Finally you have decided to establish your business. Congratulations!

Being an entrepreneur, starting your own business, seems quite exciting. But, in initial years, your ultimate goal would be keeping your operational expenses minimal and earning more profits. At that point, you need to decide between hiring a freelancer or a creative agency for your marketing, app development, web design, etc. work. Are they both the same? Many think yes they are quite similar. But this is not a reality. You need to hire depending upon your situation. There are times where either of the options may be the better choice. The purpose of this article is to help you out to determine which is the best fit for your project. Who should you hire? Let’s first understand, what is a freelancer, and what is an agency?

Freelancer:

A freelancer is a person who is earning money by being hired to work on different jobs for short periods of time rather than by having a permanent job with one employer. Freelancers can work on a full-time or part-time basis. Some freelancers may have day jobs and pick up work on the side. They usually specialize in one area, such as web design, web development, etc.

Agency:

A business or organization providing a particular service on behalf of another business, person, or group. Most agencies consist of individuals who may specialize in a field (content creation, web design and development, social marketing, etc) following established processes and industry standards.

Here are some key differences between the two aforementioned areas, so it will be easy for you to make a decision.

1. Price:

   Individual freelancers set their own rates, which are often reasonable. So going with them can end up costing less in the short-term projects but can cost you more in the long run. For example, you are having a big project with multiple aspects. Now you need to hire separate freelancers for multiple aspects. This can be a very complicated process and also time-consuming. Also, it can cost you more in the long run due to delays or revision costs. So, there is nothing bad if you choose to go with freelancers in small projects, but when it comes to more important projects, going with an Agency is always a better decision as you only pay for the quote, not to multiple service providers.

2. Quality:

   Quality should be the most important key area in the decision. There is a saying “you get what you pay for”. Even if you’re ok with their price, take time, and review the freelancer’s or agency’s portfolio and make sure their style and quality are good enough for your requirements. Freelancers usually don’t have the expertise required to handle all the aspects of the project. Even if they do it takes too long for them as they are the single person or a group of a few, who handle all these. On the other side, an agency has experience and expertise in all aspects of the project. Different parts of your project are assigned to team members that specialize in their respective roles. So the quality of the project can be maintained well by the agency as they also want a long-term relationship with clients.

3. Time:

   One more key area to be kept in mind is time to completion. No matter how good the quality of your project or how low the cost of it, it won’t do any good to you if your project misses a critical deadline. We know an agency has a team to work on your project. A project can be divided into small parts and be given to team members that specialize in their respective roles. Each part of your project is being worked on by a specialist. Thus they can be completed in time without any delays with fewer revisions. In case of freelancers, they are not always full-time and don’t have additional personnel to rely on, sometimes a 45-hour project could take 2-3 weeks.

4. Availability:

   Last but not the least, agencies have fixed working hours where freelancers have flexible schedules. They are location independent and can work anywhere, as long as they have a strong internet connection. This can be a problem for you sometime when he/she is not available if you urgently need them.

On the whole, we can say it is best to hire a freelancer if,

• The project is small or short-term.
• You can directly manage two or more freelancers.
• You can be involved in the creative process.
• Your project doesn’t need multiple specialists.

On the contrary, it’s best to choose Agency when you want to,

• Save time, money and efforts.
• Ensure data security.
• Access to experienced professionals.
• Deliver the project within the agreed timeframe.
• Allow you to focus on core aspects
• Keep you stress-free.
• Quickly responses to all the queries.
• Help you enhance your overall productivity.

Briefly, you need to consider a few questions before choosing the one. Do I need someone for a long-term or short-term basis? Do I need to supervise the work or can I delegate?

So finally back to our original question, who should you hire? A freelancer or an Agency? There is not a definite answer to this question but I hope this article has given you more insight about the same. Before making any decision make sure you look at both sides of the coin or story!