LinkedIn agency or your own person? An honest cost comparison

By Indrek Põldvee, founder of B2B Growth

Indrek has taught people how to use LinkedIn for more than six years. In 2019 he founded B2B Growth, which has trained more than 4,000 people on LinkedIn, worked on more than 1,000 profiles and built 50+ LinkedIn strategies. Before that he co-founded Sorry as a Service, which went through Techstars London in 2017, and hosted the Estonian entrepreneurship podcast “Hakkame tegutsema” (100+ interviews, 350,000+ downloads). He has delivered trainings across the Baltics, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Hungary and India. Indrek on LinkedIn

About 10 min read

Should you hire your own person for LinkedIn or use an agency? Compare the full monthly cost, not the salary against the agency fee. An employee costs their salary plus employer taxes, tools, management time and the months it takes to get going. An agency costs its fee plus your leader's time. For one to three leaders and a company page, an agency is usually cheaper and faster to start. When the volume is large and you can afford a team of two or more, your own people start to make sense. In many companies the best answer is both: one internal coordinator and an agency for the craft.

We are an agency, so we have an interest here. That is why this article shows how to calculate the in-house cost yourself, what a fair agency offer should include and when you should not hire us.

Key takeaways

• Salary is not the cost. In Estonia, for example, the employer pays 33% social tax and 0.8% unemployment insurance on top of the gross salary (PwC tax summary). Then come tools, management time, holidays and the learning period.
• The leader's time costs the same either way. Nobody can post in a leader's voice without talking to the leader. Budget about 30 minutes a week for that, whoever runs it.
• Choose by volume and skills, not by habit. One to three leaders: an agency is usually more practical. A large programme with many people and channels: build your own team, possibly with outside help.

Contents

1. The wrong comparison most companies make
2. What your own person really costs
3. What an agency costs
4. The hidden costs on both sides
5. When your own person is the better choice
6. When an agency is the better choice
7. The hybrid model
8. How to decide in one meeting
9. FAQ

The wrong comparison most companies make

The usual conversation goes like this. The agency offer arrives. Someone looks at the monthly fee and says: “For that money we could almost hire a junior marketer.” The offer goes into a drawer.

The problem is that the two numbers are not the same kind of number. The agency fee is a full cost. The salary is not. A salary does not include the employer's taxes, the laptop, the tools, the manager's time, the recruitment, the holidays or the months before the new person knows your business well enough to write about it.

The other half of the mistake goes the other way. Agencies like to compare their fee with a senior salary. But many companies do not need a full-time person for LinkedIn at all. They need a few hours a week of good work, done steadily.

So the fair question is not “agency or salary?”. It is: what will each option cost per month, all in, for the result we actually need?

What your own person really costs

Let us calculate it step by step. We use Estonia as the example because the tax rates are simple and public. Use your own country's numbers.

1. Gross salary. Take the real number from a recent job offer or from your own payroll. For a European comparison: Payscale lists the average base salary of a social media manager in Germany at about 40,000 euros a year in 2026. In Estonia the level is lower. Check the current number in the Statistics Estonia salary application for your exact role.

2. Employer taxes. In Estonia the employer pays 33% social tax and 0.8% unemployment insurance on top of gross salary. So a gross salary of 2,500 euros costs the company about 3,345 euros a month.

3. Tools. A scheduling tool, a design tool, and often Sales Navigator. In our experience this adds about 100–200 euros a month.

4. Management time. Someone has to set goals, review work and answer questions. If the person is new to LinkedIn, someone also has to teach them.

5. The learning period. A new person needs time before they can write in your leader's voice about your industry. In our experience this takes a few months. During that time you pay the full cost and get a partial result.

6. Absence and leaving. Holidays, sick days, parental leave. And if the person leaves after a year, you recruit again and start the learning period again.

The chart is an example with an Estonian gross salary of 2,500 euros. It is not a market average. Put your own numbers in.

What an agency costs

An agency price depends mostly on scope: how many leaders, whether the company page is included, how many markets and languages, and how much content per month. A fair offer has one total monthly price and a clear list of what is included and what is not: strategy, profile work, number of posts, comment replies, reports, and who owns the content.

We do not publish a price list. We look at every company separately and send one total price after a short conversation. If an agency quotes a price before it knows how many leaders and markets you have, ask what exactly is in it.

What these prices do not include: your leader's time. In our executive profile work the core is a 30-minute call with each leader every week. We do it with every long-term client, because it creates accountability and keeps the rhythm. When needed we add a longer interview of up to 45 minutes, for example for a content audit. That is rare.

If you compare agencies, ask every one of them the same questions about price, contract length and who owns the content.

The hidden costs on both sides

Both options have costs that do not show up in the first offer. Here they are, side by side.

