There are three common ways to get software built. Each one moves risk and management time to a different person. The right choice depends less on budget than on how well you know what you are building.
Option 1: a fixed-price project
You agree what gets built, by when and for how much. The studio carries the risk of the estimate. You carry the risk of having described the wrong thing.
Choose it when you can write down what done looks like: a proof of concept, a first version, a website. Our fixed-price builds start at $3,500, with the studio leading the work and you reviewing a demo every week.
Avoid it when the plan changes weekly. You will spend your time negotiating scope instead of learning from users.
Option 2: individual freelancers or contractors
The hourly rate looks low and the cost is real, but it sits somewhere else: in your calendar. You decide who does what, review the code yourself or hope someone does, and find a replacement when someone leaves. If you are a technical founder with spare time, that can work well. If you are not, the hidden cost is your attention.
Option 3: a managed team
A managed team is hourly work with the management included. A senior engineer leads, plans the work with you, reviews every change and reports to you on Friday. You steer priorities. You do not manage the people. Senior engineers are from $45 an hour and engineers from $30, billed in monthly blocks of at least 80 hours with 30 days’ notice. Unused hours do not roll over, so if the roadmap is lighter you scale the team down rather than pay for hours you will not use.
It is the best fit for a product that keeps changing, which is most products after the first version.
A simple rule
- You can describe the finished product: fixed price.
- You know the direction but not the details: a managed team, starting with a two-week paid pilot.
- You run an agency and need more capacity: a white-label team under your name.
- You can manage engineers and want one person: a freelancer, with your eyes open.
What “managed” should mean
The word is used loosely. Ask what it includes. Ours means one senior engineer who stays for the whole engagement, code review and testing on every change, a report and a recorded demo every Friday, and a replacement within ten working days at our cost if someone leaves. If a studio cannot tell you what its managed service includes, it is probably a list of developers.