Agency or in-house
An in-house designer costs more than their salary and is worth more than their output, because they accumulate context nobody else has. The question is whether you have enough work to keep that person genuinely busy.
Reviewed
The real cost of in-house
Salary plus payroll costs, equipment, software licences, recruitment fees and three months of ramp before full productivity. For most companies that lands well above the headline number, and it is fixed whether the pipeline is full or empty.
Where flexible arrangements win
Uneven workloads, projects with hard end dates, and situations where you need three specialisms rather than one generalist. The honest failure case is when you have steady weekly work, where in-house is better and we will tell you so.
The sequence most teams follow
Flexible support first, then a first in-house hire once the workload is provably steady, then flexible support again around that person for peaks and specialisms. Very few companies go straight to a permanent hire and get the level right on the first attempt.
- In-house true cost well above salary
- Roughly three months to full productivity
- Flexible suits uneven or project-based work
- Steady weekly volume favours in-house
Questions about agency or in-house
What does an in-house designer really cost?
Salary plus payroll costs, equipment, software, recruitment fees and about three months of ramp. For most companies that lands well above the headline number and it is fixed.
When is in-house genuinely better?
When you have steady weekly work. An in-house designer accumulates context nobody else has, and we will tell you when that applies to you.
Where to go next
Related pages people usually read alongside this one.
Get the honest comparison
One call, no pitch. If an in-house hire or a marketplace suits you better, that is what we will tell you.