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Keep the work that shows what makes your startup different, such as positioning, customer research and the founder’s voice. Co-own work that needs a specialist but your sign-off, such as content and conversion tests. Hand over work that needs deep platform skill every week, such as paid media and technical SEO. Keep every account in your own name.
Most startups have neither the runway for a full marketing team nor the time to manage five freelancers. The usual result is a mix with no rule for which work goes where. This guide gives you the rule: a four-question score, a table of what each score means, and the checks that keep you in control.
What should a startup keep, share or hand to an agency?
Every marketing function gets one of three calls: keep, co-own or hand over. Keep means your team does it. Co-own means the agency drafts and runs it while you set the direction and approve it. Hand over means the agency runs it and reports, and you check the results.
| Call | Who does the work | Who decides | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keep | Your team | You | Positioning and customer interviews |
| Co-own | Agency drafts and runs, you review | You approve each step | Content programme, conversion tests |
| Hand over | Agency runs it and reports | You set goals and budget | Paid media, technical SEO |
The call is not a verdict on your team. It is a decision about where a founder’s hours and a first-year budget do the most good. It changes as the company grows, which is why a later section splits the calls by funding stage.
What does it really cost to build marketing in-house?
A marketing hire costs more than the salary. In US private industry, pay is 70.0% of what employers spend on a worker and benefits are the other 30.0%. Total employer cost is therefore about 1.4 times pay. Recruiting, software and the months before full output come on top.
Those percentages are the US private-sector average from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for June 2026, covering all workers. They are not marketing-specific, so treat 1.4 as a floor for your own estimate. The 1.4 is our arithmetic: 1 divided by 0.70.
| Cost component | What it includes | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Pay | Salary at the market rate for the skill | What does this skill cost in your hiring market? |
| Employment costs | Benefits and payroll taxes on top of pay | Is 1.4 times pay the right starting point? |
| Recruiting | Time and fees to find and hire the person | How many months will the role stay open? |
| Tools | Software seats the function needs | Which licences does one person need on day one? |
| Ramp-up | Months before the hire works at full output | What do you lose while the hire learns your market? |
| Skill coverage | One hire usually covers one or two specialisms well | Which of the six functions below would still be uncovered? |
This is why the agency-or-in-house question rarely has one answer for the whole team. A function one generalist can run is cheap to own. A function that needs several specialists is not.
How do you score each marketing function?
Score each function from 1 (low) to 5 (high) on four questions, then read the call from the table below. Differentiation decides whether the work is yours to keep. Specialist depth and build cost decide whether it is worth building in-house. Frequency breaks ties.
- Differentiation. Does this work express what makes your company different?
- Specialist depth. Does it need a skill your team lacks today?
- Build cost. What would a hire plus tools cost, compared with the budget for this channel?
- Frequency. Is it needed every week, or in bursts?
Add specialist depth and build cost to get a number from 2 to 10. Then use the first row of this table that matches.
| Differentiation | Specialist depth + build cost | Call |
|---|---|---|
| 4 or 5 | 6 or less | Keep |
| 4 or 5 | 7 or more | Co-own |
| 3 | Any | Co-own |
| 1 or 2 | 7 or more | Hand over |
| 1 or 2 | 6 or less | Keep if frequency is 4 or 5; hand over if it is 1 to 3 |
Worked example, not a client: paid search at a seed-stage software startup scores differentiation 2, specialist depth 5, build cost 4 and frequency 5. Depth plus cost is 9 and differentiation is low, so the call is hand over. The same startup scores positioning 5, 2 and 1: keep.
Which marketing functions usually get which call?
Most early-stage startups land the same way on the common functions. Positioning and research stay in-house. Specialist execution moves to an agency. Content, brand and conversion work sit in between. The scores below are our starting judgement, not measurements, so replace them with your own.
| Function | Diff. | Depth | Cost | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positioning and messaging | 5 | 2 | 1 | Keep |
| Customer research and interviews | 5 | 2 | 1 | Keep |
| Founder-led social and thought leadership | 5 | 3 | 2 | Keep, with editing support |
| Content strategy and production | 4 | 4 | 3 | Co-own |
| Brand identity and website | 4 | 5 | 4 | Co-own: you approve, the agency builds |
| Conversion rate optimisation | 3 | 4 | 3 | Co-own |
| Technical SEO | 1 | 5 | 4 | Hand over |
| Paid media (search and social) | 2 | 5 | 4 | Hand over |
| Design production (ads, decks, social creative) | 2 | 4 | 3 | Hand over |
| Marketing automation and CRM set-up | 2 | 4 | 4 | Hand over |
| Analytics and tracking set-up | 1 | 4 | 3 | Hand over, in accounts you own |
| Video production | 2 | 5 | 5 | Hand over, or wait until a channel needs it |
Technical SEO and paid media are the usual first hand-overs because they need daily platform skill and carry high build costs. For a closer look at the checks behind that decision, see the digital marketing audit.
