- Graphic Design
Outsourced Graphic Design vs. In-House Design
Your business needs graphic design. Maybe a lot of it.
Sales materials need updating. A presentation is due next week. Someone needs to design the new trade show booth. There are social graphics, reports, ads, packaging, signage and a growing list of other things that should all look like they came from the same company.
At some point, trying to squeeze design into someone’s already full job, or finding a freelancer every time something comes up, stops making sense.
So, should you hire an in-house graphic designer or outsource your graphic design? The answer depends on how much design work you have, how consistently you need it and what kind of creative support your business actually requires.
At Steady, we often work with established businesses that fall somewhere in the middle. They need professional graphic design on a regular basis, but they don’t necessarily have 40 hours of design work every week. For them, working with us as an ongoing external creative partner can make more sense than hiring a full-time employee.
That model isn’t right for every business. Sometimes hiring in-house really does make more sense.
Is it better to outsource graphic design or hire in-house?
Neither outsourced graphic design nor an in-house designer is automatically better. The right choice depends on your workload, budget, required skills and how closely your designer needs to be integrated into your day-to-day operations.
An in-house designer is an employee who basically works exclusively for your business. They become part of your team, learn your brand from the inside and are generally available whenever design work comes up.
Outsourced graphic design means working with someone outside your company. That could be a freelancer, subscription design service, graphic design agency or independent design studio.
That’s an important distinction because not all outsourcing relationships work the same way. Sending occasional projects to a rotating group of freelancers is very different from working with the same external design studio for years.
Before deciding which route makes sense, it helps to look at what you’re actually getting from each model.
How does outsourced graphic design compare with an in-house designer?
The biggest differences between outsourced and in-house graphic design are cost structure, availability, capacity, range of skills and how the relationship with your business develops.
Factor | In-house designer | Outsourced design studio |
Cost structure | Salary plus employment costs | Pay for agreed services or projects |
Availability | Dedicated to your business | Shared among multiple clients |
Capacity | Limited to one employee’s workload | Can often scale with changing needs |
Range of skills | Depends on the person you hire | Access to a broader range of skills |
Brand familiarity | Usually very high | Can become very high with an ongoing relationship |
Turnaround | Good for frequent day-to-day requests | Depends on scheduling and studio capacity |
Management | Requires employee management | Requires briefing and relationship management |
Continuity | Strong while the employee remains | Strong when you consistently work with the same studio |
Scalability | Additional capacity requires additional hiring | Easier to increase or decrease support |
Perspective | Deep internal knowledge | Fresh external perspective |
Best fit | High, consistent design workload | Recurring or variable needs below full-time capacity |
On paper, both options have some pretty attractive upsides, but you need to think carefully about how those differences line up with the way your business works day to day.
How much graphic design work does your business actually have?
The volume and consistency of the design workload should probably be the biggest factor in deciding whether to hire a designer or outsource the work.
Ask yourself: Could we keep a good graphic designer occupied five days a week?
For some businesses, the answer is an easy yes, but those people aren’t reading this article right now. They already went out and hired a designer. If there is a constant stream of campaigns, presentations, digital ads, sales materials, packaging, social content, internal communications and other creative work coming through daily, having someone right there on your team can be incredibly useful.
For other businesses, the need is regular but uneven, making the answer less clear. You might need 30 hours of design one month and five the next. A major catalogue, annual report or trade show might create a temporary spike. Then things quiet down again for months. That’s where the economics of a full-time employee start to change.
Is an in-house graphic designer more cost-effective?
An in-house designer can be very cost-effective if your business consistently uses their available capacity. If you don’t have enough work to keep them busy, outsourcing can make more financial sense.
The Government of Canada’s Job Bank currently reports a median wage of $31.25 per hour for graphic designers and illustrators across Canada.
For businesses in BC, the relevant wage can be higher depending on the region and experience level. And salary is only part of the actual cost of adding an employee.
Employers may also be responsible for costs such as:
- CPP contributions
- EI premiums
- vacation pay
- extended health or other benefits
- computer equipment
- software licences
- recruiting and onboarding
- professional development
- management time
The Canada Revenue Agency publishes the current CPP and EI contribution requirements for employers, which should be included when calculating the real cost of adding an employee.
