the plan, budget and accounts, with an agency or freelancers for specialist work such as paid search, SEO projects or video.

Whichever you choose, your website does much of the selling. Our services page lists the websites, apps and maintenance we build and look after for businesses.