You have a piece of work that needs doing and no obvious person to do it. The options are a freelancer, an agency or consultancy, or somebody internal having a go.
All three are right sometimes. What decides it is not the size of the budget, it is what happens after the work is finished.
Doing it internally
Somebody in the business is good with computers and willing. The cost looks like nothing, which is the first problem, because their time is not free and it is coming out of the job you actually hired them for.
It works when the thing is genuinely small, the consequences of it being imperfect are low, and the person will still be around to look after it.
It goes wrong in a specific and very common way. The thing gets built, it works, and it becomes essential. Now one person understands a system the business depends on, in addition to their real job, with no documentation. When they leave, and eventually they do, you are in a considerably worse position than if you had never built it.
The question to ask before starting is not whether they can do it. It is what happens if they are unavailable for a month.
A freelancer
Usually the best value per hour, and often the best work, because you are paying for one person’s skill with very little overhead attached.
It works when the job is well defined, has an end, and you can describe what finished looks like.
The risk is availability. A good freelancer gets busy. When your site breaks in eight months they may be mid-project for someone else, or travelling, or no longer freelancing. That is not unprofessional, it is the nature of one person.
This is manageable if you plan for it. Insist on documentation, make sure accounts and domains are in your name, and be clear that you may need someone else to pick this up. A freelancer worth hiring will agree without hesitation. One who resists is telling you something important.
An agency or consultancy
Costs more per hour. What the extra buys is continuity and breadth: someone answers when one person is away, and a job needing three different skills does not require you to find three different people.
It works when the thing matters commercially, needs to keep running, or spans more than one discipline.
The risk is being small. A small client at a large agency gets junior attention and slow responses, because the people you met in the meeting are working on the accounts that pay the rent. Ask directly who will do the work, not who will manage it.
The question that decides it
Not cost. Does this need to keep working, and who is responsible when it does not?
A one-off with a clear end suits a freelancer. Something the business depends on daily needs someone contactable in a year. Something small and low-stakes is fine internally, provided you are honest that it is small.
Most regret in this decision comes from treating an ongoing commitment as a one-off purchase.
What to establish before anyone starts
Regardless of which you choose, five things, agreed in writing.
- Everything is in your name. Domain, hosting, accounts, repositories. The single most common way businesses get stuck is discovering the domain is registered to someone they have fallen out with.
- You get the source and the credentials. Not on request. As part of delivery.
- What happens after launch, priced. Silence here is where the relationship sours.
- Who writes the content. The most common cause of a project stalling for months.
- Enough documentation for a stranger. Not a manual. A page describing what exists and where, which is the difference between an asset and a mystery. It is also what makes a failure discoverable rather than silent.
Anyone reluctant about the first two is a no, at any price.
On cheap quotes
A quote substantially below the others is not usually someone being generous. It is usually a smaller scope, and the gap appears later as things that were not included.
That is not automatically wrong. A smaller scope may be exactly right. But compare what is being delivered rather than the totals, and be sure the cheap quote is not simply the one that left out the things you will need. The bands are wide for real reasons.
The honest summary
Small and self-contained: internally, if the person will still be here. Defined with an end: a freelancer, with ownership and documentation agreed up front. Commercially important and ongoing: someone with continuity, and ask who is actually doing the work.
The decision that ages worst is the cheapest one for something that turned out to matter.
If you have quotes and cannot tell whether they describe the same job, describe what you are trying to achieve and you will get a straight read, including if the answer is that you do not need to outsource this at all.
Common questions
Freelancer, agency, or do it internally?
It is decided by what happens after the work is finished, not by budget. Something the business depends on daily needs someone contactable in a year; a one-off with a clear end suits a freelancer.
What must we agree before anyone starts?
Everything registered in your name, source and credentials handed over as part of delivery, what happens after launch and what it costs, who writes the content, and enough documentation for a stranger.
Is the cheapest quote a false economy?
Not necessarily, but it is usually a smaller scope rather than a better deal. Compare what is being delivered rather than the totals, and check the cheap quote has not left out what you will need.