When should a £100k/month D2C brand hire an agency vs a freelancer?
By Andy Lochtie
We say no to about 60% of the brands that ask to work with us. Sometimes because they’re not the right fit. More often because they don’t actually need an agency yet — they need a freelancer or a senior contractor.
Here’s the honest version of when each makes sense.
The £50k threshold
Below £50k/month in revenue, the maths on an agency retainer is usually wrong. At £1,750/month minimum, you’re spending 3.5% of gross revenue on one provider. That’s before you’ve paid for ad spend, tools, or anyone else.
Below that threshold, the better move is almost always a specialist freelancer on a project basis. Better value, more flexibility, lower risk.
The channel-specialist test
If you have one channel that’s broken or underperforming — specifically paid media, or specifically email — and the rest of your acquisition is working, you probably need a specialist, not an agency.
A Klaviyo specialist freelancer will rebuild your flows for less than a full agency retainer costs in one month. If lifecycle is your only problem, hire a lifecycle specialist.
Agencies earn their fee when the problem is integrated — when the breakdown isn’t in one channel but in how the channels relate to each other.
The senior-decisions test
The right time to hire an agency is when the decisions you’re making are above the capability of who you can afford to hire internally.
Signs you’re at this point:
- You’re a founder doing all strategic marketing decisions yourself, and you’re at capacity
- You’ve hired a junior or mid-level marketer but they don’t have the experience to lead paid strategy or lifecycle architecture
- You’ve had an agency before and they were slower and less strategic than you needed
An agency that works the way we do — senior-led, founders on every account — should function as the strategic counterpart you can’t yet afford to hire full-time.
When you should hire in-house instead
If you’re above £300k/month and have budget for a senior Head of Growth or Head of Marketing, hire in-house. In-house is usually better at that scale because:
- Your brand is deep and complex enough to need someone immersed in it full-time
- You can afford someone senior enough to actually lead strategy
- The business benefits from a single person owning the whole picture
An agency as a complement to in-house leadership makes sense. An agency instead of in-house leadership at that scale is usually a compromise.
The short answer
| Situation | Right call |
|---|---|
| Under £50k/month, one channel broken | Freelance specialist |
| £50k–£300k/month, integrated problem | Senior agency |
| One channel working, others not | Specialist freelancer per channel |
| Above £300k/month | In-house senior hire + agency support |
| Pre-product-market-fit | Neither. Fix the product first. |
If you’re in the £75k–£300k/month range and wondering if Lumos is the right fit, the fit conversation is short — we’ll tell you in the first ten minutes whether it makes sense.