What it actually costs to have someone run your ads, at your spend level: market bands for all three paths, first-year against steady-state, and our own pricing plotted on the chart as a labeled point. The verdict changes with spend, and two of the five zones recommend paths that involve no agency at all.
At $5,000 a month, a freelancer runs $12k to $76k a year but breadth becomes the constraint: multi-channel work plus landing pages plus creative outruns most solo operators. A fully loaded in-house hire is $122k in year one, hard to justify under $25,000 a month in spend. Market agency fees run $11k to $30k a year; our Starter plan is $30k ($2,500 a month), and where it sits on that band is visible above.
The dashed vertical line is your current spend. On this data, a typical multi-channel freelancer stops being the cheap option around $21k/month in spend, and a fully loaded in-house hire beats percentage-fee agencies above roughly $71k/month.
Our pricing is above; no call is required to find out what we cost. If you want to talk through whether we are the right fit at your spend level, that conversation is free and takes twenty minutes.
Market rates run 10 to 20 percent of monthly ad spend with minimums, which at $5,000 a month in spend means roughly $900 to $2,500 in monthly fees, and at $25,000 spend roughly $2,500 to $4,250. Our own pricing, published in full: Starter Lite $1,850 a month, Starter $2,500, Growth $4,500, Scale $7,500, with scope by tier on the services page. Most agencies make you book a call to learn any of this; the market band and our exact figures are both above.
Experienced PPC freelancers bill $50 to $150 an hour, with mid-level talent near $60 and senior specialists around $110. A single-channel account needs 12 to 25 hours a month (roughly $900 to $2,100 at mid rates), and flat retainers of $500 to $2,500 a month are common. The model fits best on one channel with stable strategy; the costs that surprise people are the gaps, since vacations, churn, and creative production sit outside most freelance arrangements.
More than the salary. A mid-market paid media manager earns $65,000 to $85,000, and the fully loaded math adds a benefits-and-taxes multiplier around 1.3, a $3,000 to $8,000 tools stack, recruiting at 15 to 20 percent of salary, and a first quarter of reduced output while they learn your account. Year one at a $75,000 salary lands near $122k; steady state runs about $103k a year. Most published answers stop at salary, which is why in-house looks cheaper on paper than it is in year one.
It depends on spend, and the crossover points are computable. Below about $25,000 a month in ad spend, a fully loaded hire costs more than most agency arrangements. Between $25,000 and $50,000 the two genuinely compete. Above roughly $71k a month in spend, an in-house manager beats percentage-fee agencies on cost per managed dollar, and we say so in the tool even though we are an agency.
Ten to 20 percent is the market norm, and the percentage is the honest way to compare unlike options: a $2,500 monthly fee is 50 percent of a $5,000 budget and 5 percent of a $50,000 one. The same fee can be reasonable or ruinous depending on the denominator. Flat-tier pricing (like ours) means the percentage falls as spend grows, which is also why flat tiers age well for growing accounts and percentage fees age well for the agency.
Below about $1,500 a month in ad spend, where any competent management fee eats more than half the total budget; above about $50,000 a month, where a dedicated hire usually wins on cost and focus; and any time the honest bottleneck is the offer or the website rather than the media buying. The tool renders the first two verdicts automatically, with no sales pitch attached to either.
Computed from the same model as the calculator: two channels, mid-market hiring, typical rates. Our column is exact published pricing; the others are market bands.
| Monthly ad spend | Cheapest sensible path | Market agency / yr | Clicks & Clients / yr | Freelancer / yr | In-house / yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,500 | Freelancer or entry agency tier | $11k–$30k | $22k (Starter Lite) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
| $3,000 | Agency | $11k–$30k | $30k (Starter) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
| $5,000 | Agency | $11k–$30k | $30k (Starter) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
| $10,000 | Agency | $11k–$30k | $54k (Growth) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
| $25,000 | Agency or in-house | $24k–$51k | $90k (Scale) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
| $50,000 | In-house | $48k–$102k | $90k (Scale) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
| $100,000 | In-house | $96k–$204k | $90k (Scale) | $12k–$76k | $90k–$116k |
In-house figures are steady state; add recruiting and ramp (roughly $20,000 on a mid-market salary) for year one. Freelancer bands assume two channels; single-channel accounts run lower.
Salary bands synthesize 2026 published figures from Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor for paid media and PPC manager roles; Glassdoor skews toward major metros and senior titles, so it anchors the high end. Fully loaded cost multiplies salary by 1.3 for benefits and payroll taxes (editable), adds a $3,000 to $8,000 tools stack, one-time recruiting at 18 percent of salary, and a ramp allowance for the reduced output every new hire has in their first quarter.
Freelancer bands come from 2026 marketplace and survey rate guides ($50 to $150 an hour for experienced PPC specialists), converted to monthly cost through realistic hours by channel count. Agency market bands use the published industry structure of 10 to 20 percent of spend with monthly minimums. Where sources disagreed, the conservative figure won.
One disclosure, stated once: the Clicks & Clients figures on this page are our actual prices, identical to the services page, shown because a cost comparison that hides its author’s own number is not much of a comparison. They are a labeled data point on the chart, never the market band. Rates refresh annually; these were set in July 2026.
Two companion tools answer the neighboring questions: the ad spend projection calculator for whether your budget is right in the first place, and the lead cost calculator for what that budget should produce. Scope by tier lives on the services page.