Agency vs Freelancer: Erik Hooijer's Case for the HubSpot Collective in Between

Pack of Nodes started as a conversation in the Dutch HubSpot community’s WhatsApp group. A few freelancers said they might do something together. That talk happened last year. This year it became a cooperative, and about eight of them went to a notary to make it a legal company. Erik Hooijer co-founded it and now handles new members and the relationship with HubSpot.

He explained the idea to Lindsey Smith and Cameron Conner when he came on Becoming an Admin. In his experience, clients deciding agency vs freelancer pick between two setups that fail them in different ways, and he wanted to build something that sits between them.

“Me and HubSpot, we go back to 2012,” he said. For most of his career he worked in-house, at companies that either brought HubSpot in because he pushed for it or hired him because they already had it. He found he liked projects more than the day job, and about two years before the episode he moved to the partner side, which he calls “the orange side.”

Agency vs freelancer: where does each one let clients down?

Erik started with what freelancers do well. Companies like them “because they can go deep on a certain topic. They know all there is to know about this company or client that they’re helping.”

The weakness is that there is one of them. “This one person needs vacation as well or like something can happen to them and then yeah, they’re not redundant.” Each freelancer also works their own way, and “stuff is not often documented.”

Agencies have more people and a backup plan. Their weak spot, as Erik describes it, is margin creep: “A senior needs to come in, scope the project, do the solution and and then they’re selling it and then a junior has to execute it or it’s being offshored or uh uh outsourced to other agencies on the back end.” He said the client is “on the losing end of this,” whether they know it or not.

“You don’t have to position freelancers against agencies,” he said. In Pack of Nodes, “we have a lead node that does the work, and then they can involve other specialists when needed.” The members share what they know, cover for each other, and go on team outings. “We have the the colleagues that we never had we now do have.”

Should you hire an agency or a freelancer?

If you are the company hiring HubSpot help, Erik’s comparison gives you questions to ask on the first call, before anyone talks price:

• The person doing the work. Does the person who scopes the project also build it, or does it go to a junior, an offshore team or another agency?
• The backup plan. When your specialist is on vacation or leaves, who else knows your portal?
• The documentation. Where does the work get written down? A freelancer’s way of working often lives in their head, and our guide to tribal knowledge covers what that costs once they are gone.

A freelancer with good answers is a fine hire. So is an agency whose senior stays on the build. Either way, ask for the answers to end up in the portal itself, which our guide to HubSpot implementation walks through.

What does AI do to the agency model?

The hosts asked whether clients now want AI-driven work. Erik said AI adds to the margin creep problem, because clients start to believe they can build everything themselves. “They go even as far as to say that they can write code as CRM. But best of luck, of course.”

He does not rule out AI running a portal. His condition is that someone has done the groundwork: “you need to have the knowledge of how your processes work, if they’re properly mapped.” Our process mapping guide covers that groundwork.

Pack of Nodes is certified on Breeze, HubSpot’s AI, though Erik said his Dutch clients rarely use it yet. He is looking for one willing to try paying per resolution. HubSpot moved its Customer Agent and Prospecting Agent to outcome-based pricing in April 2026, and at its UNBOUND event it presented the product as an “agentic customer platform” (Info-Tech Research Group, 2026).

What happens now that HubSpot has ended its freelancer program?

HubSpot’s Solutions Provider Program, the track Erik had been on as a HubSpot freelancer, ended on August 15, 2026. From July 15, partners also had to pay for a $400 per month Partner Program membership (Martech Notes, 2026).

Pack of Nodes existed before the announcement. When it came, Erik was glad of it. “It’s our way of of binding us even more together,” he said. At the time of recording he was telling his own clients about the change and moving them into the collective, where members reach them through a shared portal. A few members outside the Netherlands were bringing their clients in as well.

He is not worried about building on someone else’s platform. “I’ve been building my career on on the orange sprocket since since for for for for 14 years now and then it’s not been a bad way of doing it.”

Should a HubSpot admin go freelance, join an agency, or join a collective?

