Marketing agency or in-house: what each really costs

A full-time marketer costs a lot more than their salary, and one person can't cover everything a business's marketing needs. An agency gives you more skills than one hire without the cost of a full team, but it isn't always the better choice. Which one suits you depends on how much work there is, how many different skills it needs and who's going to manage it.

I run an agency, so take that into account. I've tried to set out the numbers so you can do the sums yourself.

What a marketing hire really costs

Start with salary. Robert Walters' 2026 salary guide gives these Queensland figures for permanent roles, base salary only:

For a national comparison, Jobs and Skills Australia puts the median full-time earnings for advertising and marketing professionals at $1,957 a week, about $101,800 a year (May 2025).

Then add what goes on top:

• Super: 12% of salary. On an average Queensland marketing manager, that's $12,720, taking the cost to $118,720.
• Leave: four weeks of annual leave and ten days of personal leave a year are paid, so you're paying for weeks of the year when they're not working.
• Software: a marketer needs tools. At published US prices, HubSpot's Marketing Hub Professional starts at US$890 a month and Ahrefs' Standard plan at US$249 a month. That's roughly US$13,700 a year for those two alone, before design tools or reporting.
• Payroll tax: in Queensland it only applies once your total wages pass $1.3 million a year, so many smaller businesses won't pay it. If you do, it's 4.75% on most payrolls.
• Recruitment, a computer, training and management time. If you use a recruiter, ask their fee up front, because it's usually charged as a share of the first year's salary.

So an average Queensland marketing manager costs well over $130,000 a year before you spend a dollar on ads, and a coordinator about $75,600 with super, plus the same software.

What one person can't do

That's the cost. The bigger issue is coverage. A business that sells something complex usually needs:

• a plan, and someone to keep to it
• Google Ads, managed every week
• SEO and website content
• a website that's maintained and improved
• a CRM, with follow-up that runs on time
• design, for brochures, proposals and trade shows
• writing
• reporting that connects marketing to sales

Few people are good at all of that. Most marketers are strong in two or three areas. The rest either gets bought in from freelancers, which adds cost and management, or doesn't get done.

When in-house is the better choice

In-house wins when:

• There's enough steady work to keep one or more people busy every week.
• The job needs deep product knowledge every day, like writing technical content that only someone close to engineering can do.
• A lot of the work is internal or in person, like staff communications, events or supporting the sales team on site.
• You can afford a small team rather than one person, so the skills are covered.

When an agency makes more sense

An agency usually suits a business that needs several skills, but not a full-time person in each. You get a strategist, an ads specialist, a developer and a designer without hiring each of them, and you can start in weeks rather than after a recruitment round. It also suits an owner with nobody to manage a marketer, because a junior hire left to work it out alone rarely works out.

The mix that often works best

In my view, the best setup for many businesses is a mix. An in-house coordinator who knows the business handles the day to day: the social posts, the trade show logistics and being the link with the sales team. An agency handles the specialist work, like Google Ads, SEO, the website and the CRM. You get product knowledge inside and specialist skills outside, without hiring a full team.

What to ask an agency

If you're comparing agencies, ask:

• Who actually does the work? The person who pitched it, or someone you haven't met?
• What will you report on? Clicks and impressions are easy. Enquiries, quotes and sales are what matter. I've written about measuring marketing when the sale takes months.
• What's the fixed monthly price, and what does it cover?
• How long is the contract, and what happens if it isn't working?
• Who owns the accounts and the data? Your Google Ads account, website and CRM should be in your name.

Whichever way you go, it helps to know what you should be spending in the first place. I've covered that in how much a B2B business should spend on marketing.