Know what you get, what you can see and what you keep, before you sign.
You sell a service and you want more of the right customers, so you are weighing an agency retainer, a first hire, your own evenings and bought leads. Put each one next to TruLata on the five questions that decide it: who does the work, what you can see, who owns the data, what it costs on our published tiers, and what happens when you stop.
How do the five compare, side by side?
Each column says how that option works. The prices on the page are our published tiers.
| TruLata | Agency retainer | In-house hire | Doing it yourself | Buying leads | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Engines on a schedule. Google Ads search is managed, with a change watch every morning, on all tiers; content runs on your cadence on Launch, Growth and Command; prospects are sourced weekly on Command. Prospect emails leave from a review-first queue; a person releases them, or the queue releases on the schedule set for the engagement, and every send is logged. On Command, your full marketing team, always on, runs the program. | The agency's staff, inside the scope you pay for, on the agency's schedule. | One person, across every channel, with what that one person knows. | You, after the day's jobs are done. | The marketplace markets. You pay per lead and call each one back. |
| What you can see | One screen that refreshes when you open it, stamped with how old the data is. Where we host your site or handle its forms, each form submission is counted from your own forms and appended to a lead sheet server-side as it arrives. | What the agency chooses to report, when it chooses to report it. | What they tell you, plus any console you learn to read yourself. | Every console, one at a time, on the nights you have time. | The leads you were charged for. Nothing upstream of them. |
| Who owns the data | You. Every Google connection is a grant you revoke in your own console. Where we host your site or handle its forms, each submission is recorded server-side as it arrives and read by the Leads view. Every piece of content is filed as a Google Doc as it is made. | Whoever the contract says, in whoever's name the accounts were opened. Ask before you sign. | You, on paper. In practice, the accounts and the head of one employee. | You, entirely. | The marketplace keeps the relationship. A marketplace lead is a shared lead. |
| What it costs on our published tiers | Starter is $400 a month, Launch $650, Growth $1,200, and Command is scoped per engagement. | A retainer the agency sets. We publish no figures for anyone else. | A salary, plus everything that comes with employing someone. | Your evenings. | A price per lead the marketplace sets. |
| What happens when you stop | The next month is not billed. You revoke our access in your own consoles. While your seats are open, the Leads view still reads your lead rows. | The notice period runs, the reporting stops, and the accounts go wherever the contract puts them. | Notice, a handover if there is time, and the knowledge leaves with the person. | The work stops the night you stop. | The leads stop when the payments do. Nothing has accumulated. |
What are my real options?
Your list is short. Keep an agency on retainer. Make a first hire. Do it yourself once the trucks are back. Or buy leads from a marketplace and compete for each one. TruLata is built for the owner holding that list: you sell a service, across a territory or several locations, and you want the marketing to run whether or not anyone had time. Here is how it compares with the other four.
Read each comparison on its own page: keeping an agency on retainer, making your first marketing hire, running it yourself at night, and paying a marketplace for shared leads. TruLata still sells agency work, including managed marketing for local service businesses, so the agency column describes work we know from the inside, not a competitor we are guessing at.
Your short list, and the five questions that decide it
- An agency retainer
- A first marketing hire
- Your own evenings
- Leads from a marketplace
- Who does the work
- What you can see
- Who owns the data
- What it costs
- What happens when you stop
Who does the work for me?
An agency's people do the work, inside the scope you pay for, on their schedule. A hire does all of it alone, across channels that each take years to learn. On your own, you do it after hours. With a marketplace, it does the marketing and you call each lead back.
TruLata splits the work in two, and the split is the product. Scheduled work runs whether anyone is at a desk. On all tiers your Google Ads search is managed and the account's change history is read every morning at 7:05 Eastern. On all tiers the search and AI visibility program measures where you stand, across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok. On Launch, Growth and Command content is researched and drafted on your cadence. On Command prospects are sourced every week to the target profile set with you. And the page pulls your live numbers when you open it. Judged work goes through people. Prospect emails leave from a review-first queue; a person releases them, or the queue releases on the schedule set for the engagement, and every send is logged. Budget and bid changes in your ad accounts are made within the limits set for your engagement and land in your account's own change history. Every change Google records in the account's change history, whoever made it, is read the next morning by the change watch, along with the account's user list. On Command, our team runs the program. The request lifecycle shows which work is which.
Scheduled work by the clock, judged work by a person
- Your live numberspulled when you open the page
- Ads change watchthe account's change history, read every morning
- Contentresearched and drafted, on Launch, Growth and Command
- Prospect sourcingto the target profile set with you, on Command
- Prospect emailsleave from a review-first queue, every send logged
Scheduled work runs whether anyone is at a desk.
What can I see, and can I trust it?
An agency shows you what it chooses to report, when it chooses to. An employee shows you what they know. On your own, you open every console, one at a time. A marketplace shows you the leads it charged you for and nothing upstream of them.
TruLata puts every workstream on one screen, and it refreshes because you opened it. The page loads last night's snapshot first, asks for live numbers, and runs a pull in the background when they are more than five minutes old. The screen fills the moment it opens and the numbers update in place. The header stamp says when the data was pulled. Each source is as fresh as its owner allows: your CRM, Stripe, your booking platform, website leads and email statistics are live; Google Ads and GA4 lag by hours during the day; Search Console runs two to three days behind.
