In-house versus agency: the yearly cost comparison with your own numbers
Enter the roles you would hire and the agency's monthly fee. The calculator loads each salary with benefits at the rate the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports for full-time private-industry workers, adds tools for each person, and compares the total with a year of retainer plus the oversight time you keep on your side. It ends with the retainer at which both routes cost the same.
In-house versus agency cost
Change any input; the sentence updates as you type. The figures below the form are the worked example.
How it is worked out
in-house = (managers × manager salary + specialists × specialist salary) × (1 + benefits) + people × tools
agency = retainer × 12 + oversight × manager salary × (1 + benefits)
break-even retainer = (in-house − oversight cost) ÷ 12- benefits
- employer benefit costs as a share of salary: $17.03 of benefits per $36.97 of wages for full-time private-industry workers in June 2026, which is 46.1%
- tools
- software seats, equipment and training you pay for each person you employ
- oversight
- the share of a manager's year you spend briefing, reviewing and steering the agency
Worked example, with the default inputs:
- Salaries: 1 × $166,790 + 3 × $78,760 = $403,070.
- With benefits at 46.1%: $403,070 × 1.461 = $588,885. Tools: 4 × $10,000 = $40,000. In-house total: $628,885.
- Agency: $40,000 × 12 = $480,000, plus oversight 0.25 × $166,790 × 1.461 = $60,920. Agency total: $540,920.
- Break-even retainer: ($628,885 − $60,920) ÷ 12 = $47,330 a month.
| Input | Default | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Manager roles you would hire | 1 | Example input, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own. |
| Manager salary | $166,790 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics27 August 2026 |
| Specialist roles you would hire | 3 | Example input, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own. |
| Specialist salary | $78,760 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics27 August 2026 |
| Benefits on top of salary | 46.1% | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics9 September 2026 |
| Tools and overhead per person | $10,000 | Example input, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own. |
| Agency retainer | $40,000 | Example input, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own. |
| Your time to run the agency | 0.25 | Example input, not a benchmark. Replace it with your own. |
Where the salary and benefit defaults come from
The manager salary is the May 2025 median annual wage for marketing managers in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, $166,790. The specialist salary is the May 2025 median for market research analysts and marketing specialists, $78,760. Half of the people in each occupation earn more than its median and half earn less, so replace both with the offers you would actually make in your market.
Benefits come from the Bureau's Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026: for full-time private-industry workers, wages averaged $36.97 an hour and benefits $17.03. The calculator divides the second by the first, which puts benefits at 46.1% on top of salary. The role counts, tools, retainer and oversight time are example inputs, not benchmarks.
What the comparison leaves out
Media spend is excluded from both sides, because you pay it either way. So are one-off costs: recruiting fees and the months a new hire takes to ramp on one side, onboarding an agency and the cost of switching on the other. If a route carries one of these in your case, add it to that side before you decide.
The comparison is also blind to capacity. An agency retainer buys a share of a team's hours, while a hire gives you a whole person and the knowledge that stays when the contract ends. In our reading the break-even retainer is the most useful figure here: it tells you the most a retainer can cost before building the team becomes the cheaper route.
How to use the result with your CFO
Put both totals on one line each, with the break-even retainer beneath them, and list the assumptions next to the numbers: salaries, benefit rate, tools, oversight time. A finance partner can then change any one of them and see the effect, which is the conversation you want rather than an argument about the conclusion.
Embed this calculator
Paste this into any page to show the live calculator, with its formula and sources, linked back here.
<iframe src="https://www.cmotribune.com/embed/in-house-vs-agency" title="In-house versus agency cost, from CMO Tribune" width="100%" height="1200" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>Sources
- Occupational Outlook Handbook: Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 27 August 2026
- Occupational Outlook Handbook: Market Research Analysts (SOC 13-1161, market research analysts and marketing specialists), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 27 August 2026
- Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 9 September 2026
Built by the CMO Tribune Desk. Each sourced default was read on its source page on 23 October 2026; the arithmetic on this page is computed by the same code as the calculator. See how we work, or report an error on the corrections page.