Work at an agency or in-house
Two paths in affiliate: serve clients via a performance agency, or sit on a product team. Where the career is faster, where it is calmer, where the money is.
One of the main questions in an affiliate career is where to go. Into an agency where clients, niches and volumes keep changing — or into a product where you are one player in one game and see how a tiny metric improvement brings big money. Let us figure out which fits you.
| Parameter | Agency | In-house |
|---|---|---|
| Nature of work | Client services: campaign launches, optimisation, reports | Internal product: revenue, LTV, retention growth |
| Number of projects | 3–10 clients at once, different niches | One product, deep immersion |
| Pace | High: client deadlines, status calls, reports | Calmer, long experiments, product cycles |
| Career growth | Fast: in a year you cover 5 niches, build a portfolio | Gradual: in 2 years you become an expert in one niche |
| Salary (Junior) | $1200–2000 fixed | $1500–2500 fixed |
| Salary (Middle) | $2500–4500 + bonus on client profit | $3000–6000 + percentage on product growth |
| Salary (Senior) | $5000–10,000 + bonus, lower ceiling | $8000–20,000 + options, higher ceiling |
| Active jobs | 38 (remote 9) | 837 (remote 390) |
| Average salary in catalogue | $770 | $3 366 |
| Who it suits | You love variety, want to gain experience fast | You love depth, want to see the full product result |
What an agency does
A performance agency takes a client's budget, launches campaigns on it, optimises, and reports. One client today is iGaming, the second is Crypto, the third is e-commerce. You manage to work with 10 niches in a year, see what works in each, and build a portfolio.
The downside — you do not see what happens after the click. Whether the client earned on your traffic, whether the investment paid back — only the client knows. Your KPI is to keep the client and sell them more.
What in-house does
On a product team you sit inside one vertical project — a casino, an exchange, a forex broker, a goods franchise. You know everyone: product, designer, analyst, developer. You see the full funnel: creative → click → registration → deposit → retention → churn.
Upside — depth and stability. You learn the niche over years, become an expert, and get valued and paid more. Downside — duller. One product, the same metrics, slower pace of change.
When to pick which
Agency — career start, want to build experience fast, love variety, ready to work under client pressure.
In-house — you have 2–3 years of experience, want to dig deep into one niche, value stability and a high salary ceiling, ready for long cycles.
A starter tip: two years agency, then in-house. By the time you switch you know which niche is closer to you, and the product team will hire you for a senior role.
Frequently asked questions
Where do you grow faster — agency or in-house?
At an agency — thanks to working with different clients and racking up experience fast. In-house gives depth in a single product: it takes longer to learn the niche, but you see the full business picture.
Where do they pay more?
In-house pays more at the senior level — a share of product profit beats a fixed cut of a client budget. At junior level there is almost no difference.
What to pick at the start of a career?
At the start agency is better — faster experience, contacts, portfolio. After 2–3 years you can move into a product team for a senior role, or start your own.
How does the work differ?
Agency: 3–5 clients, different niches, short-term tasks, KPI — keep the client. In-house: one product, deep analytics, long experiments, KPI — revenue and LTV growth.