Should you use freelancers or an agency?
By: Maygen Jacques
Tags: Web Development Company, Agencylife, Web Design Company, Freelancers, Agency

Should you use freelancers or an agency?

As a company, your major concern is reaching your objectives. Sometimes you’ll need to reach outside of your business and employ some external resource to keep you on track. Knowing what kind of support would suit your business best is going to be key to helping you reach those goals. Maygen Jacques Follow Mar 3, 2020 · 5 min read

You might need design work to reach accessibility standards, a code review to keep your website up-to-date or someone to look over your systems administration for a time. Knowing the good and the bad that comes with the types of help available to hire will ensure you make the right decision for your project.

Using an external resource is somewhat of an inevitability. Making the right choice could be difficult, but it doesn't need to be. If your business has reached a point where it needs additional skills to grow, that’s great.

When it comes to hiring external resource, remember that cheaper isn’t always going to be better; you have to consider what you’re investing in.

This blog will outline some key considerations to go over when deciding between hiring freelancers versus an agency:

Freelancer or Agency: What’s The Difference?

Before diving into the advantages and disadvantages, it’s important to outline the differences. If you’re unfamiliar with hiring external resource, it’s easy to make the wrong choice.

When hiring freelancers, you’re hiring individuals on a self-employed basis. If you hire an agency, you’re effectively hiring a manager who is responsible for a team of individuals, and they will all be at your disposal.

It depends on your business need as to which will suit your project. If you need a smaller or very specific piece of work done, a freelancer would be best. If the project is multi-disciplinary and you have knowledge gaps, it would be better to hire a team of experts. Always consider the nature of your project.

Knowing the pros and cons of both will guide your decision.

Advantages of hiring freelancers

Finding a good freelancer for your business can be truly beneficial. A good one will bring specific expertise and often a passion you may not see from an agency as a whole.

Freelancers are attractive because, as it’s one person, they are naturally cheaper. They have fewer overheads than an agency. So if you’re considering an agency, know they’ll be more costly.

Freelancers are also flexible. Your business hours may be 9–5 but a freelancer will work with and around you. Unsociable hours are part and parcel of their work, which might work well for your project.

Freelancers are commonly very reactive and can make any changes you need quickly. Agencies often have a chain of communication which adds a layer of complexity and could impact their responsiveness. This might impact your delivery time.

Disadvantages of hiring a freelancer

As with everything in life, nothing is perfect. There are some downsides to think about when considering a freelancer. Whilst they are typically cheaper and more readily available, there are things a freelancer simply can’t offer that an agency easily can.

The most obvious thing to note is that a freelancer is one person. You might find the most hardworking freelancer out there, but they’re only going to physically be able to offer you so much. A team has exponentially more capacity. Even the most well-organised project can have requirements that change priority or new ones popping up. A freelancer may not be able to handle unprecedented work.

In this situation, you’d then be looking to hire another freelancer and that will cost you more. It also adds a layer of complexity to your project, dealing with two (or more) independent freelancers.

With an agency, you’re getting the whole team, managed by one person. Managing multiple freelancers will be your responsibility.

Due to freelancers being one person, if their work is impacted in any way, for example, sickness or personal circumstance, their entire operation will halt. This will impact your project. An agency will be able to cover this.

A freelancer won’t be responsible for time estimations for your project as a whole. They are responsible for their own time (and will charge you for this) but will lack the bigger picture.

If you work with an agency, they will firstly collaborate with you before the project begins, to understand the goals and how they help achieve your business goals. They will allow time for between sprints for client testing and planning, for example. This is something a freelancer isn’t likely to do and you might find yourself underestimating the time for vital tasks.

Businesses must accept the reality of how long tasks take. If you’re being charged 8 hours a day for a freelancer and you expect 100% productivity during those 8 hours you will be 25% out in your estimations. Agencies commit to succeed (legally) and will deliver.

The advantages of hiring an agency

Larger business projects often can’t be handled by one or two people. It’s simply too much work. As said, you could hire multiple freelancers, but this means managing them separately and could ultimately end up being expensive.

An agency will have a team of individuals with the best skills and experience to work on your project. This is particularly useful for projects that require multiple fields of expertise, ie, design and development, or development and hosting.

Agencies have an unparalleled level of expertise. Freelancers have a wealth of knowledge, but it’s narrow. An agency is more likely to have worked on similar projects in the past and can get working faster.

The downside of hiring an agency

Cost is going to be the single most obvious factor. Agencies are more expensive than a freelancer. Freelancers are indeed not cheap, but agencies have more overheads.

If your project needs a whole team of experts, it’s likely that the agency fee will be wisely spent. The value add depends on what you’re trying to achieve and when. An agency is likely to be able to offer this value.

Ultimately, the right choice for a business is “it depends”. We’d love to talk to you about our retainer services, and you can read more about them and contact us on our website.