Hiring a Growth Agency vs AI Automation: Cost, Speed, and Results

Question

Should I hire a growth marketing agency or use AI automation like Cogny?

Answer

Growth agencies cost $5K-30K/month and take weeks to onboard.

AI automation costs $500-2K/month and starts working in 24 hours.

Agencies bring human creativity and strategy. AI brings 24/7 analysis and optimization at scale.

Most companies need both. But if you're choosing one: Start with AI.

At a Glance Comparison

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The Real Cost Comparison

Growth Agency Costs

Retainer fees:

• Small agency: $5,000-10,000/month
• Mid-size agency: $10,000-20,000/month
• Top-tier agency: $20,000-50,000/month

Typical structure:

• Base retainer (strategy + management)
• % of ad spend (10-20%)
• Setup fees ($2,000-10,000)
• Creative fees (extra)
• Tech stack fees (passed through)

Example: $100K/month ad spend

Agency model:

• Base retainer: $8,000/month
• 15% of spend: $15,000/month
• Total: $23,000/month
• First year: $276,000

Plus:

• You're still paying the $100K ad spend
• Total marketing investment: $376K/year

AI Automation Costs

Cogny pricing:

• Standard: $500-800/month
• Scale: $1,000-1,500/month
• Enterprise: $2,000+/month

Typical structure:

• Flat monthly fee (all features)
• No % of spend
• No setup fees
• Included: Analysis, insights, monitoring

Example: $100K/month ad spend

AI model:

• Cogny: $1,200/month
• Your team execution: 5 hours/week
• At $100/hour: $2,000/month
• Total: $3,200/month
• First year: $38,400

Savings vs agency: $237,600/year

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What You Get From Each

Growth Agency Delivers:

1. Strategic Planning

• Market analysis
• Competitor research
• Channel strategy
• Budget allocation frameworks
• Quarterly roadmaps

2. Creative Development

• Ad concepts
• Copywriting
• Design
• Video production
• Landing page design

3. Campaign Execution

• Set up campaigns
• Launch ads
• Monitor performance
• Optimize based on data
• Monthly reporting

4. Cross-Channel Expertise

• Google Ads
• Meta Ads
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• SEO
• Content
• Email

5. Human Judgment

• Brand considerations
• Market context
• Competitive dynamics
• Strategic pivots

AI Automation Delivers:

1. Continuous Analysis

• 24/7 monitoring
• Every campaign
• Every keyword
• Every ad
• Every audience

2. Opportunity Detection

• Wasted spend identification
• Budget reallocation opportunities
• Audience overlap issues
• Creative fatigue alerts
• Anomaly detection

3. Specific Recommendations

• Actionable tickets
• Dollar impact quantified
• Prioritized by value
• Step-by-step instructions

4. Pattern Recognition

• Finds insights humans miss
• Analyzes millions of data points
• Cross-channel attribution
• Predictive insights

5. Speed

• Issues detected same-day
• Recommendations in minutes
• No waiting for weekly calls
• Instant answers to questions

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When to Choose a Growth Agency

You should hire an agency if:

1. You Have Zero Marketing Capability

• No in-house marketers
• Don't know where to start
• Need full-service support
• Want someone else to do everything

2. You Need Creative Production

• Don't have designers
• Don't have copywriters
• Don't have video producers
• Want agency to handle all creative

3. You're Entering New Markets

• Expanding internationally
• New product launch
• Need market research
• Want strategic guidance

4. You Have Complex Needs

• Multi-brand management
• Enterprise complexity
• Sophisticated attribution requirements
• Custom strategies

5. You Want Full Outsourcing

• Don't want to think about marketing
• Want someone else responsible
• Have budget for premium service
• Value human relationship

Best for:

• Companies with no marketing team
• Startups pre-product-market fit
• Complex B2B sales
• Enterprise organizations

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When to Choose AI Automation

You should use AI if:

1. You Have a Marketing Team

• In-house marketers who execute
• Need better insights, not more people
• Want to empower existing team
• Already handle creative internally

2. You're Optimizing Existing Campaigns

• Campaigns are running
• Need to improve efficiency
• Want to find wasted spend
• Focused on ROAS/CAC improvement

3. You Value Speed

• Can't wait weeks for insights
• Need real-time optimization
• Want issues caught immediately
• Prefer daily improvements over monthly reports

