Bringing it in-house sounds like control. Often it buys the opposite.
The logic is understandable. Own the team, own the work, stop paying the agency margin. On paper it looks like savings and control.
In practice, the in-house build hits the same walls every time. Senior talent is slow to hire. Coverage gaps open the moment someone leaves. Peak demand overwhelms a fixed team, and the quiet stretches leave it underused. The margin you saved gets spent on the overhead you did not plan for.
The better question is not build or buy. It is which parts to own and which to keep flexible.
The strongest setups keep a lean senior core in-house and bring in embedded operators for the peaks, the specialisms, and the moments that need more hands than the org carries. Owned where it counts, flexible where it does not.
AP builds that layer. The senior operators who plug into an in-house team and own the outcome, without the brand carrying the full weight year round. The gap is real. The move is to mind it before it opens.