Tegora vs an in-house marketing hire
Hire a marketer,or have the system run for you.
Hiring someone to run your marketing is a real option, and for some businesses it is the right one. It is also a full salary, benefits, software and weeks of hiring before anything changes. Tegora is the done-for-you alternative for owner-run home service businesses. Here are the real numbers so you can compare.
Book a callThe short version
| an in-house marketing hire | Tegora | |
|---|---|---|
| Pay | Median salary $78,760 a year in the BLS category for market research analysts and marketing specialists (May 2025) 1 | One monthly fee, quoted on the first call |
| Benefits on top | At employers with 1 to 49 workers, benefits are 25.9% of total pay. Our estimate from those figures: about $106,000 a year all-in 2 | Included |
| Time to start | A median of 44 days to fill a role, plus time to learn your business 3 | 14-day install |
| Tools they still need | A website builder ($25 to $139 a month), an SEO tool ($139 to $299 a month), a CRM and more 4 5 | Included |
| If it does not work out | Another hiring search | After 90 days, leave any month |
Pay and hiring figures are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and SHRM; the all-in estimate is our own arithmetic from them. Tool prices are each company's published plans.
When an in-house marketing hire is the right choice
You need someone on site
Photos at every job, events, signs and trucks. A person in your building can do what no outside team can.
You are big enough to keep them busy
If you have a full-time job's worth of marketing, a good hire learns your business deeply.
You want marketing to be part of your team
Some owners want the person down the hall, and that is a fair reason.
Where a single hire gets stretched
One person, five jobs
Website, Google profile, SEO, ads, reviews and answering leads are different skills. One hire is rarely strong at all of them.
Nobody answers at 9pm
An employee works their hours. Leads that come in at night or on a Sunday wait until Monday.
What Tegora does instead
We install it and run it
Your website, lead response, Google profile and AI visibility, installed in 14 days and run every month. You spend about 30 minutes on an intake.
Every lead answered in under a minute
An AI receptionist answers every call and form, day and night, books the visit and flags emergencies. Quotes get followed up until the customer says yes or no.
One screen that shows what is working
Your console shows every lead, where it came from, where you rank and how far your Google Maps reach goes, street by street.
You own all of it
The website, the domain, your Google profile and every lead are yours from day one. If you leave, you keep everything.
Questions
Can Tegora work with my marketing person?
Yes. If you already have someone, we can run the system and the lead answering while they focus on the work that needs a person on site.
What does Tegora cost?
One monthly fee for the whole system and the people running it. We quote it on the first call, after looking at your business, because a roofer and a cleaning company need different things.
Am I locked into a long contract?
The first 90 days cover the install and your first two monthly sprints. After that it is month to month.
Who owns the website and data?
You do: the site, the domain, your Google profile and every lead. Tegora runs the system on top of them, and you keep all of it if you leave.
Who is Tegora for?
Owner-run home service businesses doing roughly $20K to $80K a month with a crew, mostly in DC, Maryland and Virginia. If that is not you, we will say so on the call.
See your business on one screen.
Book a call. We'll show you where jobs are slipping through and what fixing it looks like. If an in-house marketing hire is the better fit for you, we'll say so.
Book a callSources (checked October 16, 2026)
- Market research analysts and marketing specialists, BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
- Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, by establishment size, BLS
- 2025 Recruiting Benchmarking Report, SHRM
- Squarespace pricing (official)
- Semrush pricing (official)
Salaries and costs change: the sources above have the latest figures. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@tegora.ai and we'll fix it.