4. You Want to Scale Without Headcount

• Growing ad spend
• Can't hire fast enough
• Need to do more with same team
• Want automation over labor

5. You're Data-Driven

• Trust AI recommendations
• Comfortable executing based on data
• Don't need hand-holding
• Want insights, not strategy consulting

Best for:

• Companies with lean marketing teams
• Performance-focused organizations
• SaaS and e-commerce
• Growth-stage companies

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The Hybrid Approach (Best of Both)

Most successful companies use both:

Agency for:

• Overall strategy
• Creative development
• Brand positioning
• New channel testing
• Quarterly planning

AI for:

• Daily optimization
• Wasted spend detection
• Budget reallocation
• Performance monitoring
• Quick win identification

How it works:

Monthly cycle:

Week 1:

• AI detects optimization opportunities
• Generate 20-30 tickets
• Internal team executes quick wins

Week 2:

• Agency reviews AI insights
• Identifies strategic themes
• Plans creative response

Week 3:

• Agency develops creative
• Designs new campaigns
• Prepares strategic recommendations

Week 4:

• Agency presents strategy
• AI provides performance data
• Team decides on next month priorities

Cost:

• Agency: $8K-12K/month (reduced scope)
• AI: $1K-2K/month
• Total: $9K-14K/month

vs full-service agency: $15K-25K/month

Savings: $6K-11K/month

Plus: Better results (AI catches things agencies miss)

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Real Comparison: Same Company, Different Approaches

Scenario: SaaS company, $150K/month ad spend

Month 1-6: With Agency Only

Spend: $18,000/month retainer

What happened:

• Months 1-2: Onboarding, strategy development
• Month 3: First optimizations implemented
• Month 4-6: Ongoing management

Performance:

• ROAS improved 15% (from 3.5 to 4.0)
• New creative developed quarterly
• Monthly reporting meetings
• Strategic guidance valuable

Time investment: 4 hours/month (meetings)

Issues:

• Optimizations happen weekly, not daily
• Small issues take days to fix
• Expensive for what's delivered
• Still felt like missing opportunities

ROI: Positive, but expensive

Month 7-12: With AI + Smaller Agency Engagement

Spend:

• AI: $1,200/month
• Agency (reduced): $6,000/month (strategy + creative only)
• Total: $7,200/month

What happened:

• AI caught daily optimization opportunities
• Agency focused on strategy and creative
• Internal team executed AI tickets
• Agency used AI insights to inform strategy

Performance:

• ROAS improved another 25% (from 4.0 to 5.0)
• AI found $12K/month wasted spend
• Creative informed by AI pattern insights
• Faster iteration cycles

Time investment: 8 hours/month (6 hours AI tickets + 2 hours agency)

Result:

• Better performance
• Lower cost ($10,800 saved/month)
• Faster optimization
• More empowered internal team

ROI: Significantly better

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Common Objections

"Agencies have expertise AI doesn't"

True. But expertise in different areas.

Agency expertise:

• Creative strategy
• Brand positioning
• Market dynamics
• Competitive intelligence
• Long-term planning

AI expertise:

• Data analysis at scale
• Pattern detection
• Opportunity quantification
• Continuous monitoring
• Optimization math

Not competing. Complementary.

"AI can't replace human creativity"

Correct. It doesn't try to.

AI doesn't create ads. It tells you which ads work and why.

Your team (or agency) creates better ads using AI insights.

Example:

• AI: "Ads with testimonial + product demo convert 2.3x better"
• Humans: Create more testimonial + demo ads
• Result: Better performance

"Agencies optimize campaigns too"

Yes, but constrained by human limitations.

Agency optimization:

• Weekly review of top campaigns
• Manual analysis
• Might review 20% of account
• Optimization decisions based on sample

AI optimization:

• 24/7 monitoring of everything
• Automatic analysis
• Reviews 100% of account
• Optimization based on complete data

Agencies do their best. But humans can't review everything, every day.

"My agency has AI tools too"

Many agencies now license AI tools.

But:

1. They're paying for those tools (cost passed to you)
2. You're paying agency markup on top
3. Agency still bottleneck for insights

Cut out the middleman.

Get AI directly. Use agency for what humans do best (strategy, creative).

"AI doesn't understand my business context"

Neither does an agency at first.

