every founder eventually hits the same inflection point. paid media is either working and they want more of it, or it's not working and they want someone to fix it. either way, the next question is always: do we hire an agency or a consultant?
the default answer is usually agency. more people, more resources, more accountability. it feels like the safer bet. it usually isn't.
here's an honest breakdown of the tradeoffs — without the pitch.
how agencies actually work
agencies are built to service volume. they onboard clients, assign accounts to junior or mid-level strategists, and build processes that let them manage as many accounts as possible without things falling apart.
that's not a knock — it's just how the model works. margins depend on it.
what that means in practice:
- the person who sold you the engagement is not the person running your account
- your strategist is managing 8–12 other accounts at the same time
- reporting is templated, not tailored
- strategy reviews happen monthly, if you're lucky
- turnover is high — your account might change hands twice in a year
none of that is catastrophic. but it shapes what's actually possible.
how consultants actually work
a good independent consultant runs a tighter book. fewer clients, deeper involvement, and no structural incentive to keep you from asking hard questions.
- you work directly with the person doing the work — always
- strategy isn't filtered through account management layers
- you can have a real conversation about what's working without it becoming a renewals conversation
- if something's off in the account, it gets flagged fast — not at the next monthly call
the tradeoff is capacity. a consultant can't run a 15-person creative production operation. if you need full-service execution at scale, that's genuinely harder to do with one person.
when an agency actually makes sense
agencies aren't wrong. they're just the right fit for specific situations.
if you're spending $100k+/month across four channels and need a coordinated team handling everything from creative production to media buying to analytics — an agency is probably the right call. you need infrastructure, not just strategy.
they also make sense when you have no internal marketing function and need someone to build everything from scratch. or when you're running brand and performance simultaneously and need specialists in both.
when a consultant makes more sense
most B2B SaaS companies and growth-stage DTC brands don't need an agency. they need someone who actually knows what they're doing, is paying close attention, and isn't afraid to tell you when something isn't working.
a consultant is usually the better fit when:
- you're spending $10k–$80k/month and want someone senior on the work, not managing it from a distance
- you've been through an agency and felt like you weren't getting senior attention
- you have an internal team and need a strategic partner, not a vendor
- your paid media is tied directly to pipeline and you need someone who thinks that way
- you want clear reasoning behind every decision, not a slide deck full of metrics that don't connect to revenue
the real question to ask
forget agency vs. consultant for a second. the actual question is: who is going to be doing the work on my account, how much time will they spend on it, and how experienced are they?
the title on the door doesn't matter. what matters is whether the person making decisions about your ad spend actually knows what they're doing — and is paying attention.
ask any agency who specifically will be running your account. ask how many other accounts they manage. ask whether that person was in the room when the strategy was pitched to you. if the answers feel evasive, that tells you something.
honest take
i'm a consultant, so take this with appropriate skepticism. but i started doing this because i watched too many good brands get mediocre results from agencies that weren't paying close enough attention — and then get blamed for it.
the accounts that perform best are the ones where the person running the media actually cares whether it works. that's not a function of agency vs. consultant. it's a function of incentives, attention, and accountability.
figure out which structure gives you those three things. that's your answer.
if you're trying to sort out which model makes sense for where you're at — happy to talk through it. no pitch, just a conversation.