The picks
- Flighted — Best overall for DTC and SaaS brands spending $25K+ a month
- Brighter Click — Best for lead gen, with the founder on every account
- Keepers Digital — Best under $25K a month, Google and Meta together
- Y’all — Best when creative is the bottleneck
- AJF Growth — Best for a $2M to $20M DTC brand that wants an operator, not an agency
Every agency on this list is owned and run by its founder. I didn’t include anything owned by private equity, a holding group, or an acquirer. My reasoning is below.
#1 Pick
Flighted
- Founder-owned, New York, founded 2021, about 25 people
- Meta only. Creative, video editing, and landing pages in-house.
- Flat tiered retainer, no percentage of spend, built for $25K+ a month
Flighted does Meta and nothing else. Peter Czepiga started it in 2021, owns it outright, and runs the buying. The team is around 25 people and most of them make ads, video editors and designers in-house, which matters because on Meta the account testing more new creative usually wins.
Why I picked this
Media buying, creative, and landing pages sit on one team, so when a campaign stalls the fix happens the same week instead of in a ticket to your designer. That’s how I’d want a Meta account run in 2026. Czepiga has said on the DTC Podcast that the agency has taken more than 25 brands from zero on Meta to profitability, and that the comfortable client spends $50K to $200K a month.
The client list is one you can check: Momofuku, Ramp, Apartment List, Bespoke Post, Cometeer. The case studies have numbers: Cat Person’s cost per acquisition down 13% while spend scaled, Ambrook’s cost per qualified lead down 62% on 181% more spend. Clutch has 13 reviews at 4.9.
Pricing is a flat monthly retainer by tier, not a percentage of ad spend, so the agency does not earn more when you spend more. The tiers are not published, and the agency says it is built for brands putting $25K or more a month into Meta.
The tradeoff is that floor. If you’re spending $8K a month, Flighted is the wrong size. The Meta partner badge is the agency’s own claim, I couldn’t confirm it in Meta’s directory, and the headcount is self-reported.
Skip this if…
- You spend under $25K a month on Meta
- You need Google Ads run by the same team. Flighted does not do search.
- You want the price on the website before the call
#2 Pick
Brighter Click
- Founder-owned, Raleigh, North Carolina, founded 2019, about 10 people
- Meta Business Partner. Also Google, TikTok, and partnership ads.
- Pricing on request, around $10K minimum engagement
Brighter Click has the most founder-in-the-account evidence of any agency I looked at. Colby Flood started it in 2019 and the Clutch reviews keep naming him: “worked directly with CEO Colby,” “worked only with the owner, Colby,” Colby “jumped right on the phone.” The about page says the same thing, you get the decision maker, not a middleman.
Why I picked this
The shop has moved toward lead gen, and that’s where it’s strongest now. Healthcare, fintech, and clinical trial recruitment make up most of the client mix, which is rare for a Meta agency, since most chase DTC. One clinical trial client runs $600K a month through them with cost per enrolled patient down 46%. The ecommerce work is still there, with Gelato, Brooklyn Bedding, and Adorama as clients, and Gelato’s acquisition cost dropped 18% while spend more than doubled.
It holds Meta Business Partner, Google Partner, and TikTok Marketing Partner status, and runs partnership ads, so if whitelisting is part of your plan you do not need a second vendor. Reviews are deep for a shop this size: 4.9 across 19 on Clutch and 4.9 across 52 on Google.
Pricing is not published. Clutch lists a $10K minimum project and $150 to $199 an hour.
Skip this if…
- You are a DTC brand that wants a creative-led shop. Brighter Click does not produce creative volume the way Flighted or Y’all do.
- You spend under $10K a month
- You want landing pages built by the same team
#3 Pick
Keepers Digital
- Founder-owned, Vancouver and Toronto, founded 2020, 8 people
- Meta and Google Ads, landing pages and CRM tracking in-house
- Management from $1,250/month, no long-term contract
Keepers Digital is my pick if the two agencies above are too big for your budget. Sean Grabowski started it in 2020 after ten years running large accounts at GroupM, works the accounts himself, and the fee starts at $1,250 a month with no long-term contract. It’s also my top pick in best PPC agencies, because it runs Google and Meta as one program.
