Know what you get, what you see and what you keep, before you sign anything.
If nobody on your staff does marketing, you are choosing between an agency retainer, a first hire, your own evenings and bought leads. This page puts each one next to the Command Center 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 does each one line up, side by side?
Each column describes how that option works. The only figures on the page are our published tiers.
| Command Center | Agency retainer | In-house hire | Doing it yourself | Buying leads | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Engines on a schedule: managed Google Ads search with a change watch every morning on all tiers, content on your cadence on Launch, Growth and Command, prospects 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, within the scope of the retainer, on the agency's schedule. | One person, across every channel, with whatever that one person knows. | You, after the day's jobs are done. | The marketplace does the marketing. You pay per lead and call each one back. |
| What you can see | One screen that refreshes when you open it, with a stamp that says how old the data is. Where we host the site or handle its forms, each lead is counted from your own forms and appended to your 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 the time. | The leads you were charged for. Nothing upstream of them. |
| Who owns the data | You. Every Google connection is a manager invitation you revoke in your own console. Where we host the site or handle its forms, each submission is recorded server-side as it arrives, read by the Leads view, and you export it from there as a CSV. Each 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 holds 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 exports your lead rows as a CSV. | 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 am I choosing between?
Your list is short. Keep an agency on retainer. Hire someone. Do it yourself once the trucks are back. Or buy leads from a marketplace and compete for each one. The Command Center is built for the owner holding that list: a service territory, a new customer worth three thousand dollars or more, and nobody on staff whose job is marketing. This page is the plain version of 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 a way of working we know from the inside, not a competitor.
Who does the work for me?
An agency's people do the work, within the scope you pay for, on their schedule. A hire does all of it alone, across channels that each take years to learn. Doing it yourself, you do. Buying leads, the marketplace does the marketing and you call each one back.
The Command Center splits the work into two kinds, 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; 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 the review-first queue: 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 by a person, never by a scheduled job, and every change to the account, whoever made it, is read the next morning by the change watch. On Command, our team runs the program. The request lifecycle lays out which work is which.
What can I see, and can I trust it?
An agency shows you what it chooses to report, when it chooses to report it. An employee shows you what they know. On your own, you see every console, one at a time. A marketplace shows you the leads it charged you for and nothing upstream of them.
The Command Center is one screen for every workstream, and it refreshes because you opened it. The page loads last night's snapshot first, asks for live numbers, and if they are more than five minutes old runs the pull in the background, so the screen fills the moment it opens and the numbers update in place. The header stamp says when the data was pulled. Some sources cannot be made fresher than their 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.
Where the lead count comes from matters most against a marketplace. Where we host the 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. On one instance a daily watch also compares that count with what Google Ads and GA4 report, because on that site the two once disagreed for six weeks.
Who owns the 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 but 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 the Command Center, everything worth keeping is written where you can read it, as it is made. Where we host the site or handle its forms, each submission is recorded server-side as it arrives, read by the Leads view, and you export it from there as a CSV. Each piece of content is filed as a Google Doc as it is made. Every Google connection, Analytics, Search Console, Ads and Business Profile, is a manager invitation 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. Nothing on any client instance reads your inbox, your calendar or your customers' card data. What we read and what leaves with you is its own page.
What does it cost?
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 Command Center, 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, ad creatives 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 month to month and nothing is metered. Setup takes two to four weeks and is not billed. Commit annually and pay twenty to twenty-five percent less each month.
An agency retainer, a salary and a price per lead are set by other people, and we leave those cells blank rather than quote a guess. Compare on mechanism instead: what you get for the number, what you can see, and what you keep. The pricing page carries the same figures with nothing added.
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, there is 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 the Command Center, you stop. Month to month means the next month is not billed. You revoke our manager access in your own Google consoles. While your seats are open, the Leads view exports your lead rows as a CSV, and every piece of content is already filed as a Google Doc in your Drive.
One page each.
| 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 a lead 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, because a comparison built on guesses deserves no more trust than a competitor guessing ours.
Questions, answered.
Is the Command Center an agency or software?
Software with a team behind it. The engines run on a schedule, and 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 as well, on their own pages.
Can I keep my agency and add the Command Center?
Yes. Once your Ads account is connected, the ads view reports on it, and 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?
No. Leads in the Command Center 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?
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 instead.
What do I keep if I leave?
Your Google accounts, with our manager access revoked by you; a CSV of your lead rows from the Leads view, exported 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?
Two to four weeks, and setup is not billed. Week one is access. Week two is the first pull, baselines, the keyword set and the ads watch. Weeks three and four bring 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 no form in front of it. Pricing is three published tiers. Setup on your own accounts takes two to four weeks.
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
- Four answer engines, measuredChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok, with a published denominator
- A review-first queue on every sendEvery draft waits in a review-first queue and every send is logged.