There Are Four Ways to Get Creative Work Done
You're not choosing between FifthHouse and another studio. You're choosing between four types of help, and most of the frustration we hear about comes from picking the wrong type, not the wrong vendor.
Three of these ask you to buy a fixed amount of capacity and then live inside it. The fourth doesn't. Here's the honest version of each one, including the times we're not the answer.
How to Tell What You Need
Hire an Agency
Best for large, multi-discipline programs with the budget to match. You get depth. Media planning, research, strategy, and production under one roof, with enough people on staff that someone's available when your timeline moves. You also get a name your board recognizes, which matters more than people admit.
The trade is structure. A team that size gets staffed across a lot of accounts, so the people who present in the pitch and the people who run your day to day aren't always the same, and your first month goes to introductions. Your work also sits in a queue beside programs many times its size. That's not anyone behaving badly. That's how an operation built for scale works.
Go this way when the work spans disciplines you'd otherwise have to coordinate yourself, when the budget clears the floor comfortably, and when the program genuinely needs an organization that large.
Hire a Freelancer
Best for one defined piece of work when you've got someone internal to direct it. You get the lowest cost per hour and a direct line to the person making the thing. For a clear brief with a clear end, this is often the right call, and we'll tell you so.
What you don't get is coverage. One person is one person, so a booked calendar or a sick week becomes your problem. You're also the creative director by default. If nobody senior is reviewing the work against a system, you're the one catching the inconsistencies, and that job quietly moves onto your desk.
Go this way when you know exactly what you need, the scope has an end, and you have someone internally who can direct it.
Hire Someone Full-Time
Best for steady, high-volume creative that's central to what you sell. You get institutional knowledge nothing else matches. Someone who knows the product, sits in the meetings, and catches things an outside partner never would.
The cost isn't the salary. Benefits run just over 30 percent of what private employers pay per hour worked, so the real number lands well above the offer letter. Before any of that, the median non-executive role takes 39 days to fill, and that's after you write the req and get it approved. Then you've got one person with one skill set, and design, motion, web, and illustration aren't the same skill set.
Go this way when creative volume is steady, high, and central to what you sell. If a person would be busy five days a week, hire the person.
Hire a Studio
This is us. Best for teams that need senior creative direction and finished work, sized to the project instead of to a headcount. One point of contact from brief to delivery, and the person who pitches you is the person doing the work, producing it or directing it.
We build the team around the project. A brand system with motion gets a motion designer. A site build gets a developer. You're not paying for skill sets you don't need, and you're not asking one person to stretch across four disciplines and hope it holds. Everyone we bring in has worked with us before, their rates sit in the proposal from the start, and the creative lead approves everything before it reaches you. You can meet the people who do it. What we won't do is take on more than we can run properly, so there are months we'll tell you to come back in six weeks rather than staff a project thin and call it fine.
Go this way when the creative has to be right, when you'd rather have one relationship than four vendors, and when you want a team sized to the work instead of a headcount you have to fill.
When We're the Wrong Call
We'd rather say this now than three weeks into a project.
- If you already have an internal creative team with a director, you probably don't need us. You might need extra hands in a busy quarter, and that's a conversation. But you don't need what we do.
- If what you want is execution against a locked brief with no questions asked, you'll find that cheaper elsewhere, and you should. We ask questions. That's most of the value and it's also the part some people find annoying.
- If price is the deciding factor, someone will always be cheaper. We're not going to win that one and we don't try.
- If the timeline is tight, ask anyway. We do rush work and we price it as rush work. What we won't take is a deadline that only works if somebody stops sleeping. Sometimes those are the same request and sometimes they aren't, and we'll tell you which one yours is.
Quick Answers
What's the difference between a creative studio and an agency?
The difference is how the team gets built. An agency keeps a large permanent staff and assigns people to your account based on who's available across many clients. A studio is senior-led and builds the team around your project, so the skill sets match the work instead of matching a headcount.
Who does the work at FifthHouse?
A senior creative leads every FifthHouse engagement and stays your point of contact from brief to delivery. When a project needs development, motion, photography, or additional design, the studio brings in specialists it has worked with before, and the creative lead reviews and approves everything before it reaches the client.
Is a studio more expensive than a freelancer?
Per hour, usually yes. What a studio adds is a senior person directing the work, reviewing everything before it reaches you, and pulling in other skill sets when the project calls for them. For a small, well-defined job a freelancer is often the better value, and we'll tell you that.
When should I hire in-house instead of a studio?
Hire in-house when the volume would keep someone busy five days a week and the work is central to what you sell. If creative arrives in waves rather than steadily, a retainer usually costs less than a hire and covers more disciplines than one person can.
Does FifthHouse take rush projects?
Yes, at rush pricing. Rush work is priced as rush work, within reason, and we'll be straight with you about what's possible in the time you have.
How do I know which one I need?
Ask whether the problem is capacity or direction. Capacity problems get solved with more hands. Direction problems don't, and hiring more hands for a direction problem is how most teams end up frustrated.
How do I know if a studio is any good?
Ask who's doing the work and whether you'll talk to them directly. Ask what happens when they disagree with you. Ask to see a project that went sideways. The answers tell you more than the portfolio does.
Still Not Sure Which One You Need?
Tell us what you're working on. If a freelancer or an agency is the better fit, we'll say so and point you somewhere specific. That costs us a project occasionally. It has never once cost us a relationship.