Mayple Review [2024]: Better Than Digital Marketing Agencies?

High-End Marketing for Established Businesses

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Mayple is an online platform that connects businesses with expert marketers across various disciplines, from SEO and paid ads to email marketing. Unlike other popular freelance platforms, Mayple caters to medium/large businesses with set budgets for marketing activities.

To get started, you must fill out an extensive brief detailing your needs and objectives. Mayple’s AI then takes over, matching you with one of its 600+ hand-vetted experts.

Automated matching is straightforward, but I’m not a huge fan. Why not have users take their pick among a group of skilled marketing professionals? Though Mayple’s approach ensures high-quality matches (the team rigorously vets all experts), it removes any control you might want in the selection process.

The quality of work you can expect is generally high, but there’s a catch. Mayple comes with a hefty price tag and a minimum commitment of 3 months (aka the “trial period”). While I think its services make sense for a particular niche, platforms like Fiverr and Upwork might be better if you’re looking for an affordable freelancer to help on a one-off project. Fortunately, the pricing plans are straightforward and transparent.

Read on to determine whether Mayple’s solutions make sense for your business.

Agency-Like Features for Less

In many ways, Mayple resembles a traditional online marketing agency more than it does a freelance platform. You don’t get to pick from a list of qualified freelancers. You instead are assigned a pre-selected (yet vetted) team of experts to work with you. That comes with certain perks (such as quality control) but also has drawbacks and limitations (e.g., little control over the hiring process).

Mayple’s standout feature is its AI algorithm, which matches you up with freelancers on the platform. While I have issues with it, the results are impressive, as many clients approve of how Mayple’s experts handle their marketing campaigns.

Extensive Briefing

Though I’m not a fan of “I’ll do everything for you” marketing approaches, I must admit that Mayple has somehow found a way to make it work for most clients. The initial brief is very detailed and requires a clear idea of what you want done. You need to let Mayple know your main objective, challenges, and revenue – among other things.

And that’s just the beginning. You’ll flesh your brief out even more during your free growth strategy meeting. All that information helps Mayple find a freelancer that fits well into your team. That’s much more than the average agency will do to understand your business’s needs, and it’s how Mayple delivers great results.

Hand-Vetted Experts

Many freelance platforms claim to vet their experts, but they often don’t offer convincing proof to substantiate those claims. Mayple takes things further with an exhaustively rigorous vetting process based on data-heavy metrics. To join the platform, freelancers must submit previous work and prove that it helped clients drive results. Mayple then compares their work against strict industry benchmarks.

Mayple has approved about 600 freelancers onto the platform, although the number is slowly rising. In their reviews, most users agree that their matched expert understood their business, delivering consistent results and exceeding expectations in most cases.

Dedicated Success Manager

Mayple assigns every client an account manager and tasks them with monitoring your matched marketer’s work and performance. If something’s not working out as intended or you need to pivot and require a different expert, they will connect you with someone else.

All freelancers on Mayple keep track of their work, which managers examine closely to ensure it meets your needs and the platform’s high-quality standards. This isn’t something regular freelance platforms can offer – and while it’s an expensive perk, traditional digital marketing agencies charge much more for it.

Live Campaign Monitoring

It’s not just your manager and freelancer who have access to KPIs and other essential metrics. Paid ads packages (but unfortunately not SEO or email marketing) also come with live monitoring through the app’s main dashboard menu. Although helpful, live CPC and revenue stats are currently only available for Google and Facebook Ads.

All packages come with monthly reports that both you and your manager can access to assess your campaigns’ performance and make necessary changes. I also like the built-in alert system that notifies you when you meet a specific target or are about to exceed your budget.

Mayple Features at a Glance

Easy to Get Things Done Once You’ve Matched With Someone

As previously mentioned, you must fill out a brief when you first join Mayple. This extensive brief is excellent for the matching algorithm – but not ideal if you’re in a hurry to hire someone.

Once that’s done, you’ll have to wait until your first growth strategy meeting with your manager to provide Mayple with even more information. Mayple’s team then uses algorithmic data to find the best fit for the job. Depending on your industry and objective, the hiring process can take 3 to 10+ days to complete.

After that, things become much smoother. Mayple’s marketers are seasoned experts, so it’s no surprise that they uphold professional standards regarding deadlines and responsiveness.

As for the platform’s interface, it’s refreshingly simple to navigate. The dashboard is free from unnecessary clutter, focusing solely on essentials. You’ll find straightforward communication options with your marketer, assigning tasks, tracking progress, and viewing reports. While the initial setup might take some time, managing your campaigns through Mayple becomes a streamlined experience once you’re past that.

A standout feature is Mayple’s data-driven insights and recommendations. Once you’ve run a campaign for a while and your manager has a good idea of how things are going, you’ll receive improvement tips based on actual data. For example, they’ll tell you when a budget increase would make the most sense or when to introduce new advertising mediums into your campaign.

Great Customer Service, but With a Caveat

Mayple offers live chat and email support, but both channels are slow if you’re not an existing customer. Live chat didn’t load on any device/browser combination I tried, and it took them a while to answer my emails. If you haven’t completed your brief, you’ll find it challenging to get quick answers from the team.

I wanted to learn more about the matching process and whether I’d be directly involved. I sent an inquiry, and it took two days to hear back from them:

Don’t let that discourage you, though – you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions during your first free introduction meeting. You’ll receive an email to schedule a convenient meeting time – just make sure you’ve completed your brief before that.

Once you get a match and purchase a plan, you’ll have multiple ways to contact your marketer and keep in touch with your success manager. You’ll also have the option to communicate via your own dedicated Slack channel, which most clients do. Unlike live chat and emails that barely work, Mayple’s team responds quickly to questions and requests on Slack.

Suppose one of your marketing campaigns isn’t going as planned, or you have questions about your marketer’s work. In that case, you can also contact your manager directly to schedule a quick one-on-one meeting.

High Cost, Transparent Pricing

Mayple is expensive compared to popular freelance marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork. But, if we consider it an online digital marketing agency, its prices are significantly lower than the industry average.

The good news is that Mayple is very transparent with its pricing. For example, if you spend up to $10,000 in ads monthly, the Paid Media Package will set you back $1800.00/month. This plan includes a comprehensive marketing strategy and complete campaign management in 2 channels of your choice. Increase your budget to $20,000, and the package’s price goes up by a few hundred dollars. On average, this is 20-50% less than what a marketing agency would quote.

Social media management starts at $2310.00/month, SEO is $3575.00/month, and email marketing costs $1850.00 for 4 monthly emails. Expert guidance is set at $1,600/month for 8 consultation hours. The complete list of Mayple’s packages and bundles is available on the website.

Note that Mayple requires a minimum 3-month commitment. If you buy one of its packages, you’re legally obliged to make two more payments before canceling. Although not ideal, contracts like these are standard in the industry. Mayple doesn’t issue refunds.

Mayple’s prices are very reasonable by digital agency standards. There are no hidden fees, so you know exactly what to expect when the bill arrives.

If you’re a small business on a small budget, I wouldn’t recommend Mayple. If you can’t afford a traditional agency, Mayple is probably still too expensive for you. In that case, hiring professionals on Fiverr or Upwork on a per-project basis would make a lot more sense.

But if you’re a rapidly growing medium-sized business looking to scale further, Mayple won’t disappoint. Its tailored marketing packages offer expert guidance at a fraction of traditional agency costs. Combine that with its top-notch support, and you have an effective, financially savvy option for businesses in this growth stage.