Digital Agency vs. Freelancer: How to Make the Right Choice Before Hire?

After covid there has been longstanding debate that every company will need to face as new startup & product are being lunched: should we hire a professional development agency or a Freelancer?

We see all the points related to working with freelancers & Digital agency. Both have their merits and benefits. Regardless, the debate is fairly complex and it can be a difficult decision to make. In order to point you in the right direction, we have outlined some of the pros and cons of hiring freelancers and professional development agencies.

Before discuss anything, you need to ask yourself a few questions about your project at hand.

• What is the vision of my finished product?
• How complex is my project?
• What is my budget?
• Do I have an internal project manager to oversee the process?

With this information in hand, we can start looking at the pros and cons of each option. For the sake of this article, we are assuming both options (the freelancer and the professional agency) are highly-reputable and outstanding in their respective work.

The Benefits of Hiring a Freelancer:

Specialized: freelancer are especially talented at a specific niche skill-set. For example, if your project needs an website or logo. you can likely find a web developer or logo maker freelancer who is up to the task.

Cost: Freelancers are very specialised in some so they charge according there skill & experience . Some time freelancers are very chip option and expensive option. Keep in mind however, that you get what you pay for and outsourcing t more that on freelancers can quickly run up a large tab.

Flexibility: As a big benefits of hiring freelancers are flexibility. But when you dealing with the highly qualified professionals. Freelancers build their schedule around your need & priorities. some freelancres travel to your office & operate outside of normal work hours.

The Drawbacks of Hiring a Freelancer:

Limitations: If you hire a freelancer with a specific task in mind, however in most cases, unexpected changes or modifications to your project will arise and this is where working with a freelancer puts you at a disadvantage. Looking for a replacement can be difficult.

They’re strangers: In a perfect world, the freelancer you hire will be intimately familiar with your company, your market and your customers, however in reality the freelancer you hire will likely be unfamiliar with all three.

Work overload. A solo freelancer works for many clients. Sometimes, the tasks and deadlines pile up on his desk. This can affect the freelancer’s performance. This can bring less satisfying results.

Based on the pros and cons we mentioned, it is best to hire an individual freelancer if:

• The project is small
• You can manage two or more freelancers
• Don’t need multiple specialists

The Benefits of Hiring a Professional Agency

There’s No “I” in Team: The biggest advantage of hiring a professional company is the access to an entire multi-faceted team. They can full-fill your design, development and marketing needs. Furthermore, since every aspect of the project is delivered by one team. The final product is more consistent and polished than if you were to hire several freelancers that weren’t working together.

Speed, Experience and Efficiency: Along these same lines, professional agencies have cumulated invaluable experience working together to deliver comprehensive, high-quality projects for their clients.

They have a workflow, can leverage each other’s strengths and can accurately predict the necessary resources and time that will be required to accomplish your goals. When you’re working on a strict deadline, a professional agency will be much faster at meeting your needs.

Service & Support: Depending on your project’s size and scope, most agencies offer ongoing support such as SEO, marketing, and analysing user feedback for future versions. This is especially important as today’s digital and mobile projects become increasingly complex and overlap considerably with other business units.

The Drawbacks of Hiring a Professional Agency

Cost: For any particular service, it is generally more expensive to work with a design and development agency than to hire a freelancer. However, as agencies can package multiple services together and operate effectively. as a team in order to complete the deliverable in the shortest possible amount of time, it can be argued that they actually offer the highest value for your budget.

Location: Professional agencies usually have their own offices and that can sometimes be far from a client’s site which means more planning is necessary before meetings. However, with tools like Skype, Google Hangout, GoToMeeting and others.

Hiring an agency is advisable if:

• The project is complex and requires multiple work streams and phases to manage.
• Need multiple specialists.
• On a tight deadline.
• You can’t manage multiple freelancers.
• You are always busy and can’t always keep up with the team.