Comparison
The hire feels safer. The math disagrees.
The default instinct is to hire: one marketer, maybe one SDR, plus an agency to fill the gaps. Priced honestly, that stack runs $160K to $190K per year before payroll taxes, software, and the six months of ramp, and it still leaves nobody accountable for the whole pipeline.
The line items nobody budgets
A marketing manager loads to roughly $140K to $175K with tax and benefits. An SDR loads to $70K to $90K. Tools add $20K a year. Ramp takes a quarter or two, and B2B sales hiring carries miss rates near a coin flip. Price the miss: $80K to $150K of cost for zero meetings, then you start over.
A pipeline firm costs in the range of one loaded mid level hire and delivers a team across disciplines no single human possesses, with a meeting commitment in writing and a notice period instead of a severance.
The framework by stage
Under $1M, neither: the founder sells. $1M to $10M, outsource the pipeline and keep the close in house. Past $10M, hire sales leadership and internalize, ideally inheriting a documented system rather than a blank page.
What founders ask first
Yes, and we publish the framework. Past roughly $10M in revenue, in house leadership starts to pay for itself, and the best outcome is internalizing a system we documented for you.
George Stoff, Founder and Lead Engineer
Thirty years building software, brands, and demand. On every account.