Every owner who gets to the point of taking marketing seriously faces the same fork. Hire someone, or pay someone outside. The salary figure is easy to find. The rest of the cost is not, and that is where most of the comparison gets done badly, in both directions.
This page sets the numbers out side by side. They are typical UK ranges, rounded, and labelled as estimates: your own numbers will differ, and the point is the shape of the comparison rather than the pennies.
What a marketing hire actually costs
Start with a marketing executive on £28,000 to £34,000, the kind of hire most firms of ten to thirty people make first. Employer National Insurance now runs at 15 percent of everything above £5,000, which adds £3,450 to £4,350 before the person has done a day's work. Auto-enrolment pension adds another £650 to £850 at the minimum employer rate.
Then the tools. A CRM seat, an email platform, a design subscription, a scheduling tool, a data source: £150 to £400 a month is normal, and it climbs. Recruitment is the cost people forget most reliably: an agency fee of 15 to 20 percent of salary, or several weeks of your own time on a job board and interviews.
A marketing manager on £42,000 to £55,000 carries the same lines at larger numbers. Year one comes out between £58,500 and £82,000 in cash cost, which is a long way from the salary figure that started the conversation.
Two things sit outside the cash. A full-time employee is available for about 225 working days a year once holiday, bank holidays and a normal amount of sickness are counted. And a hire needs managing, which for an owner who is not a marketer means either time spent learning what to ask for or a person left to set their own direction.
The comparison table
Outsourced costs below are AA2's published Engine and Flagship tiers, because those are the two most owners compare a hire against. All figures exclude VAT; for a VAT-registered business the fees are recoverable and the salary costs are not.
| Cost line | Marketing executive | Marketing manager | AA2 Engine | AA2 Flagship |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salary or fee, per year | £28,000 to £34,000 | £42,000 to £55,000 | £8,340 | £17,940 |
| Employer National Insurance | £3,450 to £4,350 | £5,550 to £7,500 | None | None |
| Employer pension | £650 to £850 | £1,100 to £1,350 | None | None |
| Tools and software | £1,800 to £4,800 | £3,600 to £7,200 | Included | Included |
| Recruitment, or one-off setup | £4,200 to £6,800 | £6,300 to £11,000 | £495 | £995 |
| Year-one total | £38,000 to £51,000 | £58,500 to £82,000 | £8,835 | £18,935 |
| Working days available | About 225 | About 225 | Every working day | Every working day |
Estimates, August 2026. Employer NI at 15 percent above the £5,000 threshold; employer pension at 3 percent of qualifying earnings; recruitment at 15 to 20 percent of salary; tools at £150 to £600 a month depending on role. AA2 tiers as published on the pricing page, plus VAT. Director-level telemarketing is an add-on to either tier from £300 a day.
What the outsourced fee buys, and what it does not
A monthly tier buys a working system rather than a person: prospect data built and verified, campaigns written and sent for your sign-off, follow-up that runs on its own, a live dashboard, and a senior operator deciding what happens next. The routine work runs on AI and automation, which is the honest reason the fee is a fraction of a salary.
It does not buy someone at the desk next to you. Nobody is in the building to notice the sales team is grumbling about lead quality, to grab the MD for five minutes, or to turn a product change into a campaign the same afternoon. That proximity is real, and for some firms it is the whole point.
When in-house wins
An agency that tells you outsourcing always wins is selling, not advising. Hire when one of these is true.
- Marketing is the product. A software business, a consumer brand, a firm that lives on content volume: the daily work genuinely fills a role and the person needs to be inside the product.
- You already have a team. Two or three marketers need a manager, not a partner, and the manager needs to be an employee.
- The role is wider than marketing. Plenty of SME hires run sales operations, the CRM, events and a bit of marketing. That is a job, and it is an in-house one.
- You want to build the capability. If the plan is to own the function in three years, start hiring now and use outside help to train and cover the gaps.
When outsourced wins
Outsource when the work is the same as it would be for any firm your size and the judgement is what you are short of. Data building, outbound, content in your voice, a website that qualifies visitors, dashboards, calling: these do not need someone in the building, they need someone who has done them many times before.
It also wins on risk. A wrong hire costs a year and most of the money in the table above. A wrong tier costs three months, because that is the length of the trial, and you keep the data and the dashboard either way.
The shape most firms end up with
For firms of twenty to fifty people the answer is often both: an executive in the building who knows the business and handles the daily running, and an outsourced senior partner for the strategy, the data work, the campaigns and the phone. It costs less than a manager, and it gives you proximity and depth at the same time.
If you want the numbers run against your own situation rather than a table, book a call. You will get a straight read, including the case for hiring if that is what the numbers say.
Common questions
- How much does a marketing manager cost a UK small business?
- Once employer National Insurance, pension, tools and recruitment are added to a salary of £42,000 to £55,000, the realistic year-one cost of a marketing manager sits between roughly £58,500 and £82,000. That is before management time, holiday cover and the cost of a wrong hire. A marketing executive comes in nearer £38,000 to £51,000 on the same basis.
- Is outsourced marketing cheaper than hiring?
- Usually, and often by a wide margin, but that is the wrong question on its own. Outsourcing buys senior judgement and a working system for less than a junior salary. Hiring buys someone who is in the building every day and knows the product inside out. The right answer depends on what the marketing actually has to do, which is what the rest of this page is about.
- When is in-house the better choice?
- When marketing is the product, when the volume of daily work genuinely fills a full-time role, when you already have a marketing team and need someone to run it, or when the person will also carry sales operations. In those cases the fixed cost is justified, and a good agency will tell you so.
- Can we do both?
- Yes, and it is a common shape for firms of twenty to fifty people: an in-house executive who knows the business and handles the daily running, with an outsourced senior partner providing the strategy, the data work, the campaigns and the calling. It costs less than a manager and gives you both proximity and depth.
