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Junesforge vs the agency

Your agencywas going tohire me anyway.

A lot of agencies in India are a founder, a salesperson and a phone full of freelancers. You pay for the name on the invoice. The work goes to someone like me, hired on contract after you sign, for a fraction of what you paid.

This happened

Same project. Same person. Two prices.

2.75×

the price through an agency, for the same person doing the same work

Freelancers in India quote low to compete with agency names. Agencies hire those same freelancers and bill you as if they had a team. You pay twice for one person: once for the work, and once for the letterhead.

This happened

Same project. Same person. Two prices.

A client asked me to quote for a website. I pitched it at ₹80,000.

Some time later an agency messaged me. They needed a website built. As the details came in, I recognised the brief. It was the same project.

The agency offered me ₹1,50,000 to build it. They had told the client the developer was charging ₹2,00,000, and added their own 10% on top: ₹2,20,000 in all.

From the inside

What you are actually paying for

  1. 01

    The people in the pitch are not the people on the job.

    Many small agencies are two or three founders and someone in business development. Selling is their job. They stay short-staffed on purpose, because every salary they do not pay is margin, so your project goes to whoever is free, or to whoever they hire after you sign. I have worked in these teams.

  2. 02

    One video person. Fifteen other projects.

    A good videographer or video editor is rare, so most agencies keep one. Your shoot joins their queue, and your edit gets whatever time is left.

  3. 03

    Your website is outsourced.

    Most agencies do not keep developers. They find one per project, on contract, at the lowest rate they can get. I know because I am who they call.

  4. 04

    You cannot see who you are hiring.

    The best designers leave small agencies fast, for in-house roles, top studios or their own practice. The portfolio you were shown was made by people who may be gone. Who gets your project is decided after you pay.

Judge the thinking

Ask an agency to show you how it thinks.

On my home page is how I see marketing: 67 functions, from the brand’s voice to its packaging to its posting schedule, wired into one integrated circuit. It is the map I work from on every project.

An agency splits that map across five departments and a contractor. Here, one person holds all of it.

See the circuit →

To be fair

When you should hire an agency

Running a national TV campaign, fifty deliverables a month, or crores in media spend? Hire one. The good ones exist, mostly at the very top, and they earn their fee. For a brand, a website or a product built properly, you do not need five layers of people. You need the one doing the work.

Cut outthe middle.

Same work, no markup. You talk to the person building it, from the first call to launch day.

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