Why I picked this
Most founder-led Meta shops have a spend floor of $25K or more a month. Keepers takes accounts well below that, and the Clutch reviews name Sean on account after account, recording Loom walkthroughs and answering the same day. I’ve hired them myself and the results were good.
The Meta work has numbers. A women’s fashion retailer added 709 customers in three months and grew monthly online revenue from under $30K to over $44K. An indoor golf business grew bookings 68% year over year on Google and Meta together, with cost per conversion down 26%. Landing pages and conversion tracking into your CRM are built in-house, so Meta’s reported results and your actual pipeline match.
The tradeoff is that Meta is half the offer. If you need a shop that only thinks about Meta creative, Flighted or Y’all is the better fit. The team is in Canada, so your weekly call lands in Pacific or Eastern time.
Skip this if…
- You need 50 new creatives a month. Keepers is a buying and tracking shop, not a creative studio.
- You spend over $100K a month on Meta alone
- You need TikTok as a primary channel
Honorable mentions
#4
Y'all
- Founder-owned, San Antonio, founded 2018, 16 people
- Meta Business Partner. Buying plus creative, UGC, and whitelisted creator ads.
- Full service $15K to $20K/month, creative-only from $7,500. Engagements start around $50K/month in spend.
Y’all is the creative-led option. Travis Halff founded it in 2018 and runs it with a partner and 14 staff, and the model pairs a media buyer with a creative team on every account: statics, video, UGC sourcing, and whitelisted creator content, plus server-side tracking so the numbers hold up. Clients are DTC and CPG brands like FlavCity, ZYN, Dermaflash, and Loverboy. Pamos went from $10K to $90K a month in spend in three months with cost per acquisition down 49%. Clutch has seven reviews at 5.0, and unusually, Clutch also lists the fee range: $15K to $20K a month full service.
Choose this if: Your Meta account is starved for new ads and you want one team to make them and run them.
Skip it if: You spend under $50K a month. That is where Y’all says its engagements start, which puts it at the top of this page’s audience.
#5
AJF Growth
- Founder-owned, about 6 people
- Meta only: managed buying, cohort forecasting, creative
- Pricing on request, limited client list
AJF Growth is Andrew Faris, formerly VP of Growth at Common Thread Collective, plus a handful of people in the US and the Philippines. It only does Meta, only takes DTC brands doing $2M to $20M a year, and Faris describes his job as coaching the client and running the account himself. There is no case study page and no Clutch profile. The proof is the weekly Andrew Faris Podcast, repeated interviews in Practical Ecommerce, and clients like Driveline Baseball and Simple Modern.
Choose this if: You want the person on your weekly call to be the person who has run hundreds of DTC accounts, and you are fine with a small shop that says no when it is full.
Skip it if: You want reviews, published pricing, or a creative studio. AJF has none of the three.
What about whitelisting and partnership ads
Three of the five agencies above run partnership ads, which is Meta’s name for ads that go out under a creator’s handle instead of yours. Brighter Click and Y’all do it as part of an engagement, and Keepers can set it up. If you are new to the idea, our glossary entry on influencer whitelisting explains it with real ads.
If whitelisting is the whole job rather than part of one, Authority Genius is a specialist with published pricing: $1,500 setup and $500 a month per creator handle on the entry tier, up to $5,000 a month where they run the ads too. It is not ranked here because it is a specialist, not a full Meta agency, and because we know the people behind it.
Why I prefer founder-led shops
I’ve hired freelancers, small shops, and big agencies for paid social over the years, and the small founder-run shop is the one I keep going back to. Here’s the reasoning.