If you weren’t thinking about all that it can seem like a lot, but none of this means hiring a designer is too expensive. It’s a normal part of having employees.
If your business legitimately has enough work for that person, an employee’s salary and associated costs may be money very well spent. However, if you only really need a fraction of their available time, then you’re paying for capacity you aren’t using.
That’s where outsourced graphic design might start to make sense. Instead of asking, “Which hourly rate is cheaper?” ask, “How much professional design capacity do we actually need over the course of a year?” If the answer starts approaching 25–30 hours every week, it may be time to seriously compare the cost of outsourced design with bringing someone in-house.
Do you need one graphic designer or a wider range of creative skills?
An in-house designer gives you access to the skills and experience of the individual you hire, while an external studio can give you access to a broader creative skill set.
Also consider the breadth of work you need. If it’s all catalogues, all the time, the right designer can easily cover it. If you need catalogues, signage, packaging, social media graphics and video reels edited, you shouldn’t rely on the mythical uberdesigner who can do it all and do it well.
Don’t misunderstand, a talented graphic designer can absolutely be versatile. Many are.
But even the most versatile designer has their limits. Businesses don’t always need the same kind of design every day. The same designer who’s a wiz at editorial layout probably doesn’t excel at working with the factory to refine the pattern for your company’s newest apparel items.
One month you might need a polished annual report. The next project might involve packaging, signage or a trade show display. Then you need website graphics, a presentation deck or help figuring out how a new campaign should look.
Finding one person who is equally strong at every type of creative work your specific business might encounter is difficult. Everyone is out there looking for their own personal design unicorn.
AI and increasingly sophisticated design tools have also made it easier than ever to produce something that looks reasonably polished. They’ve also made it easier to produce a lot of work that looks remarkably similar.
For an established business, producing more graphics is easy. Maintaining a recognizable visual identity as the brand adapts to new applications, audiences and ideas takes more skill.
That’s one of many reasons access to experienced designers still matters. Whether they’re in-house or outsourced, a good designer isn’t just operating software. They’re making decisions about what fits the brand, what doesn’t and when consistency should give way to something new.
An in-house designer can bring that expertise to your team every day. An external studio can make it easier to draw on different capabilities as the business grows and the work changes.
This can be particularly useful for businesses with a small internal marketing team. Your marketing people can focus on strategy, content, campaigns and communication while an external creative team handles the design work they aren’t equipped (or don’t have time) to produce themselves.
Will an outsourced designer understand your brand as well as someone in-house?
An in-house designer has a natural advantage when it comes to day-to-day knowledge of your business, but a long-term external design partner can build substantial brand knowledge too.
This might be one of the strongest arguments for hiring in-house. Before starting Steady, Rachael and I both worked in-house at footwear company SOLE, for six and 12 years respectively. We spent years developing, evolving and refining the brand, contributing to a period of rapid growth.
The brand has continued to evolve since then, but much of the visual language we helped establish, and more importantly the heart and spirit behind it, remains. If your needs go beyond ongoing design support into developing or redefining the brand itself, that may be a sign it’s time to hire a branding studio.
Someone working inside your company every day hears the conversations, knows the people and sees how decisions get made. Over time, they develop an instinct for what looks and feels right for the brand.
The classic outsourcing experience can be very different.
You hire a freelancer for one project. You explain the company, send the brand guidelines, find the old files, describe what you liked about the last piece and explain all the strange little details that nobody would know unless they’d worked with you before. Things go well, and the project wraps up.
Six months later, you need design help again. You were happy with the last contractor, but they aren’t available. So you find someone else and do it all again. Beyond being exhausting, that lack of continuity and consistency can hurt your brand. The problem there isn’t the outsourcing part. It’s the starting over part.
Can an external design studio become a long-term creative partner?
I’m glad you asked. The answer is yes. Working consistently with the same external studio can create much of the continuity businesses are looking for without requiring a full-time internal design position.
The calculation changes when your external designers aren’t meeting your business for the first time on every project. They already have your files. They know your brand standards. They might have even been the ones who helped you build them.
