Comparison
A B2B marketing consultant costs $5k-15k/month. The first thing they do is diagnose your current state. Zero Hype does the diagnosis for $49-$99. The question is whether you need the execution that follows.
Direct answer
If you know what's broken but need someone to fix it for you, hire a consultant. If you're not sure what's broken — or you suspect you know but want an outside read before committing to $60k/year of retainer — start with Zero Hype. The audit pays for itself if it saves you from hiring the wrong person to fix the wrong problem.
| Zero Hype | Marketing Consultant | |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnoses current state | ✓ This is the product | ✓ First 30-60 days |
| Executes changes | ✗ You implement | ✓ They implement |
| Ongoing support | ~ Monthly Autopsy retainer ($300/mo) | ✓ Full retainer |
| Time to first insight | ✓ 48-72 hours | ✗ 4-6 weeks onboarding |
| Bias risk | ✓ No incentive to extend engagement | ~ Retainer model rewards staying longer |
| Covers DACH market specifically | ✓ Built from 20+ years DACH B2B experience | ~ Depends on consultant |
| Price | ✓ $49–$897 total | ✗ $5k–$15k/month |
| Right when you need execution capacity | ✗ Not the right fit | ✓ Yes |
Every consultant starts the same way: discovery calls, stakeholder interviews, reviewing your current assets, mapping your funnel. This takes 4-8 weeks. At $8k/month, you've spent $16k before a single recommendation lands.
Most of what they find in those first 8 weeks is what the Zero Hype audits surface in 48-72 hours. Wrong ICP assumptions. Messaging that talks about features instead of problems. A pipeline that looks active but is full of bad-fit prospects. Channel strategy that made sense in 2021 but doesn't now.
The difference is what happens next. A consultant stays and executes. Zero Hype gives you the diagnosis and you implement — or you hire someone specifically for execution once you know what to execute.
The best use of Zero Hype before a consultant hire: get the audit first, validate your diagnosis, then hire a consultant to solve a specific, confirmed problem. Not a vague "we need to fix our pipeline."
$99 audit. 48-72 hour turnaround. Based on direct analysis of 100+ B2B campaigns in DACH and English-speaking markets.
No. A full-time hire executes daily. Zero Hype diagnoses and advises. The Revenue Architecture ($4,500) goes further — 12 weeks of strategic work — but it's still async advisory, not embedded execution. If you need someone in the team building campaigns daily, hire for that specifically.
Possibly. The Marketing Autopsy ($49) can give you an independent read on whether the strategy your consultant is executing is sound. Sometimes the problem is execution. Sometimes it's the strategy. An outside diagnosis clarifies which.
The audits and diagnostics are based on direct B2B marketing experience across DACH and English-speaking markets. There's no team of junior analysts generalizing from a framework. The disadvantage is capacity — Zero Hype can't run your campaigns. The advantage is you get the honest read, not the polished deck.
The Monthly Autopsy ($300/month) reviews one campaign per month, rewrites the three weakest elements, and turns around in 48 hours. It's not a full retainer — no calls, no project management, no execution. It's the ongoing diagnostic layer for teams that execute themselves but want an outside eye on whether the strategy is drifting.
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