We are an agency, so treat this accordingly. But the version of this comparison that only comes down to monthly cost helps nobody, and we would rather not win work we are the wrong shape for.
A freelancer is depth in one thing
If you know precisely what you need — a website, a paid account managed, a content run — a good freelancer is usually the best value available, and often better at that one thing than a generalist agency.
The cost is coverage and continuity. When they are unavailable, that function stops, and the strategy lives in their head rather than anywhere you can read it.
A hire is continuity, bought in advance
An in-house hire is the right answer sooner than most agencies will tell you — particularly once there is enough work to keep someone busy and enough internal knowledge to make them effective.
The risks are concentration and ramp. One person covers one discipline well and three badly, and you carry the recruitment time, the ramp-up, and the exposure if they leave in month seven.
An agency is coverage across disciplines
The case for a small agency is that growth problems rarely sit in one discipline. RCK needed a website, lead generation, a CRM that reflected reality and someone at their conferences. Bought separately, that is four relationships with four opinions: the site argues one thing, outreach argues another, the CRM records neither, and nobody owns the follow-up.
The real cost there is not the invoices, it is that no single person can tell you what is working. Run as one strategy, those four become answerable.
When we are the wrong answer
If you need one deeply specialised thing and nothing else, hire the specialist. If you already have a marketing lead with a clear plan who needs execution capacity, a freelancer is cheaper and just as good. If your product has not found its market yet, no amount of outbound fixes that, and spending on it will mostly buy you confident-sounding noise.
The case for an outsourced team is strongest when you need several disciplines working together, you need them now, and you are not ready to carry three salaries to get them.