The lead count matters most against a marketplace. Where we host your site or handle its forms, each submission is recorded server-side as it arrives, and the Leads view reads it with the source captured at submission. A marketplace lead is a shared lead. Yours are counted from your own forms. Where your forms feed the lead sheet, a daily watch at 7:20 Eastern also compares that count with what Google Ads and GA4 report, so a dead tag or a blind ad account is flagged the next day rather than at the end of the quarter.
Who owns my data when it ends?
Ask this before you sign anything, because the answer decides what you are left with. With an agency it depends on the contract and on whose name the accounts were opened in. With a hire the accounts are yours and the knowledge sits in one head. On your own, all of it is yours. With a marketplace, the customer relationship belongs to the marketplace, which is what lets it sell the same lead to more than one business.
With TruLata, everything worth keeping is written where you can read it, as it is made. Where we host your site or handle its forms, each submission is recorded server-side as it arrives and read by the Leads view. Each piece of content is filed as a Google Doc in your Drive as it is made. Every Google connection, Analytics, Search Console, Ads and Business Profile, is a grant you revoke in your own console, and we hold no Google passwords. Where we publish to WordPress, it is by an application password you can revoke. Card data is never read, and your inbox and calendar join the read set only where a connection is set up for your instance. What we read and what leaves with you has its own page.
With the other three
- Accounts in whoever's name the contract says
- What one employee knew, in one head
- The customer relationship, kept by the marketplace
With TruLata
- Lead rows recorded as they arrive
- Each piece of content filed as a Google Doc
- Every Google connection a manager invitation you revoke
- No Google passwords held
What will it cost me?
We publish our own numbers and nobody else's. Starter is $400 a month, Launch $650, Growth $1,200, and Command is scoped per engagement. Starter carries the TruLata dashboard, full analytics, leads, search visibility, the AI visibility program, managed Google Ads search, the assistant and briefings and support tickets; Launch adds the content engine; Growth adds Meta ads; Command adds the outbound engine, social media management and your full marketing team, always on. Seats are three on Starter, three on Launch, ten on Growth and unlimited on Command. Every tier is one flat monthly figure, month to month. Commit for a year and pay 20 percent less each month.
An agency retainer, a salary and a price per lead are set by other people, so those cells stay blank rather than carry a guess. Compare on mechanism: what you get for the number, what you can see, and what you keep. The pricing page carries the same figures.
Starter is $400 a month, Launch $650, Growth $1,200, and Command is scoped per engagement.
What happens when I stop?
With an agency, the notice period runs, the reporting stops and the accounts go wherever the contract puts them. With a hire, you get a handover if there is time. On your own, the work stops the night you stop. With a marketplace, the leads stop when the payments do, and nothing has accumulated.
With TruLata, you stop. Month to month means the next month is not billed. Revoke our manager access in your own Google consoles. The Leads view still reads your lead rows while your seats are open. Every piece of content is already filed as a Google Doc in your Drive.
- The next month is not billedMonth to month, on every tier
- You revoke our manager accessIn your own Google consoles
- Your lead rows stay readableThe Leads view reads them while your seats are open
- Your content is already filedA Google Doc in your Drive for every piece, from the day it was made
Pick the one you are weighing.
| Alternative | Where the comparison turns | Read it |
|---|---|---|
| An agency retainer | Who does the work, what gets reported, and whose name is on the accounts | Read the agency comparison |
| A first marketing hire | One person across every channel, and what leaves when they do | Read the hiring comparison |
| Doing it yourself | Your evenings, every console one at a time, and what stops when you stop | Read the do-it-yourself comparison |
| Buying leads from a marketplace | A shared lead against one counted from your own forms | Read the marketplace comparison |
| Our published tiers | Starter is $400 a month, Launch $650, Growth $1,200, and Command is scoped per engagement | See the numbers |
We publish our own figures on every page and guess at nobody else's.
Questions, answered.
Is TruLata an agency or software?
Software with a team behind it. The engines run on a schedule. Prospect emails leave from a review-first queue; a person releases them, or the queue releases on the schedule set for the engagement, and every send is logged. Google Ads search is managed on all tiers, and on Command our team runs the program. TruLata sells agency services too, on their own pages.
Can I keep my agency and add TruLata?
Yes. Add our Google account as a manager on your Ads account and the ads view reports on it. The change watch reads Google's change history every morning at 7:05 Eastern and sorts each change by who made it, so your agency's changes and ours both sit in the record.
Do you sell or resell leads?
We never sell or resell a lead. Leads in TruLata are counted from your own website forms, recorded server-side as they arrive and read by the Leads view. A marketplace lead is a shared lead. These are yours.
Why are there no figures for the alternatives?
Because we hold no verified numbers for agency retainers, salaries or marketplace lead prices, and we would not want ours quoted from a guess. Each alternative is compared on how it works.
What do I keep if I leave?
Your Google accounts, with our manager access revoked by you; your lead rows, read by the Leads view while your seats are open; and every piece of content, filed as a Google Doc in your Drive as it was made. The next month is not billed.
How long before it is running on my accounts?
Access comes first. Then comes the first pull, baselines, the keyword set and the ads watch. After that come the content cadence, ads reports, email flows and goals.
See it running
before you decide.
The demo is the real product on a fictional company, with your name and email in front of it. Pricing is three published tiers.
Open the live demo See pricing
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- Refreshed when you open itLive data on page load, never a monthly PDF
- Counted from your own formsLeads recorded server-side, compared daily with Ads and GA4
- Seen in AI answersHow often ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok name you, measured
- Every send loggedProspect emails leave from a review-first queue, and every send is logged.