Both need onboarding:

• Agency: 4-8 weeks of meetings
• AI: Learns from your data automatically

AI doesn't understand brand feelings. But it understands performance data.

Use agency for brand. Use AI for performance.

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FAQ

Q: Can AI completely replace a growth agency?

For some companies, yes.

Replace agency if you have:

• In-house marketing team
• Creative capability internally
• Clear strategy already
• Just need optimization

Keep agency if you need:

• Strategic consulting
• Creative production
• Full-service execution
• Don't want to manage internally

Q: What if I'm too small for an agency?

Most agencies have minimums:

• $5K/month retainer
• $50K/month ad spend

If you're below that:

• AI is perfect (starts at $500/month)
• Works for $10K+/month ad spend
• No minimums

Q: Can my agency use Cogny?

Yes! Many agencies do.

Agency uses Cogny to:

• Find optimization opportunities faster
• Scale across more clients
• Deliver better results
• Reduce analyst time

You benefit:

• Agency more efficient
• Better performance
• Agency might reduce fees

Some agencies white-label AI insights.

Q: What if my agency says I don't need AI?

Ask why.

Possible reasons:

1. Protecting their value: AI might expose they're not optimizing thoroughly
2. Unfamiliar with AI: Haven't adapted to AI era yet
3. Legitimate: Maybe you have very custom needs AI can't solve

Test:

• Run AI alongside agency for 2 months
• Compare what each finds
• See if AI discovers opportunities agency missed

Usually: AI finds things agencies miss.

Q: How do agencies feel about AI?

Forward-thinking agencies: Embrace AI as a tool to enhance their services

Traditional agencies: See it as a threat

Reality: AI doesn't replace agency strategy and creative. It replaces manual data analysis.

Good agencies use AI. They focus on high-value human work.

Q: At what ad spend should I hire an agency vs use AI?

$0-20K/month: Use AI (agencies won't take you, or not worth it)

$20K-100K/month: AI first, maybe add agency for creative

$100K-500K/month: AI + agency (each focused on strengths)

$500K+/month: Likely need both + in-house team

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The Truth About Agencies

We ran a growth agency (GrowthHackers.se) for 11 years.

We worked with amazing companies:

• Kry
• Epidemic Sound
• Yubico
• Tink

We know what agencies do well:

• Strategic thinking
• Creative development
• Cross-channel expertise
• Human judgment

We also know the limitations:

• Can't analyze everything manually
• Optimization happens weekly, not daily
• Expensive to scale
• Constrained by human time

That's why we built Cogny.

Not to replace agencies. To handle what humans can't scale:

• Analyzing millions of data points
• 24/7 monitoring
• Instant optimization detection
• Complete account coverage

The future is hybrid:

• AI for optimization
• Humans for strategy and creative
• Best of both

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The Bottom Line

Hire a Growth Agency if:

• You have zero marketing capability
• You need full-service (strategy + creative + execution)
• You have budget ($10K+/month)
• You want to outsource completely
• You need strategic consulting

Use AI Automation if:

• You have a marketing team
• You need better insights, not more people
• You're focused on optimization
• You want speed and scale
• Budget-conscious ($500-2K/month)

Use Both if:

• You have budget ($8K-15K/month)
• Want agency for strategy + creative
• Want AI for daily optimization
• Best possible results
• Modern marketing stack

Most companies should:

Start with AI, add agency if needed

Why:

1. Try AI first ($500-1K/month)

   • Low risk
   • Fast results
   • See what it finds

2. Evaluate gaps

   • Need creative? Add agency
   • Need strategy? Add agency
   • Just need optimization? AI sufficient

3. Hybrid if needed

   • AI + selective agency services
   • Best ROI

Don't start with expensive agency and then realize you just needed data analysis.

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See What AI Finds

Most companies waste 20-30% of ad spend.

Not because their agency is bad. Because manual analysis can't catch everything.

AI finds it in hours.

See it yourself:

Schedule a demo

We'll analyze your campaigns live and show you:

• What AI discovers
• What you might be missing
• Expected impact in dollars
• How it compares to agency insights

Usually finds $5K-50K/month in opportunities.

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About This Comparison

Written by the Cogny team—built by the founders who ran GrowthHackers.se, a growth agency for 11 years, working with Kry, Epidemic Sound, Yubico, and Tink.

We know agencies from the inside. We built AI to complement what agencies do best.

Last Updated: December 15, 2024