A $65K Marketer Does Not Cost $65K.
Load the salary with the benefit burden the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually measures, add the software and the hours you will spend directing the work, then compare all three options on the only number that settles it — cost per booked job.
Your Inputs
Media only. This is identical across all three options — it is paid to Meta or Google either way.
The number you would put on the offer letter. It is not what the hire costs you.
Per month. Reporting, creative tools, call tracking, landing page builder — things an agency usually bundles.
Per week. A junior in-house hire needs direction; that direction is your time and it is not free.
What you would otherwise earn in that hour selling, quoting or running the business.
Per month, management fee only, excluding ad spend.
Per month, management fee only.
What one generalist running your account achieves. Use a demonstrated number, not a hope; a new hire often takes months to reach their steady-state figure.
Set this to what an agency actually demonstrated for a business like yours, not to what they promised.
Varies more than either alternative. Use a pessimistic number if you have not seen their reporting.
Held constant across the three options here, because it is mostly a function of your office, not your marketer.
Revenue on a typical job. Starts at $1,800, close to the $1,826 average ticket across 888 contractors' LSA jobs (SearchLight, Feb 2026) — use your own.
Job revenue minus materials and direct labour, as a share of revenue. Starts at 40%, a placeholder — use your own. Used to judge each cost per booked job against the profit a job earns.
Lowest cost per booked job
Freelancer
$340 per booked job — 167 jobs a year on $57,000 of total outlay. That is 47% (thin cushion) of the $720 gross profit a $1,800 job earns at 40%; about a quarter or less is the plan, and over half rarely leaves enough for overhead (this site's rule of thumb).
What the salary actually costs
Twelve months, same $48,000 of media
| Option | Overhead | Total outlay | Booked jobs | Cost per booked job | Share of job gross profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-house hireSalary loaded at BLS rates, plus tooling and your supervision time. | $123,057 | $171,057 | 167 | $1,022 | 142% (over half) |
| AgencyRetainer only. No benefits, no tooling, no recruiting risk. | $18,000 | $66,000 | 167 | $394 | 55% (over half) |
| FreelancerCheapest overhead, thinnest bench, highest key-person risk. | $9,000 | $57,000 | 167 | $340 | 47% (thin cushion) |
What this model does not price
- Recruiting and ramp. A marketing hire is rarely productive on week one, and the search itself costs weeks of your time before that.
- Turnover. When an in-house marketer leaves they take the account knowledge with them, and you pay the ramp cost again.
- Bench depth. One hire is one skill set. Creative, media buying, tracking and landing pages are four different jobs, and no single junior salary buys all four.
- Account ownership. Worth checking in every direction — an agency that owns your ad account, pixel or lead data is a switching cost that never shows up in a fee comparison.
Talk through your options
Free 60-second application. You keep your ad account, your pixel and your lead data either way.
What does a marketing employee really cost?
About 1.43 times the salary before tooling. BLS measured benefits at about 30% of total compensation for private industry workers in March 2026, which means wages are about 70% and the employer's outlay is the salary divided by 0.70. A $65,000 offer letter is roughly $93,000 — and the software, the recruiting and the hours you spend directing the work all sit on top of that.
Why compare on cost per booked job instead of fees?
Because fees compare what you pay and ignore what you get. Two providers charging $750 apart can differ by far more than that in booked jobs if one runs a materially better cost per lead, and the cheaper fee loses. Overhead is the number you negotiate; cost per booked job is the number the business lives on.
When does hiring in-house win?
When ad spend is large enough that a fee scales past a loaded salary, and when there is genuinely enough work to occupy one person. At lower media budgets that rarely holds (the crossover depends on the fee and the salary; run the tool with yours) — you end up buying a full-time salary for a part-time job, and buying one skill set where the work needs four.
Keep going
- Agency vs In-House Marketer — the full head-to-head behind these numbers.
- How to Hire a Meta Ads Agency — the fifteen questions to ask before you sign anything.
- How to Brief an Agency — what to hand over once you have chosen.
- Marketing Budget Planner — set the budget before you decide who spends it.
- Cost Per Booked Job Calculator — the metric this comparison is decided on.
- Meta ad management — what the agency column looks like here.
Hiring Questions.
What does a marketing employee actually cost?
Roughly 1.43 times the salary before you have bought a single tool. BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation put benefits at about 30% of total compensation for private industry workers in March 2026, so a $65,000 offer letter is about $93,000 of employer cost — and that is before software, recruiting and the hours you spend directing the work.
Why divide the salary by 0.70 instead of adding 30%?
Because the roughly 30% is benefits as a share of total compensation, not a markup on wages. Wages are the other 70%, so the total is salary divided by 0.70 (1.43x), not salary × 1.30. Adding 30% to the salary understates the real figure by several thousand dollars and is an easy mistake to make in this comparison.
