Revscope

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Find the 3-year cost of building it, hiring an agency, or buying a platform.

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Revscope01 / 01

Your finding

$723K apart

The spreadOver 36 months the three paths differ by $723K. Which one wins flips with your horizon and headcount.
01Horizon36 months
02Build$1.1M
03Agency$737K
04Platform$423K

Illustrative, and cost only. Your own numbers replace these when you run the comparison below.

3 paths

Build, agency, platform, side by side

Your horizon

The answer changes with the timeframe

No email

The result is never gated

One link

Built to forward to finance

What your result gives you

Three totals on the same basis, and the point at which the answer flips.

Three totals over your horizon
Fully loaded, one-off plus recurring, on the same basis so the comparison is fair.
The crossover month
When building overtakes each alternative on cumulative cost, or a plain statement that it never does.
Time to productive
Each path's ramp, because an option that is cheaper but arrives two quarters later is not obviously cheaper.
Cost per productive month
Total spread over the months the option is actually working, not the months you are paying for it.
A link that carries your numbers
Send it to finance and they open your exact scenario, with every assumption visible.

How to read your number

Three shapes this comes out in, and what each one actually settles.

Building never overtakes

Your in-house monthly cost is simply higher than the alternative's, so no horizon rescues it. This is the usual result above one or two hires, and it is an argument about capability rather than cost from that point on.

Building overtakes inside your horizon

There is a real crossover month. Everything before it favours renting, everything after favours owning. If the crossover lands near the end of your horizon, the decision is close enough that non-cost factors should settle it.

The gaps are small

When the three totals land within a few percent, cost is not the deciding variable and pretending otherwise is how teams end up defending a spreadsheet instead of a strategy. Decide on control, speed, and quality instead.

What this deliberately leaves out

Six things that decide this call and cannot be costed honestly.

If the totals land close together, these are the tiebreakers. Cost only settles the question when the gap is large.

  1. 01Output quality, which is the whole reason the function exists
  2. 02Strategic judgment, which does not come from a subscription
  3. 03Institutional knowledge that stays when an agency contract ends
  4. 04Control over your own data, models, and customer relationships
  5. 05How fast each option can change direction when the market moves
  6. 06Attrition, backfill, and the cost of a bad hire

How the comparison runs

Four steps, applied identically to each path.

  1. 01

    One-off cost

    Recruiting for the build path, onboarding for the agency, implementation for the platform.

  2. 02

    Recurring cost

    Loaded salaries plus tools, or the retainer, or the subscription. Each carried across the full horizon.

  3. 03

    Internal oversight

    Charged to the agency and platform paths only, because someone on your side still owns the outcome.

  4. 04

    The crossover

    Where cumulative in-house cost drops below each alternative, given the one-off and recurring difference.

Compare the three

How we calculate this

Every assumption, so the number holds up when someone pushes back on it.

Cost, not capability
This models spend and nothing else. A platform costing less than two salaries is not the same as a platform replacing two people.
No Revscope price is assumed
The platform figures are yours to enter. Nothing on this page is pre-filled with what we charge, so the comparison is not quietly tilted.
Fully-loaded salary
Salary plus benefits, taxes, equipment, and overhead. Typically 1.25 to 1.4 times base. Using base salary alone understates building by a wide margin.
Internal oversight
Applied to agency and platform, not to in-house, and costed at the same loaded rate you entered. Set it to zero if genuinely nobody manages the relationship.
Ramp
You set the in-house ramp. Agency is assumed at two months and platform at one. These affect cost per productive month, not the totals.
Flat costs
No raises, no retainer escalators, no price increases, no inflation. Real costs drift upward on all three paths, roughly in proportion.
Not included
Attrition and backfill, the cost of a bad hire, contract exit terms, or any revenue difference between the options.

Built for

  • CMOs building the case for headcount, an agency, or a platform
  • Marketing leaders heading into a budget or renewal conversation
  • Founders deciding whether to hire the function or rent it
  • Anyone who needs the arithmetic written down before a CFO asks

Not built for

  • Judging which option produces better marketing
  • Vendor selection or feature comparison
  • Modelling revenue impact or return
  • Deciding anything on cost alone, which this page does not recommend

Questions

Cost settles less of this than it looks.

Twenty minutes on what each option actually produces, and which one fits the work you are trying to do.

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Related reading

Build vs Buy: The Real Cost of Marketing AI In-House

A neutral total-cost-of-ownership breakdown and a build-vs-buy guide.

The Real Cost of a Fragmented Martech Stack

License waste, integration debt, and campaigns that ship after the signal goes cold.

Bringing Demand Gen In-House Without Building a Team

Agency or in-house team? There is a third option worth costing out.