The freelancer option is real and sometimes the right one. Below are the dimensions worth weighing. Bias declared — we're an agency. We've also worked alongside freelancers on multiple accounts where it was the cleanest setup. The right answer depends on your stage, channel mix, and risk tolerance.
€40–120/hour for a competent freelancer. Effective spend: €1.5–4K/month for part-time engagement.
€3–6K/month retainer, all-in. Higher headline number, lower per-hour effective rate at scale.
No coverage. Freelancer flu = your campaigns drift for two weeks. Holidays mean planning ahead — sometimes impossible.
Documented handover within team. No single point of failure. Coverage by construction.
Most freelancers are specialists: Google Ads OR Meta OR analytics. Multi-channel needs = multiple freelancers, coordination problem on your side.
Multidisciplinary by construction. Google + Meta + Yandex + GA4 + server-side as one system, one owner.
Most freelancers focus on the campaign layer. Server-side tracking, EOC pipelines, CRM integrations are usually beyond scope.
Attribution is part of the practice. Server-side, MP, CAPI dedup, EOC pipelines — same provider as the media buying.
Highly variable. Some freelancers document well; many work head-down with results-only communication.
Documented decision log per change is part of our practice. Auditable, transferable, defensible.
Whatever the freelancer happens to have. Often paid by you as line items (Looker Pro, BigQuery, call tracking).
Bundled. Shared across accounts, paid for once.
You hire the person. If you click with them, you work with them directly forever.
You contract with the company. The senior owner is identified and stable, but the company contract sits between you.
Direct DM, fast turnaround on small changes. No internal coordination overhead.
Senior-owned but with company process. Small changes can take 24–48h vs direct freelancer hours.
Often payment via PayPal / Wise to a personal account. Limited liability. Tax / VAT treatment varies.
Company contract with NDA, GDPR DPA, professional liability. Procurement-team approved.
Each new channel = new freelancer search, new contract, new onboarding, new coordination overhead.
Add channels within existing relationship. Same senior owner, same documented process.
Some are. The honest distinction: do they have a documented process, multiple-account exposure to failure modes, and infrastructure (tooling, SS containers, decision logs) you can verify? Or are they three freelancers under a brand name? Worth asking directly.
For specific bounded tasks, yes (one-off audits, single campaign setup, creative production). For ongoing performance management, the variance is too high — and you take all the screening risk yourself. We'd recommend platform freelancers for tactical work, not strategic ownership.
Often excellent on platform mechanics, sometimes weaker on business attribution and CRM integration (the parts the platform didn't expose them to). Worth asking how they handle backend reconciliation in their current work.
Yes — we offer a free audit precisely so you can test the working relationship at zero financial risk. Some clients then engage for a discrete project before moving to retainer. We don't force the model.
Common. We've worked alongside in-house freelancers on Yandex Direct, server-side tracking, EOC pipelines — areas where the existing freelancer wasn't strong. Clean separation of scope is the requirement.
Tell us your stage and channel mix. We'll give an honest read — including 'hire a freelancer, here's the brief' if that's the right call.
No long contracts · Free audit before any work