Is an agency cheaper than hiring in-house?
Usually on overhead, not always on outcome — which is why this tool reports cost per booked job rather than fees. Cost per lead can outweigh the fee difference, but only if the gap is big enough; the tool shows the cost per booked job for each option, so compare those rather than the fees.
Why does the tool charge me for my own supervision time?
Because it is the largest hidden cost in the in-house option and it is never in the spreadsheet. Four hours a week of owner time at $125 an hour is $26,000 a year of quoting, selling or running the business that did not happen. If you would not pay someone else to do that supervising, you are still paying for it.
Should the close rate differ between the three options?
Mostly not, which is why it is held constant here. Close rate depends heavily on who answers the phone and how fast — your office in all three scenarios — though the marketer does influence it through lead quality, so compare close rates on leads from each option if you can. If a provider claims they will lift your close rate, ask which part of your follow-up process they are taking over.
When does hiring in-house actually win?
When ad spend is high enough that a percentage-of-spend agency fee exceeds a loaded salary, and when there is enough work to keep one person busy. At lower media budgets that rarely holds (the crossover depends on the fee and the salary; run the tool with yours), because you are buying a full-time salary for a part-time job.
What does a freelancer genuinely risk?
Concentration. One freelancer is one person's availability, one skill set and no cover — when they take a holiday, get ill or take a bigger client, your account stops. The fee is the cheapest of the three; the variance is the widest.
Why is cost per booked job the deciding metric?
Because it is the only figure that includes both what you paid and what you got. Fees compare inputs, cost per lead compares half the funnel, and cost per booked job compares the thing you actually bank. SearchLight's LSA benchmark across 888 contractors put cost per paying customer at $233 — that is the class of number worth arguing about.
Should the ad spend be the same across all three options?
Yes, and the tool enforces it. Media is paid to Meta or Google regardless of who presses the buttons, so varying it between options compares two different businesses. If a provider only performs at a higher budget, that is a finding about the provider.
What about agencies that charge a percentage of ad spend?
Convert it to a monthly dollar figure and enter that. Percentage-of-spend pricing has an obvious incentive problem — the fee rises when the budget rises, whether or not the extra budget was warranted — so it is worth modelling at both your current and your target spend before signing.
Does this account for recruiting and ramp-up time?
No, and it flags that on the page rather than pretending otherwise. Recruiting cost, the weeks before a new hire is productive, and the ramp you pay again when they leave all fall on the in-house side, so the in-house figure here is optimistic rather than conservative.
What should I ask before signing with any of them?
Who owns the ad account, the pixel and the lead data. Ownership never appears in a fee comparison and it determines what switching costs you later. Ask for it in writing, in your own business manager, before money changes hands.
Can I run this for a part-time hire?
Yes — halve the salary and halve your supervision hours. Be careful with the benefit load, though: part-time roles often carry a lower benefit share than the BLS private-industry average, so the loaded figure will be somewhat pessimistic for a genuine part-timer.
Are any of these numbers Elev8 Operations data?
None of them. The benefit load is from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation for March 2026, the cost-per-lead reference points are from WordStream/LocaliQ's published benchmarks, and the ticket figure is from SearchLight's LSA dataset. Every fee and salary is yours to enter.
Sources
We sell one of the three options on this page, so the arithmetic is deliberately transparent and the benefit load comes from a federal dataset rather than from us. Every fee, salary and cost-per-lead figure is yours to change. Last verified 2026-07-30.
- 1US Bureau of Labor Statistics — Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — March 2026 (USDL-26-0827)
March 2026 reference period; released 12 June 2026 · National Compensation Survey of employer-reported costs per hour worked; private industry workers averaged $46.60 total compensation, $32.60 wages and salaries, $14.01 benefits. Source for the benefit burden applied to the in-house salary. Benefits are about 30% of total compensation for private industry workers ($14.01 of $46.60 an hour), so an employer's real outlay is the salary divided by about 0.70 before tooling or management time.
- 2WordStream / LocaliQ — Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2026
2026. Reference point for the cost-per-lead defaults across the three options — all three presets start at $42.95 rounded, the Home & Home Improvement average, so the comparison begins neutral; enter what each option has actually demonstrated.
- 3SearchLight Digital — Home Services LSA Benchmark — Google Local Service Ads Cost Per Lead by Trade
February 2026 · 888 contractors, $6.72M tracked spend, 126,650 leads, $52.7M closed revenue. Source for the $1,826 average ticket across 888 contractors' LSA jobs, which the $1,800 job-value default approximates, and the $233 cost per paying customer used as a benchmark in the FAQs.
Related Tools & Guides
Keep going — these pair well with this calculator.