Should we hire a growth agency, freelancers or one team for marketing and automation?
One agency runs ads. A freelancer writes emails. Nobody connects billing, lifecycle and analytics.
- Who should we hire?
- Are freelancers enough?
- Who sets up billing and analytics?
Freelancers suit single tasks such as ad creative or email copy. A growth agency suits scaling paid channels. One team suits connected work: ads, lifecycle messages, subscription billing and analytics in one plan, so you see cost per paying user end to end. Insist on reporting in paid users and retention, and on owning every account.
Trade-offs
| Freelancers | Growth agency | One team | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ads | Some | Yes | Yes |
| Lifecycle and billing | Some | Rarely | Yes |
| Analytics joined | No | Sometimes | Yes |
| Best when | One gap | Scaling ads | Connected work |
How we look at it at ShoutEx
ShoutEx is a team of marketing, automation and development specialists. We connect ads, lifecycle, billing and analytics for consumer software companies.
- Disconnected vendors.
- Installs as the report.
- Long lock-ins.
- Provider-owned accounts.
- One plan.
- Paid users reported.
- Short terms.
- Your ownership.
What founders and platforms say
Here is what founders say.
Community summaries describe recurring themes in public threads, not individual posts. Vendor pages describe vendor claims, so test them on your own calls.
Read next
Go deeper in the ShoutEx guides, or check the sources behind this answer.
We'll show how they fit together.
Book a call →Follow-up questions
Can we start small?
Yes, often billing recovery or lifecycle.
Who owns the ad accounts?
You should.
Do you work with app-only products?
Yes, and web and app together.