Marketing agencies
- In-house hire, loaded cost per month
- 9,704
- Agency, cost per month with the setup fee spread over a year
- 6,250
- In-house hire, first-year cost
- 116,450
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs you enter, by the method stated below it. The only constants Retainvia supplies are the published pay figures cited where they are used. The defaults are a worked example to replace with your own.
Marketing agencies come in a dozen kinds and the business hiring one is usually choosing between three routes at once: hire a marketer, retain a generalist agency, or retain a specialist for the one channel that matters. The right way through is the same whichever kind of agency wins: size the work in hours, compare the loaded cost of a hire with the retainer on those hours, write one brief that every shortlisted agency pitches against, and score the proposals on the same card. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited on this site, puts the median annual pay for market research analysts and marketing specialists at $78,760 in May 2025 and for advertising, promotions, and marketing managers at $165,780 per year in 2025, which is the hire side of the comparison; the retainer side is whatever the agency quoted you, and the worksheet on this site puts the two beside each other.
Open the In house marketing vs agency worksheet Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
Size the work in hours before you size the budget
Eighty hours a month of marketing work is a number an agency can quote against and a hire can be measured against. A budget without an hours figure buys whatever the agency proposes. The in-house versus agency worksheet on this site takes the hours you need and prints the cost per hour of each route, so the decision is made on the work rather than the pitch.
Write one brief and send it to every agency on the shortlist
Three agencies pitching against three different conversations produce three proposals that cannot be compared. One brief, with the hours, the channels, the goals and the reporting the business expects, produces proposals that line up on the same card. Retainvia Pro holds the brief and the shortlist and sends the same document to each.
Score the proposals on the same card, then hold the winner to it
Fit with the sector, the named team, the reporting cadence, the exit terms and the price per hour of the work go on one scorecard per agency. The one you choose is then held to what it proposed, month by month, in the retainer record. That record is what the finance director reads at renewal.
Marketing agencies: common questions
Is there a free way to compare marketing agencies?
The worksheet on this site compares a hire with any retainer you have been quoted, free and with no account, and you can print it. Retainvia Pro is the brief, the shortlist, the scorecard and the retainer record; no agency pays to be on it.
What should a small business look for in a marketing agency?
A named team rather than a roster, reporting you can read without a meeting, an exit clause measured in months not years, sector work you can check, and a price per hour of the work you need that beats the hire on the worksheet.
Does a small business need an agency or a hire?
At eighty hours a month the worksheet usually makes the retainer cheaper per hour and the hire cheaper at scale; the answer is the figure the page prints from your own numbers, not a rule of thumb.
Will it do what you need for Marketing agencies?
Tell us what your business needs and we will tell you straight whether Retainvia Pro does it today, whether it is coming, or whether you are better off with something else. A person reads these and replies.