I am a freelancer, so treat this as an interested opinion with the reasoning shown. There are genuine cases where an agency is the better choice, and there are freelancers you should not hire. Both are worth naming plainly.
What a Google Ads freelancer costs
Typical rates: $500–$2,500 a month for ongoing management depending on spend and complexity, or $75–$200 an hour for project work. A one-off account audit runs $300–$1,500.
Under about $400 a month, nobody is spending meaningful time in your account. That is a report-generating relationship, not a management one.
What you actually get from a specialist
The person you speak to is the person in the account. No account manager translating your business into a brief, no junior learning on your budget, no strategy call with a senior who then disappears.
You also get faster decisions. Changing a bid strategy takes a message rather than a ticket.
When an agency is the better choice
Choose an agency if you need multiple disciplines delivered at once — creative production, SEO, email, development — or if you are spending heavily enough to need daily coverage and holiday cover. Procurement requirements at large companies also often rule freelancers out.
A freelancer is a single point of failure. That is a real trade-off, not a detail.
Questions to ask before hiring
Who will be in the account day to day? Do I own the Google Ads and GA4 accounts? What does your conversion tracking setup include? What reporting will I get and how often? What is the notice period? Can you show an account in my situation and explain what you changed and why?
The tracking answer is the tell. Anyone who cannot explain how they will verify conversions is going to optimise toward the wrong number — the problem I wrote about in why most conversion tracking is broken.
Red flags
Guaranteed positions or guaranteed lead counts. Refusal to give you admin access to your own accounts. Management fees charged as a percentage with no floor on hours. Reporting that shows impressions and clicks but never cost per lead.