You work together project-to-project, so they remember what you did last time. They know which ideas you loved, which ones you rejected and which ones caused a three-day email chain that nobody wants to repeat. Most importantly, each project adds to what they know about your business.
This is how many of our client relationships work at Steady.
We don’t think of ourselves as transactional. Our best relationships are ongoing, with businesses we’ve worked with consistently for years. Over time, we become familiar with their brands, products, teams, suppliers and the practical realities of getting their work out the door.
That continuity gives the client a lot of the benefits normally associated with an internal designer while still giving them access to an external creative team and their extended network.
When does hiring an in-house graphic designer make more sense?
Hiring an in-house graphic designer usually makes sense when you know for sure that your business has enough consistent work for a full-time role and needs design support deeply integrated into daily operations.
You may be ready to hire internally if:
- you consistently have 30 to 40 hours of meaningful design work every week
- design requests require immediate or near-immediate attention
- the designer needs to participate in frequent internal meetings
- the work requires deep knowledge of complex products or internal systems
- you want to build an internal creative or marketing department
- the position includes other responsibilities that make it a genuine full-time role
There is also something valuable and intangible about simply having your designer in the room. If marketing is moving quickly and creative work is happening every day, walking over to someone’s desk, opening a file and solving a problem together is hard to beat.
If you have the workload to support that role, hiring a good designer may be exactly the right move.
When does outsourced graphic design make more sense?
Outsourced graphic design usually makes more sense when professional design is an ongoing need but the volume, variety or predictability of the work doesn’t justify another full-time employee.
Outsourcing might be better if:
- your design workload changes significantly from month to month
- you regularly need different kinds of creative expertise
- there isn’t enough design work for a full-time position
- your existing marketing staff are spending too much time making graphics themselves
- the graphics your marketing staff are generating are… lacking
- you’re constantly searching for freelancers when projects come up
- you need additional capacity during launches, events or busy seasons
- you want outside creative input as well as design production
- It can also work well when your company already has an internal marketing person or a small team but doesn’t need an internal design department.
Your marketing people don’t necessarily need another employee. They may just need a reliable creative team they can call when they need them.
What if you need ongoing graphic design support, but not a full-time designer?
A long-term external design partner can fill the space between hiring a full-time designer and outsourcing every project to someone new.
For a lot of established businesses, this is the sweet spot. You have too much design work to keep improvising, but you don’t have enough to justify hiring someone full-time.
You also don’t want every project to begin with:
“Hello! Looking forward to working with you. Here’s our logo, fonts, and guidelines…”
A steady design relationship works differently.
Instead of:
Find designer → explain business → complete project → start over
it becomes:
Build relationship → accumulate knowledge → complete project → build on it next time
One of our long-term clients, Green Line Hose & Fittings, is a good example.
Our work together isn’t limited to one type of project. We’ve supported Green Line across product packaging, catalogues, signage, print collateral, branded materials, logos, icons, and infographics as well as other ongoing creative needs.
Each new project doesn’t start from zero. It builds on previous work and a shared understanding of the brand today, and where it’s going tomorrow.
We know the value of that. It’s a big part of why we called ourselves Steady Studio. We want to go steady!
It’s an aspect of outsourcing that a simple “employee vs. agency” comparison tends to miss.
How can you decide which graphic design model is right for your business?
Start by looking at the amount and type of design work your business actually produces over a full year.
Consider hiring an in-house designer if:
- you have enough work to keep someone consistently busy
- immediate availability is important
- deep day-to-day integration matters
- you’re building an internal creative team
Consider outsourcing graphic design if:
- your workload fluctuates
- you need access to different creative skills
- you don’t have enough work for a full-time designer
- you want to scale your design support up and down
Consider a long-term external design partner if:
- you need graphic design regularly
- consistency and brand familiarity are important
- one-off freelancers are becoming inefficient
- you want an ongoing creative relationship without adding another full-time employee
Sometimes your business really does need an in-house designer, but if you find yourself thinking: “We need a designer all the time, just not full-time,” there is another option.
That’s exactly the kind of relationship we’ve built with many of our clients at Steady.
Ready to go Steady?
We provide ongoing graphic design support while getting to know the businesses and brands we work with over the long term. You get a creative team that already knows you, without needing to put us on the payroll.