Option A
An agency retainer
A fixed monthly fee for an agreed output. No recruitment, no equipment, no notice period, and several specialists instead of one generalist trying to be all of them at once.
Wins 4 of 6
Comparison
Agency vs hiring an in-house social media person
Hire in-house once one person can be busy full-time on your content and you have somebody able to manage them. Below that, an agency costs less than a salary and covers more skills. The break-even is not really the money — it is whether you have management time to spare.
What are we actually comparing?
Option B
A full-time employee
Someone in your office who learns your business deeply, is available all day, and can film on the spot. You carry the salary, the training and the risk of them leaving.
Wins 2 of 6
How they compare, point by point
Each row is judged on its own. A win here is not a verdict on the whole thing — read the rows that matter to you and ignore the rest.
| Criterion | An agency retainer | A full-time employee | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| True monthly cost | Transparent. PKR 15,000 to PKR 70,000 plus depending on the package, with no laptop, no software licences, no annual bonus and no notice period sitting behind that number. | Considerably bigger than the salary line. Add an editing-capable machine, software, a desk, electricity through load-shedding, and the two or three months before they are genuinely useful. | An agency retainer |
| Breadth of skill you get | Wide. Editing, design, copywriting, SEO and ads sit with different people who are each properly good at their own part rather than passable at all five. | Narrow. One hire is almost never a strong editor and designer and writer and ads buyer at once, so you will end up outsourcing the gaps anyway. | An agency retainer |
| Availability and responsiveness | Working hours and a WhatsApp thread. Fast in practice, but nobody is standing in your showroom at four o'clock when a customer does something genuinely worth filming. | Right there. For a restaurant, a showroom or an events business, having somebody who can film a moment as it happens is a real and underrated advantage. | A full-time employee |
| Depth of understanding of your business | Good after a month or two, but we are never in the room for the conversations that explain why one product sells and the similar one beside it does not. | Excellent over time. An employee who has spent a year with you writes captions in your voice, prices things correctly and stops asking obvious questions. | A full-time employee |
| Management burden on you | Low. You approve a calendar and send footage. Nobody needs a performance review, leave approval, a raise conversation or somebody senior checking their work each week. | Real. A junior needs direction, feedback and somebody experienced enough to judge whether the work is any good. Most small business owners do not have that hour a day. | An agency retainer |
| What happens if it is not working | Month to month. Tell us at the end of any month and it ends there, with your files, your footage and your account access all still entirely yours. | Slow and uncomfortable. Notice periods, a handover nobody documents properly, and usually a gap of several weeks where absolutely nothing gets posted on any of your platforms. | An agency retainer |
Figures as of August 2026. Source: Islamabad Digital Marketing, from running both approaches for clients.
Scoreline: An agency retainer 4, A full-time employee 2, tied 0. Winner column key: A, B, Tie.
So which one should you pick?
Choose An agency retainer if…
Choose the agency if you are one business needing steady output, you do not have a senior marketer to supervise a junior, or you want to try proper content for three months before committing to a payroll line.
Choose A full-time employee if…
Choose an employee once content is central to how you sell — a busy showroom, a restaurant group, a school with events every week — and you have someone able to direct them daily. At that scale, in-house wins.
The short version
Agency vs hiring an in-house social media person
Hire in-house once one person can be busy full-time on your content and you have somebody able to manage them. Below that, an agency costs less than a salary and covers more skills. The break-even is not really the money — it is whether you have management time to spare.
Who should choose An agency retainer?
Choose the agency if you are one business needing steady output, you do not have a senior marketer to supervise a junior, or you want to try proper content for three months before committing to a payroll line.
Who should choose A full-time employee?
Choose an employee once content is central to how you sell — a busy showroom, a restaurant group, a school with events every week — and you have someone able to direct them daily. At that scale, in-house wins.
Checked and updated
Next step
Want us to just tell you which one fits you?
Describe your situation on WhatsApp and we will give you a straight recommendation — including when the answer is the cheaper option or doing it yourself.
WhatsApp us