Roku agency, marketplace, or independent developer
I am one of the three options on this page, so read everything below with that in mind. I build Roku channels on my own through my studio. What follows is the version I would want if I were the one buying, including the parts where the other two options beat me.
The three options
A Roku development agency staffs a team: a producer, designers, several engineers, QA, and usually a program manager between you and them. You sign with the company, and the company assigns the people.
A marketplace sells you access to individuals who bid on your work. The platform handles payment and vetting to varying degrees. You do the picking, and you carry the technical judgment.
An independent developer is one engineer, or a small studio, working with you directly. You know at the first call exactly who writes the code.
What actually differs
| Agency | Marketplace | Independent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the code | Assigned engineers, often changing | Whoever wins the bid | The person you talked to |
| Bench depth | Real. People can be added | None, but you can hire more than one | None |
| Price shape | Highest, and it carries overhead you cannot see | Lowest, widest quality range | Middle |
| If your engineer leaves | They swap someone in | You re‑post the job | You wait until I am free |
| Certification | Usually handled, ask anyway | Almost never included | Ask. It is the whole job in my case |
| After launch | Support contract available | Rehire and hope | Whatever you agreed, from one person |
| Fits best | Multi‑platform programs, procurement‑heavy buyers | Small VOD channels, buyers with their own tech lead | One channel done properly, player‑heavy work |
When an agency is the right answer
There are five cases where I would tell you to go and hire one.
You are launching everywhere at once. Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, iOS and the web is five or six codebases and a release train, not a project. One person cannot staff that and should not pretend otherwise.
You need someone on call. A 24/7 support contract with a rotation behind it is something an agency sells and I do not. I sleep.
Procurement cannot buy from one person. Insurance certificates, a master services agreement, a security questionnaire answered, a vendor with more than one employee. Some organizations genuinely cannot buy any other way, and that is a real constraint rather than a preference.
You need design and product too. If nobody on your side owns what the app should look like or how it should behave, an agency brings those people. I do not.
You need five engineers next month. Bench depth is the product an agency sells, and it is worth paying for when you actually need it.
When a marketplace is the right answer
You want a simple video on demand channel, your content already sits in a clean feed, and you have someone technical who can review the work. The price is the lowest of the three and the range of quality is the widest, so the judgment you supply is what makes it work.
Two things to watch. Certification is rarely included, and the person who built the channel is often gone by the time Roku sends the rejection. And whoever bids lowest has the least time to spend on the performance budgets that decide whether the channel passes at all.
When an independent is the right answer
You want one channel built properly, the player matters, and you would rather talk to the engineer than to an account manager. Live streams, ads, resume playback, captions and certification are all decided by the same person, so they get decided consistently.
The other honest reason is cost per unit of senior attention. On a project my size, every hour you pay for is mine. In an agency, some of what you pay covers people who will never open your codebase.
Not sure which one your project needs? Email me for a scope call and I will tell you if it is an agency job.
Ask any of them these seven questions
Ask all three the same questions and compare the answers rather than the brochures.
- Who writes the code, by name, and what else are they on this quarter?
- Have you taken a channel through Roku certification? Which one? Is it in the store now?
- What happens if certification fails, and who pays for that round?
- Do I own the source at the end, in my repository?
- Which devices do you test performance on? The right answer names the 2019 Streaming Stick+ or Premiere+, because that is what Roku measures against.
- Have you shipped the Roku Ad Framework with SCTE‑35 markers, if my channel carries ads?
- What happens to my channel if you disappear?
The last one is the question I get asked least and deserve to be asked most.
What I cannot do
- I have no bench. If I am booked, you wait, and I will tell you that on the first call rather than in month two.
- I take a small number of projects at a time, so I am the wrong answer for a program that needs parallel workstreams.
- I am one person in one time zone. There is no follow‑the‑sun rotation and no 24/7 phone number.
- I do not bring designers or product managers. If your channel needs to be designed as well as built, bring that person or hire a firm that has them.
Who is telling you this
I'm James Folk. I led the team that owned the Roku Video Player inside Comcast's Xfinity Stream, worked on the Peacock player at NBCUniversal, built screens and extended the event system in the discovery+ Roku app, and took The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints' channel from an empty repository through Roku certification. It is live today as Gospel Stream.
If the money side is what you are weighing, I wrote about what a Roku channel actually costs. If certification is the part that worries you, there is a certification checklist from a channel I took through it. The full record is on the Roku channel development page.
One call, then a written quote
A scope call tells me your content source, live or VOD or both, and whether ads are involved. The fixed written quote follows. If the answer is that you need an agency, I will say so on that call. I'm in Mount Sinai, New York, and I work remotely with clients anywhere.
hello@jamesfolk.me →