Hourly rates by role
| Role | Rate |
|---|---|
| Design and development | $35 to $55 an hour |
| Specialist work: AI, cloud, and architecture | $45 to $80 an hour |
| Testing and quality assurance | $25 to $35 an hour |
Dedicated team pricing
| Team | Who is on it | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| One dedicated engineer | One full-time engineer matched to your stack, with a delivery lead overseeing quality. | $6,000 to $11,000 a month |
| Starter squad | Two engineers and a part-time delivery lead. | $11,000 to $17,000 a month |
| Product squad | Two to three engineers, a part-time designer, a delivery lead, and part-time QA. | $18,000 to $28,000 a month |
| Scale team | Four to six engineers, a designer, a delivery lead, QA, and DevOps. | $35,000 to $55,000+ a month |
Why hourly rates vary so much
Search for developer rates and you will find anything from $15 to $250 an hour. The spread comes from three things: where the people are based, how experienced they are, and what is included in the rate.
A low rate for an individual freelancer often excludes project management, testing, code review, and cover when someone is ill. A high rate from a large consultancy often includes layers of account management you never see. The useful comparison is not the hourly rate, but the cost of delivering working, tested software.
Our rates sit below most agencies in the US and Western Europe, and they include delivery oversight, code review, and continuity: if someone on your project is away, the work continues.
When the hourly rates apply
Most projects never see an hourly rate. A website, an app, a store, or an integration is quoted as one fixed price in writing, and that price does not change unless you change the scope. The rates are used in three situations only: small change requests after launch, open-ended discovery or research where the answer is not yet known, and extra work you ask for during a fixed-price project. In every case, you approve the hours before they are spent.
What each role does
A delivery lead plans the work, runs weekly reviews, and keeps scope, budget, and timeline visible. A product or user experience (UX) designer turns ideas into screens people understand, and tests them with real users before anything is built.
Front-end engineers build what users see and touch. Back-end engineers build the logic, the database, and the connections to other systems behind it. Mobile engineers build iPhone and Android apps. AI engineers connect models to your data and measure their accuracy. Cloud and DevOps (keeping software deployed, monitored, and running) engineers set up hosting, release pipelines, and security. Quality assurance (QA) engineers test everything on real devices and write automated tests. A solutions architect designs how large systems fit together.
How a dedicated team works
A dedicated team works only on your product, every month. You set priorities every one or two weeks, and the team designs, builds, tests, and releases continuously. You see a demo at the end of every sprint and a short written report every month.
Each team has a delivery lead who is your single point of contact. The engineers are matched to your stack, and the same people stay on your product, so knowledge builds up rather than walking out of the door.
Key points
- The same people every month
- Priorities set by you every sprint
- A demo every sprint and a monthly report
- One month's notice to scale up, down, or stop
Choosing a team size
One dedicated engineer suits a stable product that needs steady improvements and fixes. A starter squad, with two engineers and a part-time delivery lead, suits a live product adding features every month. A product squad adds design and testing and suits a product with paying customers and a busy roadmap. A scale team suits a company replacing or building a major platform, or one that needs to move quickly against competitors.
What is not in the rate
Third-party costs sit outside our rates: hosting, software licenses, app store accounts, and AI usage fees. We list them separately and, where you prefer, they are billed directly to you so you keep the accounts.
Dedicated team or hiring in-house?
A dedicated team starts within weeks and needs no recruitment, benefits, equipment, or management time. An in-house team builds deep knowledge over years and costs less per person once it is fully staffed. Many companies use both: a dedicated team to launch and grow quickly, then in-house hires for the roles they need forever. Our comparison of an in-house team and an agency covers this in detail.
How quality is protected at these rates
Every line of code is reviewed by a second engineer before it is merged. Automated tests run on every change, so a fix in one place cannot quietly break another. Releases go to a test environment first, where your team can try them before customers see them.
The delivery lead checks progress against the plan every week and flags risks early, in writing. If a person on your team is unavailable, a colleague who already knows the codebase steps in, because two engineers review each other's work as a matter of routine.
These habits are included in every rate above. They are the difference between paying for hours and paying for working software.
Key points
- Code review on every change
- Automated tests on every release
- A test environment before customers see anything
- Weekly risk checks, in writing
- Cover from people who already know your code
A worked example
Picture a growing software as a service (SaaS) company with paying customers and a long list of requested features. Its two in-house engineers spend most of their time on support and fixes.
The company adds a product squad: two engineers, a part-time designer, a delivery lead, and part-time QA, at about $24,000 a month. The squad takes ownership of new features while the in-house engineers handle support. Within three months, the backlog of requested features is cut by half, and the company decides to keep the squad for the year.
How to compare rates
Compare like with like. Ask whether the rate includes delivery management, code review, testing, and cover for absence. Ask how many hours a month a full-time person provides. Ask who owns the code and how quickly you can end the arrangement. A slightly higher rate with these included usually costs less overall than a low rate without them.