Hire or agency calculator
Thinking of hiring a marketer?
Work out what one really costs, and whether one person can do it all. Tick the skills you need. We’ll add up super, recruitment, tools, time to get up to speed and the weeks they’re away — then show how rare that person is, and what an agency team costs instead.
2 minutes. Australian salary data. Nothing to sign up for.
Australian salary data, with sources.
That's nine jobs.
And the salary is only the start. On top, you're paying for:
The calculator
Write the job ad. We'll do the maths.
What do you need them to do?
Skills
Tick everything you’d expect this person to handle.
Who would you hire?
Salaries are Australian averages from SEEK job ads. Change it if you've got a number in mind.
Level
Before super. Excludes ad spend and platform fees, which you’d pay either way.
How would you find them?
And the agency?
Got a quote? Pop it in. No quote yet? Pick an indicative range and we'll use the middle of it. Most businesses claim the GST back, so we compare everything before GST.
Leave it blank to see what one hire really costs on its own.
Why a team
One person can’t be five specialists.
More skills than any one hire.
Design, ads, SEO, email and web are advertised as separate jobs, with separate salaries. A team gives you a specialist for each, instead of one person stretching.
SEEK lists graphic designers, social media managers, digital specialists and web developers as different roles.
Nothing stops when someone’s away.
Holidays, sick days and resignations don’t pause your marketing. Someone else on the team picks it up.
Australian employers averaged 16% staff turnover over a year (AHRI, December 2024).
Faster off the mark.
A team that’s done this for lots of businesses gets moving sooner than one new hire learning the ropes on their own.
New hires typically run at 30–50% of normal output for their first three months (Expert360).
The tools come with them.
Design software, SEO tools and scheduling platforms are part of how an agency works. With a hire, the licences are yours to buy.
Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for teams is about A$1,300 a year. Semrush Pro is US$139.95 a month.
Easier to change course.
Priorities change. Many agencies work month to month, so you can change direction or stop. A salary is a fixed cost that doesn’t flex with a quiet quarter.
Check the notice period and any minimum term before you sign.
Skills that keep up.
Platforms change every few months. Specialists who live in them every day keep up; a generalist has to squeeze it in.
Over half of brands report a performance-marketing skills gap, and almost two-thirds outsourced work to an agency in the past year (Marketing Week, 2025).
To be fair
When hiring is the right call.
- You need someone on site every day — events, in-store, shooting product daily.
- There's a full week's worth of work in one skill, every week. A specialist hire can make sense.
- You already have a marketing lead who can direct them and check their work.
Or do both.
Lots of businesses get the best of both: a coordinator in-house who knows the business inside out, and an agency team for the specialist work like ads, design, SEO and web.
Your person stays close to the action. The specialists do what they do best.
Our numbers
Every number, and where it came from.
| Cost | Where it comes from | We use |
|---|---|---|
| Superannuation | Super guarantee from 1 July 2025 | 12% of salary |
| Workers’ compensation | Office roles are about 0.5–1.5% | 1% of salary |
| Payroll tax | Only if you tick it. SA rate shown; states range 4.75–6.85% | 4.95% of salary |
| Recruitment | Job ads run a few hundred to about $1,000. Recruiters charge 15–25% | $600, or 20% |
| Getting up to speed | About 40% output for the first three months (typical range 30–50%) | 15% of salary, year one |
| Equipment | Laptop, phone, desk setup. Our estimate | $3,000, year one |
| Tools and software | Basics $600. Adobe ~$1,300 if design, branding or video. SEO tool ~$2,500 if SEO. Scheduling $600 if social | Depends on skills |
| Training to stay current | Courses and certifications. Our estimate | $1,500 a year |
| Paid leave with no work done | 4 weeks’ annual leave + up to 10 days’ sick and carer’s leave. Guides put paid leave at 11–13% of salary | ~6 weeks, 11.5% |
| Annual leave loading | Only if you tick it. Many awards pay 17.5% extra on annual leave | ~1.3% of salary |
| PAYG tax | Not added. It’s withheld from the salary and paid to the ATO, so it’s already inside the salary figure | Already in salary |
| Public holidays and long service leave | Not added. Agencies take public holidays too, and long service leave only builds up over many years | Left out |
| Agency fee | Your quote, or the middle of the indicative range you pick. Ad spend and platform fees are the same either way, so they’re left out | Monthly fee × 12 |
How rare is this person?
Each skill belongs to a specialist role that's usually advertised on its own. A specialist is typically strong in their own area and capable in a couple of neighbouring ones. We count how many specialists it takes to cover your list properly. One is realistic. Four or more, and you're looking for a unicorn. That's a rule of thumb, not survey data — but you can check it against any job board.
To be fair to employees: an agency retainer buys a set amount of work from a team, not a full-time person. For most small businesses that's plenty — and it's specialist time, not learning time.
Sources
- SEEK — marketing salaries in Australia (Jan 2026)
- What’s the Salary — graphic design, from SEEK ads (Jun 2026)
- What’s the Salary — web development, from SEEK ads (Jun 2026)
- Cloud Colleague — digital marketing salaries 2026
- Expert360 — the true cost of hiring in Australia (2026)
- RosterElf — SA payroll tax
- AHRI — Quarterly Australian Work Outlook, March 2025
- Marketing Week — Career & Salary Survey 2025
- Adobe — Creative Cloud business plans (AU)
- SEO.com — Semrush pricing
FAQ
Fair questions.
Isn’t this rigged in favour of agencies?
unpitch introduces businesses to agencies, so we understand the suspicion. That’s why every number is on this page with its source, and you can change the salary and the agency fee. If the hire comes out cheaper, the calculator says so.
Isn’t paid leave already part of the salary?
Yes, the salary keeps paying while they’re away. We count those six weeks because you’re paying 52 weeks of salary for about 46 weeks of work, while an agency team keeps going. If you’d bring in a temp to cover, it becomes real extra cash.
Why isn’t PAYG tax added?
PAYG is the income tax you withhold from your employee’s pay and send to the ATO. It comes out of their salary rather than on top of it, so adding it would count it twice. Payroll tax is different: that’s a state tax on top of wages, and you can tick it if it applies to you.
Is GST included?
No. Salaries don’t attract GST, and most businesses claim back the GST on agency fees, so we compare everything before GST.
What about ad spend?
Left out on purpose. Whether a staff member or an agency runs your ads, the money that goes to Google or Meta is the same.
Where does the agency fee come from?
Your own quote, if you have one. If not, pick an indicative monthly range and we use the middle of it as an estimate. Agency fees vary a lot with scope, so treat the comparison as a starting point and swap in a real quote when you get one.
Our salaries are lower than SEEK’s averages.
Change the salary to your number. Everything else recalculates from it.
Do you store my answers?
No. The calculator runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us.
Figures are estimates based on published Australian averages and the numbers you enter. They're a general guide, not financial, tax or employment advice.