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Plain-English thoughts on branding, websites and marketing. The same advice we give our clients, written down. No jargon and no fluff.
The honest answer is neither. Most small businesses don't need a full agency and can't afford to do it all themselves. You need something in between that doesn't exist yet.
If you're a solo founder or a business under five people, doing your own marketing makes sense for the first year. You know your customers better than anyone. You can write about your work without a briefing document. You can post on LinkedIn without approvals.
The ceiling is your time and your skill. If you're good at writing and you can commit four hours a week, you'll get further than most agencies would in the same budget. If you hate writing and design makes you anxious, you'll produce nothing and feel guilty about it.
DIY works if you have taste, discipline, and a system. A content calendar. A simple design template. A clear idea of what you're trying to say and who you're saying it to. Without those, you're posting random thoughts into the void and calling it marketing.
Hire an agency if you're spending five figures a month on ads and need someone to manage the budget, test creative, and optimise for ROI. Hire one if you're launching a rebrand across 12 markets and need a team to manage compliance, rollout, and internal comms.
Don't hire one if you just need a blog post every week and someone to schedule your social. You'll pay £3,000 a month for a junior account manager to forward you Canva templates and a strategy deck you'll never read.
Agencies are built for scale and complexity. If you don't have either, you're paying for process you don't need. The account director, the planning team, the creative review meeting. It's all overhead. You're funding their structure, not your growth.
Most businesses don't need an agency's scale and can't sustain DIY long-term. They need someone to handle brand, website, and ongoing content without the overhead of a retainer or the chaos of doing it themselves.
That's a two-person studio that does strategy, design, build, and monthly content for one flat price. No account managers, no creative directors who never touch the work, no surprise invoices when you need an extra blog.
We charge £699 a month for 12 social posts, two blogs, ongoing SEO, design tweaks, and hosting. The same output from an agency costs £3,500 a month, and from a full-time hire costs £4,200 a month plus tax and software.
The model works because we're small on purpose. Two people, a tight process, and no pretence that we're a 40-person team. You work with the same two people every month. No handoffs, no briefings, no account manager translating your feedback into a ticket.
You start with good intentions. You'll post twice a week, write a blog every month, keep the website updated. Then a client project overruns. A proposal is due. Someone's off sick. Marketing slips.
Three months later your Instagram hasn't been touched, your blog is six posts behind, and your website still says 'coming soon' on the Services page you meant to finish in January.
It's not a discipline problem. It's a capacity problem. You have 40 hours a week and 50 hours of work. Marketing is always the thing that gets bumped because it doesn't feel urgent until you've gone six months without a lead.
Doing it yourself works if marketing is your only job. If you're also running the business, serving clients, doing the books, and managing staff, it doesn't.
You'll have a kick-off meeting. They'll ask about your goals, your audience, your competitors, your tone of voice. You'll get a strategy deck in week three. It'll say things you already know in language you didn't ask for.
They'll propose a content calendar. Twelve posts a month, two blogs, email newsletters, maybe some LinkedIn ads if the budget stretches. You'll approve it. Then you'll wait.
The account manager will email every week asking for feedback on the draft blog, the social copy, the image choices. You'll give feedback. It'll take them a week to action it. By the time the content goes live, the moment has passed.
Six months in, you're paying £4,000 a month and you've got a content library you could've made yourself in Canva. The strategy deck is in a drawer. The account manager has changed twice. You cancel, and the agency keeps the source files unless you pay a handover fee.
If you don't show up, someone else will. Your competitors are posting, blogging, running ads, staying visible. If you go quiet for six months, the market assumes you've shut down.
Doing nothing is cheaper than hiring an agency, but it costs you in lost leads, weak positioning, and a website that makes you look smaller than you are. Most businesses can survive without marketing for a while. None of them grow.
The choice isn't between doing it yourself and hiring an agency. It's between doing nothing, doing it badly, or finding a model that works at your scale.
If you can't afford an agency and you don't have time to do it yourself, you need a subscription model. One studio, one price, everything included.
No retainer creep. No hourly invoicing. No separate bills for hosting, updates, content, and design. You pay the same amount every month and you get the same output every month.
We build your brand and website in the first two weeks, then deliver 12 social posts and two blogs every month after that. Hosting, SEO, design tweaks, and content updates are all in the price. You're not managing three vendors or chasing a freelancer who's gone quiet.
If the output isn't enough, you cancel. If it's working, you keep it running. No long contracts, no lock-in, no surprise invoices.
That's the model most small businesses actually need. One vendor, flat price, no theatre.
Between £2,000 and £6,000 a month for a small business retainer covering strategy, content, social media, and reporting. Specialist services like paid ads, SEO, or PR cost extra. Expect a three or six-month minimum term and a setup fee.
Yes, if you have the time, the skill, and a system. Most founders can handle social media and basic content if they commit four to six hours a week. The challenge is consistency, marketing always gets bumped when client work is busy.
A small studio that bundles brand, website, and monthly content into one flat subscription. No retainer creep, no account managers, no separate invoices for every change. You work with the same people every month and the output is predictable.
When you're spending serious money on ads and need optimisation, or when you're scaling fast and need a team to manage multiple channels. If you just need regular content and someone to update your website, an agency is overkill.
You're paying for the team structure: account managers, strategists, creatives, project managers. Agencies are built for big clients with complex needs. If you're a small business, most of that overhead doesn't benefit you, you're just funding it.
Strategy, monthly content (blogs, social posts, emails), reporting, and account management. What's usually extra: design work, paid ads management, website updates, photography, and anything outside the agreed scope. Always ask what's included before signing.
