Do you still need an agency?
Independent, represented, or both. An honest look at what an agency actually provides and what you can now do yourself.
The question is usually framed as a loyalty test, which is unhelpful. An agency is a service you buy with a share of your income. The useful question is not whether agencies are good, it is which parts of what they do you still need someone else to do.
What an agency genuinely provides
Access is the real product. A good agency has relationships with clients you cannot reach by yourself, and being on their roster puts you in rooms you would not otherwise enter. That is difficult to replicate and worth paying for.
The rest is administration and credibility: chasing payment, negotiating on your behalf, and being an established name that makes a nervous client comfortable. These are valuable, but they are no longer scarce.
What you can now do yourself
Presentation, structured enquiries, quoting, taking payment, and keeping records are all things an independent person can now do to a professional standard. That was not true fifteen years ago, and it is the reason the independent path is viable at all.
What does not become easier on your own is demand. Tools fix how you handle work that arrives. They do not, by themselves, make it arrive.
The hybrid case, which is most people
In practice, plenty of people are represented for one kind of work and independent for another: an agency handles the campaigns, and direct clients come to them for everything else.
This is usually the strongest position, because your income is not tied to one relationship. It does require being clear with everyone about which work goes through whom, and honouring any exclusivity you have agreed to.
How to decide
Look at where your last ten jobs came from. If most were introduced by someone else, you are buying access and the commission is doing its job. If most came to you directly, you are paying a share of income for administration you already handle.
That is the whole calculation. It is worth redoing once a year, because the answer changes as your reputation grows.
- Can I be independent and with an agency at the same time?
- Often yes, but it depends entirely on what you signed. Exclusivity clauses may limit a market, a category, or a period, so read the agreement before taking direct work.
- Do I need an agency to look professional?
- No. Presentation is now something you control directly. Credibility comes from how your work and your process look, not from whose roster you are on.
- What does an agency do that I cannot?
- Introduce you to clients who do not know you exist. That is the part worth paying for; most of the rest is administration.
- Is going independent risky?
- The risk is demand, not admin. If your bookings currently come from an agency's relationships, leaving removes the source before it removes the work.
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