The comparison is almost always made on the wrong figure. A salary is divided by a number of videos, a flattering unit cost comes out, and the decision is taken.
What hiring in-house actually buys
Three things, and none of them is the price.
Immediate availability for small requests, the ones that do not justify a quote. Knowledge of the product, which accumulates and saves re-explaining at every brief. And control of the files, the archives and the rights, which becomes valuable after two years.
Those are real reasons. They simply have nothing to do with unit cost.
What it costs you
Two things, and the second is invisible at first.
The full cost of a post, which always exceeds the salary: contributions, equipment, software, training, management time. The applicable elements depend on your situation and are checked with an accountant.
And above all the disappearance of variety in faces. The same person in front of the camera for a year produces videos that look alike, and the advertising wears out faster. That is exactly what made the format work.
The bilingual trap
It closes after six months, never before.
A perfectly bilingual person is still one person, with one face and one accent. And the francophone market immediately recognises a video conceived in English and then transposed, even by a native speaker.
Two people, two shoots, the same brief: that is the only arrangement that holds in both markets. A one-person in-house team cannot supply it.
What to bring in-house first
Not the filming. The production.
The first person to recruit is not the one who films, it is the one who writes the briefs, chooses the creators, tracks deliveries, manages rights and archives. That post multiplies the effect of everything you buy outside.
Filming subcontracts well. Coordination does not: it is what gets lost when it sits outside.
The honest test
Three questions, and two positive answers are enough.
Do you ask for more than four videos a month, all year, with no seasonal lull? Do your videos require internal knowledge a creator would take a month to acquire? And do you have somebody to manage that post, or would they be alone?
If the third answer is "they would be alone", wait. An isolated creative post burns out, and you end up with an even longer delay than before.
What each setup implies
| Item | In-house team | External creator |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Hiring, gear, training | A brief and a quote |
| Cost per video | Fixed, whatever the volume | Variable, known in advance |
| Two languages | To be hired for | Often included |
What stays in-house whatever happens
The message, the approval of claims, the client relationship and answering comments.
What can be handed over safely
Shooting, editing, formats, subtitles and advertising variants.
The arrangement that works most often
A mixed model, and it is not a compromise.
One person in-house for production and short requests, a pool of three to five regular creators in both languages, and a test budget to try a new one each quarter.
You keep the variety of faces, control of the calendar, and knowledge of the product. It is the only structure that protects both the delay and the effectiveness of the creatives.
