Comparison
In-House Marketer vs Agency for Law Firms: One Hire Cannot Cover Six Channels
What one salary buys, next to what one subscription buys.
By Alexandra Tsotsos, Chief Operating OfficerLast updated
One in-house marketer costs $80,000–$120,000 a year fully loaded and covers search, AI visibility, content, reviews, social and paid ads alone. LexGrow puts a specialist behind each from $999 a month, published.
The gap is capacity, not competence. One salary at the top of that band is roughly 10,000 a month before software, contractors or benefits administration, against a published $999 a month entry plan with a named specialist on each channel.
Most firms don't have a marketing problem. They have a capacity problem. One capable marketer costs $80,000–$120,000 a year fully loaded, before tools, and still covers search, AI visibility, content, reviews, social, and paid ads alone. We put a specialist behind each one from $999 a month, published, and report the result in signed cases.
| Category | LexGrow | In-House Marketer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | From $999 a month, published. No setup fees. | $80,000–$120,000 a year fully loaded, before tools and contractors. |
| Commitment | Start month to month at the published price. Commit for a lower rate: 5% off at six months, 10% at twelve, 15% at twenty-four. | An employment offer, plus notice, plus severance risk. |
| Bandwidth | A specialist behind each of search, AI visibility, content, reviews, social, and paid ads. | One person covering all six, at whatever depth the week allows. |
| Time to first result | Onboarding runs about two weeks, then work publishes on a weekly cadence. | Six to twelve weeks to hire, then a ramp on your firm and your market before output starts. |
| What happens when they quit | Nothing you notice. The people behind your account change. The account does not. | Output stops, the context leaves with them, and you restart the search. |
| Who owns the work | You do, permanently. Every page, post, listing, and ad account is in your firm's name. | You do, if it was documented before they left. |
| Reporting | Signed cases by channel, with cost per case next to it. | Whatever the hire has time to build, usually traffic and rankings. |
What does a law firm marketing hire actually cost?
Fully loaded, $80,000–$120,000 a year. That figure is base salary plus benefits load plus the software seats the role needs, and it is the number to compare against, not the base salary on the job posting.
Then add what the role cannot absorb. A single marketer running six channels will contract out design, development and often paid media, and those invoices land on top of the salary rather than inside it. Firms that budget the salary alone are usually thirty to fifty per cent under their real annual spend by the end of year one.
Can one marketer cover search, content, reviews, social and paid ads?
Sequentially, yes. Simultaneously, no. Each of those channels has its own tooling, its own measurement and its own weekly rhythm, and the honest failure mode is not incompetence but triage: the channel with the loudest internal advocate gets the attention and the rest decay quietly.
The version that does work is a marketer who owns strategy and coordinates specialists. That is a different hire, usually more senior, and it does not remove the execution cost. It moves it.
What happens when the hire leaves?
Whatever was not documented leaves with them. Ad accounts created under a personal login, a content calendar that lived in someone's head, half-finished tracking that nobody else can read: this is the single most expensive risk in the in-house model, and it is invisible until it fires.
It is worth asking the question before you hire rather than after. Which accounts will be in the firm's name? Where does the reporting live? Who else can open it? A good hire will have good answers, and the answers are the same ones to put to any vendor.
Common questions
- Is it cheaper to hire a marketer or use a platform for law firm marketing?
- One in-house marketer costs $80,000–$120,000 a year fully loaded before software, and covers six channels alone. LexGrow publishes plans from $999 a month with a specialist behind each channel. On the invoice the platform is almost always cheaper; the comparison that matters is what each one can actually execute in a month.
- What does a law firm marketing manager do?
- Keyword and content strategy, the publishing calendar, review and reputation monitoring, social, paid campaign management, the website, and reporting. In a firm under fifteen attorneys that list usually belongs to one person, which is why the role tends to become coordination rather than execution within the first year.
- Do we still need someone in-house if we use a platform?
- Someone has to own the relationship and make the calls only the firm can make: which practice areas to push, which matters are worth acquiring, and whether the work sounds like your firm. That is usually a partner or an office manager for a few hours a month, not a full-time hire.
- Who owns the marketing work if the person who built it leaves?
- You do, if it was documented before they left. That qualifier is the whole risk. With LexGrow every page, post, listing and ad account is created in your firm's name and stays there permanently, whether or not anyone is still working on it.