The True Cost of Hiring: Why Marketing In-House Isn’t Always the Smartest Investment

At some point, every growing business faces the same question:
“Should we hire someone to handle our marketing, or should we outsource it?”

It sounds simple, but it’s one of the most expensive decisions a company can make — not just in dollars, but in time, focus, and risk. That’s why we built The True Cost of Hiring, an interactive worksheet that helps small and mid-sized businesses see what they’re really spending (and saving) when it comes to marketing.

What Most Businesses Miss

When a company doing $1–5 million in annual revenue starts to scale, marketing becomes mission-critical. The challenge is that hiring in-house seems safer — until you factor in what doesn’t show up on the salary line.

Here’s what’s often left out:

• Overhead: payroll taxes, benefits, office space, equipment

• Specialization gaps: one person can’t do strategy, design, copy, ads, and analytics well

• Turnover: the average marketing hire lasts less than two years

• Momentum loss: when that person leaves, your marketing stops dead

By the time you add it all up, an in-house marketing hire can easily cost $200K+ a year when you include overhead and supporting roles. That’s a full marketing department — and yet, it’s still just one person.

Why We Built the Worksheet

At Charcoal Marketing, we work with small and mid-sized businesses that fall right into that sweet spot — growing, profitable, and smart with their budgets. But we found many didn’t realize how much “hiring someone” actually costs compared to bringing on a fractional marketing team.

So we built a simple, interactive calculator where you can:

• Plug in your in-house salaries, freelance costs, and software expenses

• Compare them against Charcoal’s typical fractional retainer

• See your true annual cost difference — instantly

You’ll walk away knowing exactly what your marketing team really costs you, and what you could save by outsourcing.

A Smarter Way to Grow

Our goal isn’t to convince every business to outsource. It’s to help you make an informed decision — one that’s based on data, not guesswork.

For some businesses, hiring in-house might make sense. For many, outsourcing means access to an entire team of strategists, writers, designers, and digital experts for less than the cost of one full-time salary — without the HR headaches.

Try It Yourself

Curious what your marketing setup actually costs you each year?
Use The True Cost of Hiring Worksheet to find out in under two minutes.