How does the split change by funding stage?
The right split moves as the goal moves from learning to scaling. At pre-seed you keep the work that teaches you who buys and why. At seed you hand over tests of repeatable channels. At Series A you keep a marketing lead who owns strategy and hand over execution on proven channels.
| Stage | Main goal | Keep in-house | Hand to an agency | Hold for later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | Learn who buys and why | Positioning, customer interviews, founder-led content | Website build, brand identity, analytics set-up | Paid campaigns at scale, large content programmes |
| Seed | Find one or two channels that repeat | Messaging, channel choices, budget calls | SEO, paid acquisition tests, content production, email automation | Video, PR at scale |
| Series A | Scale the channels that work | A marketing lead who owns strategy and targets | Execution across proven channels, conversion work, creative volume | New channels until the core ones are stable |
Use the table as a default and the scorecard as the check. If a function scores differently from its stage default, trust the score and write down why.
What should you own, whatever an agency does?
You can hand over the work without handing over the assets. Ad accounts, analytics, domain, customer data and brand files should stay in your company’s name, with the agency added as a user. If you can switch partners without asking permission, the decision stays a business choice.
- Ad accounts. Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn accounts are created under your business. The agency is added as a user with the access it needs.
- Analytics and tag manager. Your login holds the Administrator role, because in GA4 only Administrators can manage users. The agency gets Editor, Marketer or Analyst, depending on the job.
- Domain, hosting and CMS. Your team holds top-level access. The agency gets the role it needs.
- CRM and email lists. Customer data stays in your systems from day one.
- Brand files and content. Source files and published content are delivered to your shared drive, not kept on the agency’s side.
The GA4 roles are listed in Google’s access and data-restriction management guide. Check the same point for every tool: who can add and remove users, and is it you?
A quick test: if the agency stopped work tomorrow, could you log in to every account and keep the channel running? If any answer is no, fix that before you add budget.
What should a contract with an agency cover?
A contract should name the scope, the reporting, the accounts and the way out. Write each one down before work starts. A clear exit costs nothing when the relationship works and saves months when it does not. Use the six questions below as your checklist.
- What work is included, and how is a change in scope agreed?
- Which goals does the agency report against, and how often?
- Who owns each account, and what access does the agency hold?
- How much notice ends the contract, and what is handed back?
- Who approves spend before it is committed?
- Who owns the creative files, copy and data produced?
Before you sign with any digital marketing agency, check the contract against the ownership list above. Ask to see a sample report, so you know what weekly or monthly updates will actually contain.
How do you know the split is working?
Agree leading indicators for each channel, so progress is visible before revenue moves. Paid media produces usable data within the first weeks of spend. SEO and content build over several months, so judge them on qualified traffic and sign-ups, not on one month’s ranking.
- Paid media: cost per qualified lead or sign-up, and the share of budget on tested ideas.
- SEO and content: qualified organic visits, pages published against plan, and sign-ups from those pages.
- Conversion work: tests run, tests completed and the lift on the pages that matter.
- Tracking: every lead event is counted in an account you own.
Review the split each quarter and at each funding stage. If a function is costing more of your time than you planned, move one step along: keep to co-own, or co-own to hand over.
Where does PixelCrayons fit?
PixelCrayons is a digital agency for funded startups. We bring web development, design, brand and AI together in one senior team, with SEO, paid media, content and conversion work for growth. We are direct for brands and white-label for agencies. Established in 2004, we have delivered 4,500+ projects, a cumulative figure for PixelCrayons.
That structure follows the framework above. You keep positioning, customer insight and the final call on spend. We run the specialist work, report weekly in plain language and agree ownership terms before work starts.
To see what a hand-over would cover for your startup, ask for a free website review. For how scope is priced, see the pricing page.
