Internal agencies are having a moment. Cella’s 2025 Intelligence Report shows 55% of enterprise creative teams are formalising an in-house model — up more than 15 points in a single year.
Leaders love the idea: faster cycles, lower unit cost, tighter brand control. But as the first wave of converts is discovering, bringing everything inside isn’t the finish-line — it’s the starting-gun.
Why the stampede
The appeal is obvious: get work done faster, cheaper, and closer to the brand. Speed-to-market is often the first driver — marketing teams are under pressure to launch in hours, not weeks. Then there’s the cost angle: why pay agency mark-ups for resize work or banner variants?
There’s also a desire for more control: tighter grip on first-party data, better consistency across campaigns, and seamless integration with internal martech and AI tools. On paper, it all makes sense.
But here’s where it gets tricky — and where good intentions can lead to operational gridlock.
What starts strong… can stall fast
At first, it works. The team is motivated. The first few sprints land early. Then the backlog grows. Timelines stretch. Motion designers sit idle between campaign pushes. AI pilots stall because no one’s formally resourced to maintain them.
And soon, the symptoms creep in:
- Escalations in Slack start replacing briefs.
- Turnover hits niche roles that don’t have steady work.
- The once-mighty internal team starts outsourcing on the sly.
In fact a recent report found that 76% of in-house creative leaders report burn-out.
Pitfalls that can derail the shift
1. Bandwidth overload
When everything’s marked “urgent” and still nothing ships on time — you’ve got a resourcing mismatch. Without overflow support, backlogs become black holes.
2. Idle specialists
Inconsistent need for motion or 3D design leads to idle time or attrition. These roles often make sense on paper but are hard to keep sustainably busy.
3. Tunnel vision
Without external input, brand creative can start to feel… recycled. Same layout, same typeface, same call-to-action. Audiences get bored. So do the designers.
4. Hidden costs creep
More SaaS. More rework. More manual process. The agency retainer might be gone, but a dozen new inefficiencies take its place.
5. Burn-out and attrition
When everyone becomes a production machine, energy drops and people leave — taking valuable context and momentum with them.
So… does the in-house model work?
Yes — with a caveat.
The teams that thrive keep an external elastic layer ready to absorb spikes, fill gaps, and keep creative momentum moving.
That means:
- Having a 24–72 hour overflow partner in place.
- Running regular “outside-in” sprints to reset the creative perspective.
- Hiring operations and QA roles before the tenth designer.
In-house gives you context. But without elasticity, speed becomes pressure. And pressure kills output.
Final thought
In-housing solves for speed and control — until volume, complexity, and team bandwidth catch up. The reality is that no team can do everything all the time.
Need an elastic layer that ships in 12–36 hours and plays nicely with your internal crew?
That’s literally why Perpetual exists.