Send us a message or book a call. You’ll get a straight answer and a price, not a pitch.
The honest answer is neither. Most small businesses don't need a full agency and can't afford to do it all themselves. You need something in between that doesn't exist yet.
If you're a solo founder or a business under five people, doing your own marketing makes sense for the first year. You know your customers better than anyone. You can write about your work without a briefing document. You can post on LinkedIn without approvals.
The ceiling is your time and your skill. If you're good at writing and you can commit four hours a week, you'll get further than most agencies would in the same budget. If you hate writing and design makes you anxious, you'll produce nothing and feel guilty about it.
DIY works if you have taste, discipline, and a system. A content calendar. A simple design template. A clear idea of what you're trying to say and who you're saying it to. Without those, you're posting random thoughts into the void and calling it marketing.
Hire an agency if you're spending five figures a month on ads and need someone to manage the budget, test creative, and optimise for ROI. Hire one if you're launching a rebrand across 12 markets and need a team to manage compliance, rollout, and internal comms.
Don't hire one if you just need a blog post every week and someone to schedule your social. You'll pay £3,000 a month for a junior account manager to forward you Canva templates and a strategy deck you'll never read.
Agencies are built for scale and complexity. If you don't have either, you're paying for process you don't need. The account director, the planning team, the creative review meeting. It's all overhead. You're funding their structure, not your growth.
Most businesses don't need an agency's scale and can't sustain DIY long-term. They need someone to handle brand, website, and ongoing content without the overhead of a retainer or the chaos of doing it themselves.
That's a two-person studio that does strategy, design, build, and monthly content for one flat price. No account managers, no creative directors who never touch the work, no surprise invoices when you need an extra blog.
We charge £699 a month for 12 social posts, two blogs, ongoing SEO, design tweaks, and hosting. The same output from an agency costs £3,500 a month, and from a full-time hire costs £4,200 a month plus tax and software.
The model works because we're small on purpose. Two people, a tight process, and no pretence that we're a 40-person team. You work with the same two people every month. No handoffs, no briefings, no account manager translating your feedback into a ticket.
You start with good intentions. You'll post twice a week, write a blog every month, keep the website updated. Then a client project overruns. A proposal is due. Someone's off sick. Marketing slips.
Three months later your Instagram hasn't been touched, your blog is six posts behind, and your website still says 'coming soon' on the Services page you meant to finish in January.
It's not a discipline problem. It's a capacity problem. You have 40 hours a week and 50 hours of work. Marketing is always the thing that gets bumped because it doesn't feel urgent until you've gone six months without a lead.
Doing it yourself works if marketing is your only job. If you're also running the business, serving clients, doing the books, and managing staff, it doesn't.
You'll have a kick-off meeting. They'll ask about your goals, your audience, your competitors, your tone of voice. You'll get a strategy deck in week three. It'll say things you already know in language you didn't ask for.
They'll propose a content calendar. Twelve posts a month, two blogs, email newsletters, maybe some LinkedIn ads if the budget stretches. You'll approve it. Then you'll wait.
The account manager will email every week asking for feedback on the draft blog, the social copy, the image choices. You'll give feedback. It'll take them a week to action it. By the time the content goes live, the moment has passed.
Six months in, you're paying £4,000 a month and you've got a content library you could've made yourself in Canva. The strategy deck is in a drawer. The account manager has changed twice. You cancel, and the agency keeps the source files unless you pay a handover fee.
If you don't show up, someone else will. Your competitors are posting, blogging, running ads, staying visible. If you go quiet for six months, the market assumes you've shut down.
Doing nothing is cheaper than hiring an agency, but it costs you in lost leads, weak positioning, and a website that makes you look smaller than you are. Most businesses can survive without marketing for a while. None of them grow.
The choice isn't between doing it yourself and hiring an agency. It's between doing nothing, doing it badly, or finding a model that works at your scale.
If you can't afford an agency and you don't have time to do it yourself, you need a subscription model. One studio, one price, everything included.
No retainer creep. No hourly invoicing. No separate bills for hosting, updates, content, and design. You pay the same amount every month and you get the same output every month.
We build your brand and website in the first two weeks, then deliver 12 social posts and two blogs every month after that. Hosting, SEO, design tweaks, and content updates are all in the price. You're not managing three vendors or chasing a freelancer who's gone quiet.
If the output isn't enough, you cancel. If it's working, you keep it running. No long contracts, no lock-in, no surprise invoices.
That's the model most small businesses actually need. One vendor, flat price, no theatre.
Between £2,000 and £6,000 a month for a small business retainer covering strategy, content, social media, and reporting. Specialist services like paid ads, SEO, or PR cost extra. Expect a three or six-month minimum term and a setup fee.
Yes, if you have the time, the skill, and a system. Most founders can handle social media and basic content if they commit four to six hours a week. The challenge is consistency, marketing always gets bumped when client work is busy.
A small studio that bundles brand, website, and monthly content into one flat subscription. No retainer creep, no account managers, no separate invoices for every change. You work with the same people every month and the output is predictable.
When you're spending serious money on ads and need optimisation, or when you're scaling fast and need a team to manage multiple channels. If you just need regular content and someone to update your website, an agency is overkill.
You're paying for the team structure: account managers, strategists, creatives, project managers. Agencies are built for big clients with complex needs. If you're a small business, most of that overhead doesn't benefit you, you're just funding it.
Strategy, monthly content (blogs, social posts, emails), reporting, and account management. What's usually extra: design work, paid ads management, website updates, photography, and anything outside the agreed scope. Always ask what's included before signing.
