The short answer Do your own marketing while the product is early and you have the hours, because nobody knows the customer better. Bring in help when you need customers in volume and the marketing stops every time your week fills up. Track costs £5,000 (Co-pilot) or £10,000 (Pilot) a month plus VAT for six months. If you have the hours and marketing is your craft, keep doing it.
Updated · Outfly senior team
Founder-led marketing works while the founder has time. Then a raise, a key hire or a product launch fills the diary, and the campaigns stop.
Each pause resets the learning, so the next start costs more than the last.
Running the marketing and the company at once leaves each with half your week.
of startups in Outfly's sample relied on the founder or a single hire for marketing (349 of 378).
Source: Growth Gaps 2026, Outfly's study of company websites from its own prospect list. The startup definition included "founder-led", so part of this follows from how the group was defined.
Founders know the customer and the product better than anyone, which is why early founder-led marketing is often good. It stops working when it can't run every week. Campaigns need new creative, budget moves and someone reading the numbers, and a founder's week rarely has room for all three. When the founder steps away, nothing runs, and when they come back the data is cold.
Few founders are also specialists in every discipline the work needs, from paid media to page design, so some of it runs on instinct.
On Pilot, Outfly's team runs the weekly work, so campaigns keep moving through a raise, a hire or a launch.
Buyers, proposition, brand, pages and campaigns, each handled by someone who does it for a living, with our senior team making the calls.
Track's growth plan, the FlightPlan, is built with you in week one, so the direction is yours. After that you review the work rather than produce it.
The same five rows on every comparison, so you can line the options up.
| Row | Track | Doing it yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | £5,000 (Co-pilot) or £10,000 (Pilot) a month plus VAT, fixed for a six-month minimum. Ad spend on top, paid to the platforms. | No fees. Paid in your time, plus tools and ad spend |
| Who does the work | Outfly's team runs it (Pilot), or your team runs it with Outfly creating the stories and assets and advising (Co-pilot) | You, between everything else |
| Getting started | A growth plan built with you in week one | Today |
| After six months | Channels tested with real spend, a cost per customer you can read, and pages, campaigns and tracking that keep running | Whatever you had time to build |
| Main risk | You commit to six months before the results are in, and ad spend is on top | It stops when you are busy, and the learning resets |
There is no fee to compare with, so compare the hours instead.
plus VAT for the six-month minimum term. Ad spend on top, paid to the platforms.
Paid in your hours, plus the tools and ad spend you would pay on any route.
Multiply your marketing hours a week by what an hour of your time is worth, then by 26 weeks. At 10 hours a week and £100 an hour, that is £26,000 over six months, before tools and ad spend. Put in your own figures. Then ask what else those hours would have built. That is the number to compare with Track.
The same six months, side by side.
An illustrative order of events, not a fixed schedule. Every fractional engagement is scoped differently.
An illustrative order of events, not a fixed schedule. Every retainer is scoped differently.
An illustrative order of events, not a forecast. Search and notice periods vary.
An illustrative order of events, not a forecast.
Results from two Track clients
Each figure is one client's result, and results vary.
You can run Track for six months, then take the marketing back with tested channels and a written plan. The pages, campaigns and tracking keep running, and on Co-pilot your team is already running them.
Or keep the parts only you can do, such as your own voice on LinkedIn, and on Pilot hand Track the campaigns, pages and paid media.
Self-pilot puts the Track software in your hands for £2,500 a month plus VAT. It isn't open yet and has a waitlist. Join the waitlist.
No. Ad spend is on top and paid to the platforms. Track's fee is £5,000 a month (Co-pilot) or £10,000 a month (Pilot) plus VAT, for a six-month minimum.
Yes. On Co-pilot your team runs the marketing, with Outfly creating the stories and assets and advising. You can keep your own voice on channels like LinkedIn and hand over the rest.
Three things: a product that is ready for market, budget to test it properly (from £5,000 a month plus VAT, with ad spend on top), and the nerve to let customers prove you wrong.
A freelancer suits one defined job, such as ads or a landing page, when you can direct the work yourself. It still takes your time to brief, check and join the pieces up. Track gives you the plan and a senior partner on both plans, and on Pilot the team that runs the marketing.
