Every growing business in Malta hits the same fork. Marketing is working well enough to matter, so the question becomes whether to hire someone to own it or bring in an agency to run it. The Growth Bully, a Malta performance marketing agency, gets asked to make this case constantly, and the honest version is more useful than the sales version: the right answer depends on how much marketing work you have, not which option looks cheaper on paper.
The mistake almost everyone makes is comparing a retainer to a salary. The real comparison is a retainer against the total cost of employment, and one capable person against the range of skills the job actually needs.
Is it cheaper to hire a marketing agency or an employee?
For most businesses below a certain scale, an agency retainer works out cheaper than one senior in-house hire once you count everything. A salary buys one skill set. A retainer buys a bench, paid media, creative, tracking and strategy, for less than the loaded cost of that hire.
In-house only wins on cost when there is enough work to keep several specialists busy full time. Below that threshold you pay a full salary for partial coverage.
What does a marketing manager actually cost in Malta?
Public Malta salary data puts a mid to senior marketing manager at roughly 45,000 to 57,000 EUR gross a year, with senior hires reaching into the mid sixties (directional, per published Malta salary surveys). The headline number is only the start. The true cost of employment also carries:
- Employer contributions on top of gross pay, plus bonus and paid leave.
- Tools and subscriptions the role needs, from ad platforms to design and reporting software.
- Recruitment and ramp, the months of reduced output while a new hire learns your market and builds campaigns from zero.
- Management time, because one generalist still needs direction, review and cover when they are on leave or move on.
Add those and one hire costs well beyond the salary line.
What do you actually get for an agency retainer?
A retainer buys a team and a system, not a headcount. Instead of one generalist, you get specialists who each do one thing well, plus an operating method already proven on other accounts. That is why results tend to arrive in weeks rather than after a hiring cycle and a ramp. Across our client accounts that looks like:
- Paid media run as a discipline, with creative tested and replaced weekly and budget shifted to what the data says. In practice that is a Meta ads specialist and a Google Ads specialist, not one person alternating between them.
- Tracking built properly once, so every euro of spend reports back as leads and revenue rather than reach.
- Senior strategy on every account, with live campaign numbers published on our results page instead of promised in a pitch.
No single hire delivers that spread. Our Decision Maker Pipeline and lead generation work runs on that bench model, and which channels belong in the mix is set out on digital marketing in Malta.
How do you compare the two on numbers rather than opinion?
Put both options against the same three figures: the total annual cost of each, the media budget each one leaves you able to spend, and what a lead currently costs you. A hire that consumes the budget it was meant to deploy has already lost the comparison, regardless of how capable the person is.
That last figure is the one most businesses cannot answer, which is why the comparison usually collapses into preference. Our what it costs page sets out how we structure the commercial side, and the Malta ads benchmark report gives you local cost per lead and return figures from live accounts, so you have a real number to test both options against instead of an international average.
When does hiring in-house make sense?
In-house wins when marketing is a core, full-time function with enough steady work to keep several people busy, when deep product knowledge matters more than channel expertise, or when you are large enough to hire a real team rather than a lone generalist.
At that point the loaded cost of a team is justified by volume, and the day to day speed of an in-house unit pays for itself. The common failure is hiring one person and expecting an agency's range from them. That hire ends up stretched across strategy, execution and reporting, and the marketing stalls. If you are going in-house, hire for a team, not a hero.
Can you run an in-house marketer and an agency together?
Yes, and for mid-sized businesses it is often the strongest setup. The in-house person owns brand, content, product knowledge and internal coordination. The agency owns the channels that need daily specialist attention. The failure mode is leaving the split undefined, so both sides quietly assume the other is handling performance.
If you run both, write the division down before anyone starts:
- Who owns the number. One party is accountable for cost per lead and pipeline, not both.
- Who owns the accounts. Ad accounts, analytics and CRM stay in your name, whoever operates them.
- Who briefs whom. Usually the in-house marketer, because they sit closest to the product and the sales team.
- What the reporting rhythm is. One shared view of the same numbers on a fixed day, so nobody marks their own homework.
Our Pipeline Scorecard exists partly for this, because it gives an in-house marketer and an agency the same scoreboard to argue from.
What about a freelancer, consultant or boutique agency?
These three sit between the two options, and the right pick comes down to accountability rather than price. A freelancer executes a task you define and manage. A consultant tells you what to do and leaves you to do it. An agency owns the strategy, the execution and the result. Decide how much of that you want to carry yourself:
- Freelancer: cheapest per hour and good for a defined task, but you are still the manager, and cover disappears the moment they are busy or unavailable. The full version of that comparison, including the costs that never reach the invoice, is in hiring a freelance marketer against an agency retainer.
- Consultant: strong for strategy and direction, but usually hands you a plan rather than executing it, so you still need someone to build and run the work.
- Boutique versus full-service agency: a smaller, founder-led agency gives you senior attention and direct accountability, where a large full-service shop can bury your account under junior staff. For most Maltese businesses, senior accountability beats a big logo.
Brief them all the same way and judge the answers. Our guide on how to brief a marketing agency and the piece on retainers versus projects help you compare like for like.
What is the honest bottom line on in-house versus agency?
Compare total cost to total cost, not retainer to salary. For most businesses in Malta that are growing but not yet running a full marketing department, a retainer delivers more skill, faster, for less than one loaded senior hire. Once marketing is big enough to keep a real team busy, in-house earns its place.
If cost is the blocker rather than the principle, Malta grant schemes can offset marketing investment, covered in our Malta marketing grants guide. And whichever side you land on, judge it against the same standard: what a qualified lead costs you now, and whether that number is moving.
Not sure which side of the line you are on? The fastest way to find out is to see what your current marketing is missing. Take the Pipeline Scorecard and get a clear read on your growth gaps.