Hidden costs of your own person:

• One person, one set of skills. Good LinkedIn work needs writing, strategy, some design and data. One person is rarely strong in all four.
• No outside view. An internal person sees the company from the inside. That is useful for facts and harmful for posts that only insiders understand.
• Other tasks creep in. The newsletter, the trade fair, the website. In our experience LinkedIn is often the first thing that gets dropped when the month is busy.
• Starting again when they leave. Recruitment, the learning period, and sometimes lost logins and plans.

Hidden costs of an agency:

• Your leader's time. The agency cannot write for a leader it never talks to. If the leader skips the calls, the posts become generic.
• Less inside knowledge. An agency needs to be told about the new client, the product launch, the problem in the factory. Someone inside has to share it.
• Contract terms. Long minimum periods, unclear ownership of content, extra fees for extra posts. Read the contract before you sign.
• Depending on someone outside. If the agency stops, you need a written strategy and access to everything, so someone else can continue.

None of these is a reason to say no. They are things to plan for.

When your own person is the better choice

Be honest with yourself. Your own team usually makes more sense when:

• The volume is large. Many leaders, many markets, the company page, events and employee programmes, all at once.
• You can afford at least two people, or one senior person plus outside support. One junior person alone usually burns out or gets pulled into other work.
• The topics change daily and need very fast approval inside the company. For example, regulated industries where every post goes through legal.
• LinkedIn is a core channel for years, and you want the knowledge to stay in the company.

If this is you, consider buying training first, so your own people start with the right habits. Then use outside help only where it adds something.

When an agency is the better choice

An agency usually makes more sense when:

• You have one to three leaders who should be visible, plus a company page.
• Nobody in the company knows LinkedIn well, and there is no time to learn by trial and error.
• You want to start this month, not after a recruitment process.
• You want a steady rhythm that does not stop when someone goes on holiday.
• You want to test first. An agency contract with a review point is easier to stop than an employment contract.

The hybrid model

In many companies we work with, the answer is not either-or.

One person inside the company owns the topic. They collect news, check facts, take the photo at the trade fair and make sure the leader joins the weekly call. They do not need to be a LinkedIn expert. They need to know what is going on.

The agency does the craft: strategy, interviews with the leader, writing, the profile, the reports. The two talk every week.

This model fixes the two biggest problems at once. The agency gets the inside knowledge it would otherwise miss. The company gets the skills and the rhythm without hiring a full team.

To see whether it works, look at activity first and attention next. Compare each leader with their own usual result, using engagement rate per 1,000 followers instead of raw likes.

How to decide in one meeting

You can make this decision in an hour. Bring these numbers:

1. The goal. Who should be visible on LinkedIn, and why? Leaders, the company page or both? We explain the difference in LinkedIn company page vs personal profile.
2. The volume. How many people, how many posts, how many markets?
3. The full in-house cost. Gross salary, employer taxes, tools and an honest estimate of management time.
4. Two or three agency offers, each with one total price and a list of what is included.
5. The leader's time. About 30 minutes a week for the planning call in either option, plus time for comments.
6. A review date. Whatever you choose, agree to look at it again after about six months.

If you need to get the budget approved by a board, put all of this on one page.

Common mistakes

• Comparing the agency fee with the gross salary. Compare full monthly cost with full monthly cost.
• Hiring one junior person and expecting a senior result. Writing for a CEO is hard work.
• Choosing an agency and then not giving it access to the leader. The posts will sound like a brochure.
• Forgetting who owns the content and the logins. Write it into the contract or the job description.
• No review date. Neither option should run for a year without a check.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a LinkedIn agency cost? It depends on the scope: how many leaders, whether the company page is included, how many markets and how much content. Ask for one total monthly price with a clear list of what is included.

Is it cheaper to hire someone in-house for LinkedIn? For one to three leaders, usually not, once you count employer taxes, tools, management time and the learning period. For a large programme with many people, your own team can be cheaper per post.

What does an in-house social media manager really cost? Gross salary plus employer taxes, plus tools, plus management time. In Estonia the employer pays 33% social tax and 0.8% unemployment insurance on top of gross salary, so 2,500 euros gross costs the company about 3,345 euros a month before tools.

Can we combine an agency and our own person? Yes. One internal coordinator who collects news and checks facts, and an agency that does strategy and writing. In many companies this works better than either option alone.

How much time does the leader need in either case? About 30 minutes a week for a planning call, plus time to approve posts and reply to comments. No option removes this.

---

Not sure where to start? We run a free LinkedIn audit for B2B companies across Europe. You choose what we look at: a leader's personal profile or your company page. We'll tell you what works and what holds you back. Book a free audit