Freelancers
A good freelance media buyer is cheap senior talent, and I still use them for audits. For ongoing Meta management the problems are practical ones:
- You’re the manager. Nobody else is checking their work, and if you could audit an ad account yourself you probably wouldn’t be hiring.
- Creative is the job now, and one person can’t do it. A solo buyer can set up campaigns. They can’t also shoot, edit, and write 20 new ads a month.
- It’s one person deep. A vacation or a bigger client and your account sits with the budget still running.
- Access gets messy. A lot of freelancers run your ads out of their own Business Manager, and when it ends you find out how much of the pixel history and audience data you own.
Big agencies
The 100-person agency has the opposite problems. Easy to vet, plenty of coverage, and the person in your account day to day is two years out of school.
- The founder or a VP sells you, then you get an account manager with 14 other accounts and a strategist who checks in monthly.
- If you spend $20K a month and their average client spends $200K, you’re the account they train people on.
- Complexity justifies the retainer. Thirty ad sets and a 40-slide monthly deck prove the fee, and nobody asks whether a simpler account would have made you more money.
- Once a shop sells to a holding group or takes PE money, the founder is usually working toward an earn-out. Senior people leave, and the account manager you signed with may be gone within a year. That doesn’t make a PE-owned agency bad. It’s a flag I personally avoid, because in my experience pricing after a sale tends to be higher and more optimized for the owner than for the client.
Why the small shop usually wins
Every agency on this page is small, the founder still works in the accounts, and nobody else owns them. You get a senior buyer who has run a few hundred accounts, with enough of a team to keep creative moving and cover when they take a week off. A founder running your account also can’t hide behind complexity, since they’d be the one maintaining it.
The catch is capacity. These shops take a limited number of clients and most have a minimum spend. If you’re under it, use a freelancer. If you need a creative studio producing 100 assets a month, you’ve outgrown them.
How to choose
Choose Flighted if you’re a DTC or SaaS brand spending $25K or more a month on Meta and want buying, creative, and landing pages on one team.
Choose Brighter Click if you’re lead gen, especially healthcare or fintech, and want the founder on your account.
Choose Keepers Digital if you spend under $25K a month, or want Google and Meta run as one program.
Choose Y’all if creative volume is the problem and you spend $50K a month or more.
Choose AJF Growth if you’re a $2M to $20M DTC brand and want an operator who’ll say no to tactics you don’t need.
If you spend under $5K a month, none of these will take you, and I wouldn’t push it. Run it yourself on Meta’s Advantage+ defaults or hire a freelancer on a short contract, and come back when the spend justifies a senior person’s time.
Questions I’d ask any Meta ads agency before signing
- Who, by name, is going to be in my ad account every week? If you get a role instead of a name, keep looking.
- How many accounts does that person manage? Over ten and you’re getting about an hour a week.
- Do I own the ad account, the pixel, and the Business Manager? The answer should be yes, in your own Business Manager, with the agency added as a partner.
- How many new creatives will you test a month, and who makes them? On Meta this predicts results better than any targeting talk.
- What’s the notice period? Thirty days is normal. A twelve-month lock-in with 90 days’ notice is a yellow flag at this size.
- What would you cut from my account? A good buyer can tell you what to turn off on the first call. One who only adds things is building a retainer.
How I chose
I only looked at agencies under about 30 people where the founder still works on client accounts, Meta is the core service, and the shop is independently owned. No private equity, no holding group, no acquirer. That’s a personal rule rather than a verdict on the agencies it excludes, and it comes from watching pricing drift up after a sale. That removed Common Thread Collective (Acacia Group investment, 2025), Lunar Solar Group (Series A plus five acquisitions in a year), Social Fulcrum (acquired 2019), and Pilothouse and KlientBoost on size. I also dropped agencies that have moved to coaching or courses, and ones where I couldn’t confirm who runs them.
Nobody paid to be here and we don’t take affiliate commissions or referral fees. I know Sean at Keepers Digital and the team at Authority Genius personally, which is part of how I know who’s still in the accounts. If a listing is ever paid, it’ll say so on the card.