How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Development Team?

Today, companies actively invest in software product development. In 2020, the software dev market amounted to about $931 billion. In 2025, it is expected to reach almost $1.5 trillion.

Let’s say you also have an idea for a digital product and want to invest in it. Perhaps, you even planned the software development down to the smallest detail. Then, why wait? Just hire a programmer and start generating code.

Yet, it’s not that simple. Calculating the project budget is a rather challenging process. How many specialists do you need to build your product? Which cooperation model will work best for you? And how much will the project cost?

Continue reading to choose the most suitable services at the most reasonable prices. Arounda, a company that has already provided dedicated teams for over a hundred projects, knows about the cost of hiring developers.

Hiring a Dedicated Development Team Costs

A dedicated development team is a business model that involves long-term cooperation between the client and the development services provider.

The service provider usually works remotely from their office on a standard full-time schedule. A dedicated vendor also assembles the team according to the client’s requirements. It may consist of experts with a particular specialization, such as engineers. Or it may be a full-stack team including business analysts, project managers, UI/UX designers, developers, and QA specialists.

The client can independently control the development process or delegate this task to the appointed project manager.

A dedicated team is the best option for companies with no well-defined project scope and requirements. With this cooperation model, the client can compensate for the lack of experts and get specialists who will devote all their time and resources to the project.

The cost of hiring a dedicated development team is quite transparent. It depends on each team member’s salary and the service provider’s commission, which also covers all administrative fees. Depending on the dedicated vendor’s location, the cost will vary from $5,000 to $25,000 per month.

If your choice is to hire a dedicated team, Arounda can assemble one for you. We have 33 skilled experts with more than five years of experience. Our specialists have domain knowledge in FinTech, healthcare, delivery, and SaaS industries.

Hiring a Software Development Company vs. Freelance Software Developer Costs

You can contact a software development company directly or look for independent freelance developers when building a digital product.

The cost of hiring a software development company can vary significantly depending on the firm’s size, location, and expertise. The project budget may vary from $10,000 to as much as $500,000.

If we talk about the companies’ size, their average rates may be as follows:

• Small and mid-sized software dev companies can charge from $80 to $140 per hour.

• Large-sized software dev businesses can charge from $110 to $220 per hour.

• Enterprise-level companies can charge from $250 per hour and higher.

Cooperation models with software dev companies can also be diverse. Aside from the dedicated team, there are the following options:

• Fixed price. It’s when you know the project’s scope and are looking for a vendor who will perform specific tasks for a set cost.

• Time and material. Here you pay for the time and resources spent on development. This model involves hourly pay and is suitable when the project scope is unclear.

• Hybrid. It’s a combination of time and material and fixed price models.

Freelance software developers are self-employed specialists. You may need such an expert if your project is small and does not require an entire team to implement it.

The cost of freelance software developer will vary according to the specialist’s level of expertise and experience. On average, it is $100 per hour.

The popular freelance marketplace Upwork provides the following figures for software developer hourly rate:

Hiring In-House Software Developers Costs

If you aim to gather an in-house dev team, be prepared to consider the following factors. First, it is the country in which you live. Second, remember that all administrative costs, such as locating, retaining, and training employees, are on you. And don’t forget about renting an office and buying software and hardware.

Let’s look at several types of developers: frontend, backend, and full stack. We’ll also examine their average annual salaries in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany.

The cost of hiring in-house software developers will be as follows:

Since building your digital product also requires other specialists, such as designers or QA experts, it is worth finding out their average salaries. We have prepared a detailed table for you:

Hiring a Web Developer Costs

Web developers are professionals who have the expertise to create websites and web applications. So if you need such a product for your business, it’s worth learning more about such experts.

As a rule, web specialists perform the following functions:

• Using such web development languages ​​as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP

• Developing and testing websites and web apps

• Fixing bugs and website limitations

• Supporting and updating web products

• Implementing the design according to the client’s requirements

The cost of hiring a web developer will vary depending on the specialist’s location, expertise, and experience. Look at the average annual salaries for US junior, middle, and senior web developers:

• Junior web developers – $65,000.

• Mid-level web developers – $95,000.

• Senior web developers – $112,469.

Costs of Hiring Software Developers in Ukraine, Poland, Western Europe, and North America

We’ve mentioned that location directly influences the development services costs. In this section, we will discuss this factor in more detail. We have researched average rates for Western Europe and North America as well as for popular outsourcing hubs in Eastern Europe – Ukraine and Poland.

Hiring Software Developers in Ukraine

The cost of hiring Ukrainian developers is significantly lower than, for example, in the US or the UK. Yet, their skills and experience are no different.

According to the Dou.ua summer 2022 research, the average annual salary of a junior software developer from Ukraine is about $11,400. These are specialists with up to three years of experience on average. Middle-level professionals, who tend to have four to six years of experience, earn around $31,200.

If we consider more experienced specialists, senior developers, their average annual salary can reach $56,400. In this case, you can expect an expert with more than seven years of experience.

Hiring Software Developers in Poland

Eastern Europe is rich in affordable technical talent, and Poland is no exception. Let’s see how much software developers earn here.

For a specialist with one to three years of experience, you should pay about $29,235 per year. A software developer with mid-level expertise earns an average salary of $41,756 per year. Highly qualified experts with more than eight years of experience earn about $51,882 annually.

Hiring Software Developers in Western Europe

If your choice is a dev company in Western Europe, then the average salary of software engineers will be much higher compared to Eastern Europe. The Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden are the most popular destinations for software development.

Let’s take a look at the average software developer annual rates for each of these countries:

• The Netherlands – $43,381.

• Germany – $50,839.

• The United Kingdom – $37,659.

• France – $42,311.

• Sweden – $42,702.

Hiring Software Developers in North America

Now we will discover how much software development experts from the US and Canada earn.

The average annual salary for software developers in the United States is $73,999. Also, in the US, rates vary greatly from state to state. Here’s some data from Talent.com on salaries by region:

As for Canada, a software engineer in this country earns an average of $53,218 annually.

Final Thoughts

Now you have all the necessary information to hire a programmer successfully.

What to pay attention to when choosing the cooperation model? Put your needs first. Think about your financial capabilities and the convenience of communication with the dev team.

Any of the approaches we have listed may work for you. However, from the point of view of comfort, price, quality, and responsibility of the vendor, the best option is a dedicated team.

If you need dedicated developers, Arounda can help. We are an experienced product design and dev company from Ukraine that offers more than 30 experts. So, don’t hesitate and contact our team.