Comparison · what you keep
Marketing engineer vs agency vs freelancer
The useful question is not who is cheaper per hour. It is what is sitting on your side of the table when the engagement ends.
What is left at the end
| When it ends you keep | Agency | Freelancer | Marketing engineer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live pages on your domain | Usually, licensing varies | Sometimes | Yes — your hosting, your files |
| The measurement setup | Their dashboard | Whatever they wired | Events + one report per page, documented |
| Who owns the outcome | An account layer | One specialist skill | One person, start to finish |
| What you pay for | Retainer + coordination + margin | Hours | Fixed scope, fixed price |
| Evidence the work happened | Report | Deliverables | Live URLs, open in front of you |
| Exit cost | Notice period, handover project | Depends who holds the keys | 14 days notice on the monthly loop |
Questions people actually ask
Marketing engineer vs agency — what is the real difference?
The end state. An agency engagement typically ends with a report and a renewal; this one ends with files on your domain. You can fire the engineer and keep everything.
Why not just hire a freelancer?
A freelancer is usually a specialist for one thing. The point here is the joined-up path: offer, page, indexing, distribution and measurement owned by one person, so no step gets dropped between vendors.
How do the prices compare?
An agency retainer plus freelancers has to carry coordination, an account layer and a margin. Fixed packages start at $900, the monthly loop is $1,900, a full build is $2,900 — the whole comparison is on the pricing page.
Next step
Tell me what you sell and what you have already tried. I answer with a fixed scope and a price, not with a call to "explore synergies".
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