Campaigns stop whenever your diary fills up, the cost of each customer is rising and you can't say why, or the business needs customers faster than your spare hours can find them. Any one of these is a reason to look at the options on this page.
Yes, early on. The founder knows the customer best, and early marketing is mostly learning. It stops working when the business needs customers in volume and the founder's week is full, because marketing is the first job to pause.
The pages, campaigns and tracking keep running, and they are yours once the term is paid. You can continue with Track, hand them to an in-house team, or hire with six months of results in hand.
Yes. On Co-pilot your team runs the marketing, with Outfly creating the stories and assets and advising. It costs £5,000 a month plus VAT for a six-month minimum, with ad spend on top.
A senior hire can set direction but often lacks the hands to carry it out. A junior hire can carry it out but needs direction. That gap is one reason to run Track first, then hire with a clear brief.
Count the search, the notice period and the time to learn the business. The timeline on this page shows one order: two months to search and work out notice, two to onboard, then first campaigns in months five and six. Search and notice periods vary.
Employer National Insurance is 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year in 2026 to 2027 (GOV.UK), which adds £7,792 to a £56,950 salary. Workplace pension contributions come on top, and so do any recruitment fee, kit and software.
About £64,700 a year in salary and employer National Insurance at the national median, before pension and recruitment (Outfly's sum from the cited figures). Ashdown Group's Marketing Salary Guide 2026 puts the median at £56,950 a year, and £65,000 in London. Employers pay National Insurance at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year (GOV.UK, 2026 to 2027), plus pension and any recruitment fee.
The results are judged against the plan agreed in week one. The pages, campaigns and tracking keep running, so you can continue, take them in-house or brief an agency with them.
An agency gives you specialists in the channels you buy without a long search. A hire gives you one person who stays and learns the business. If you don't yet know which channels work, either can end up executing the wrong plan. See Track or a marketing hire.
Usually not. Ad spend is normally paid on top of the fee, so check whether a management fee or a percentage of spend is added. With Track, ad spend is paid directly to the platforms with no mark-up from Outfly. Track's fee is £5,000 a month (Co-pilot) or £10,000 a month (Pilot) plus VAT.
It is when the buyer is known, the pages convert and you need specialists to run a channel. It is harder to justify when nobody has checked who the buyer is, because more spend on the same page raises the cost of each customer.
A named owner for your account, the channels and deliverables in scope, how results are reported and against what target, who owns the ad accounts and the creative, how ad spend is billed, and the notice period. If cost per customer isn't in the reporting, ask for it. Compare proposals on the same terms, as six-month totals.
You pay an agency a fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope of work, month after month, until either side gives notice. It suits a channel that needs running every month. A project fee suits a one-off job.
£1,250 to £3,500 a month for one channel and £3,500 to £16,750 a month for full service, excluding VAT and ad spend, according to Whito's research (data collected January to May 2026). Whito publishes for agencies, so treat the ranges as indicative. Track costs £5,000 or £10,000 a month plus VAT for six months.
Yes. On Co-pilot your team runs the marketing, with Outfly creating the stories and assets and advising, so a fractional CMO can keep the strategy seat. You can also run Track first and bring in a fractional CMO afterwards.
It depends on what is missing. A fractional CMO adds senior direction. An agency adds people who execute in the channels you buy. If you are missing both, you need both, or a programme that combines them for a fixed term. See Track or an agency retainer.
A full-time CMO is in the business every day, on a salary with employer National Insurance and pension on top, after a search and a notice period. A fractional CMO brings the same seniority for a few days a month and can start once the days are agreed. Neither includes the team that does the work.
Senior time: the strategy, the plan, guidance for the team and reporting to the leadership. Creative production, campaign management, content and ad spend are usually paid for separately.
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works for a company part time, often a set number of days a month. They set the strategy, build the plan, guide the team and report to the leadership. Most do little of the hands-on work themselves.
£3,000 to £10,000 a month, or £700 to £1,400 a day, according to Practicus, a fractional CMO provider (published June 2025). That fee covers direction. The people who carry out the plan are a separate cost. Track costs £5,000 or £10,000 a month plus VAT for six months, with ad spend on top. On Pilot, Outfly's team runs the marketing. On Co-pilot, your team does, with Outfly's plan, senior partner and assets.
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