Agency, freelancer, full-time CMO, consultant, junior hire — or fractional CMO.
The same surface symptom (flat pipeline, noisy metrics, founder bottleneck) can point to six different organisational fixes. This table is the honest map of trade-offs — then the vs. agency and vs. full-time CMO pages go deeper on the two closest options.
Where each option works — and where it breaks.
Typical cost bands are indicative — the structural difference is who owns judgement versus execution.
Choose an agency when…
Strategy is already clear and you need execution capacity in a specific channel.
Choose fractional when…
Senior judgement is the bottleneck — nobody owns GTM priorities and reporting week to week.
Choose full-time when…
Post-£10m ARR, growth proven, and the org scale justifies a permanent executive.
| Option | Typical cost | Who owns it | Where it breaks / where it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | £6–20k/month + long retainer | Account manager, junior team | Channel execution, not senior GTM judgement. Strategy lives in the founder's head. |
| Freelancer | £2–6k/month, one channel | Freelancer owns execution | Narrow by design. No ownership of the full system, no senior calls. |
| Junior marketer hire | £50–80k + on-costs | Needs your direction | You become the CMO. The bottleneck you wanted to fix now reports to you. |
| Full-time Head of Growth | £120–180k + equity | Full ownership | Often too early. A 6-month hire cycle and a 12-month ramp before impact. |
| Generic consultant | £500–2,000/day | Advice only | Ships a deck, disappears. No operating ownership, no accountability for revenue. |
| Fractional CMO (Daniel's model) | £7.5–12k/month, 3-month minimum | Senior operator in the seat | Owns GTM priorities, reporting, and the team's weekly rhythm. Builds the system, then hands it off clean. |
Prefer the full commercial offer, pricing, and booking flow? Continue on the fractional CMO page — this comparison is excerpted from the same decision framework.
Next step
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