“If I’m biased come talk to me,” Erik said, and laughed. His advice to an admin who wants independence was more careful than the joke. “If you’re looking to go freelance, it will be much harder, I believe. So, maybe try to join a good agency.”

Plenty of people freelance. Upwork’s 2023 Freelance Forward study, which Edelman Data & Intelligence ran with 3,000 U.S. working adults, counted 64 million Americans doing freelance work that year, 38% of the workforce (Upwork, 2023). Erik’s worry is the business around the work. “You have to be able to stand on your own two feet, right? And to maintain your business.”

Pack of Nodes asks for “like 5 years of actual expertise or demonstrable proof,” and a portfolio people can see. A candidate talks to Erik, fills out a questionnaire on what they are good at, talks to two other members, and then the collective votes.

A six-month trial follows. At the end “it’s a two-sided decision,” Erik said, “whether they want to stay and whether we want them to stay.” Those who stay become co-owners and share in the benefits.

Why does Erik say the brain, not the brand?

One of the hosts had heard him use the phrase and asked about it. On LinkedIn, he said, company pages have to “pay to play” to show up, while posts from individuals get read and commented on. “People do business with people.” When someone posts that they need a HubSpot developer, he tags his colleague Marique. For a data specialist, he tags Yorick. The prospect talks to the person first and finds out afterward that they belong to a collective.

His first tip for an admin building a name was to pick a niche. “Find your niche, and that’s like find your thing, your stick in in HubSpot.” If process mapping is your thing, go deep on it and whiteboard it where people can see. “Dare to go live.” When HubSpot ships a feature, record a short Loom of it and post it. He also admitted he used to say yes to every request, and stopped. “Probably there’s someone who can do it better,” he said. Pointing people to that person is what makes them remember you.

Video is not his thing. He does not like seeing himself back, so he writes long posts instead, like a recent one on Salesforce going headless. He also joins the WhatsApp groups where people like him gather, or starts one. “You have to be a little bit of a nerd.”

Can a HubSpot admin succeed without AI?

That was the question in the episode title, and Erik answered it fast. “Not for long, I think. Like on the HubSpot side, it’s the future.” He was frank that clients lag behind. “In practice not all the clients are there yet mentally or in their business practice.” What he asks of admins is small: “To be future-proof you have to dive in it or let’s not let’s put like a little toe in the water at least.”

He also told admins not to chase every feature. “Go deep on on one thing rather than 100 things,” he said. “You have to be T-shaped as they call it,” broad across the platform with one deep specialty. An admin who feels stuck should find a mentor, and he mentors one person himself through a HubSpot program. The academy helps, he said, but “you can try to stay up-to-date with 1,000 updates in a year. It will be challenging.”

In the rapid-fire round the hosts asked him to choose between a custom object and a custom workflow. He said, “Depends. That’s that’s the consultancy answer all the time, right?” No guest had given them that answer before. Given a magic wand, he would have HubSpot go all the way to ERP, since custom objects can already model almost any business process. He was not sure he wanted it, though. “It will not make it more easy.”

Erik Hooijer’s lessons for admins and buyers

• Questions over labels. Ask who does the work, who covers for them, and where it gets written down.
• A cooperative in between. A lead node on the work, specialists behind them, and co-ownership for members who stay.
• A mapped process before AI. Erik wants the process written down before an agent runs it.
• A personal brand in a niche. People read people, so pick one deep specialty and show your work in public.
• A toe in the water on Breeze. Clients are slow to adopt it, and he still wants admins trying it now.

What should a HubSpot admin or buyer do next?

If you are buying HubSpot help, ask Erik’s questions of each proposal before you compare prices. If you are an admin thinking about going independent, I would follow his advice: join a good agency or a collective first, choose the one specialty you want to be known for, and spend an hour a week trying Breeze in your own portal.

Of his questions, I would push hardest on documentation. When the specialist leaves, what was written down is what the client keeps. Supered’s partner program helps HubSpot partners put their delivery process inside the client’s portal, so any consultant on the account works it the same way.