Two quotes on the table, for the same role. One is far lower than the other, and the budget is tight. The choice looks obvious, until three months later the CTO spends half the week reading Pull Requests and explaining again what needs to be built.
A developer's monthly price is only one line in the real cost. The rest shows up later, and most of it is paid for in the time of your most expensive people.
What actually goes into the cost
Think in three layers. The first is the price in the quote. The second is the time your team spends directing, reviewing and fixing. The third is what happens to the product: bugs that reach customers, code that is hard to extend, and features that slip.
A developer who is too cheap tends to load the second layer. They need a detailed explanation for every task, return code that doesn't meet the standard, and don't catch on their own the problems an experienced developer would stop before they start. The result is that someone on your side becomes a full-time task manager, and that cost appears on no invoice.
Experience pays off exactly where it is hard to measure
The difference between a developer with broad experience and one at the start of their career isn't typing speed. It's judgment: what not to build, where a test belongs, which small change today saves a week in six months.
That's why we only hire developers with 5+ years of experience. It's an operational decision: such a developer needs less management and returns more value from the first week. Our saving compared with local hiring is 25%–40%.
The gap between an experienced developer and a cheap one is felt mostly in the day-to-day. It shows in how many times a task has to be explained, how many bugs come back from testing, and how much of your manager's time goes to fixes instead of planning. This math isn't in the price quote, but it determines the real cost.
How to check quality before you commit
A résumé tells you little. What works better:
- A technical conversation about decisions, not definitions. Ask the candidate to describe a system they built and something they would do differently. Someone who really built it can go into detail, and someone who didn't sounds generic.
- Review of real code. A piece of code they wrote, or a short task. Look at naming, error handling, and whether the code is easy for another person to read.
- A deliberately vague task. Give an incomplete definition and see whether they ask or guess. A good developer notices what's missing and asks.
- A question about failure. What broke in production, and what they changed in their way of working afterward. A candidate with no honest answer probably hasn't worked in a real environment long enough.
At our company every candidate goes through two interviews, one with HR and one technical, and only those who pass reach the client for an interview. That way your time goes to candidates who have already been screened.
The price should be clear and stable
An especially cheap quote sometimes looks that way because parts were left out of the price: equipment, management, vacation days, overtime. Before signing, ask what is included and what isn't, and compare line by line.
We work with a final monthly price per full-time employee, everything included. What isn't included is special equipment and the optional Israel-based manager service, and we say both up front. A predictable price is part of quality, because it lets you budget.
How to calculate it in practice
To keep things straight, build a simple table for each quote. In the first column, the full monthly price, including anything added outside the quote. In the second, an estimate of how many hours a week the person working with them will spend on management: code reviews, explanations, meetings. In the third, an estimate of how much of the code will have to come back for fixes.
The last two estimates are hard to know in advance, so they are tested during the trial period, not in discussion. After a month you have real data, and the decision is simpler. Pay particular attention to the hours of your senior people: an hour of CTO time spent on repeated explanations is an hour not spent on architecture.
Check the fit before you invest half a year
Even an excellent developer may not fit your team or your working style. The cheap way to find out is a real trial period with real tasks, not another round of interviews.
The first month with us is a paid trial month. It exists for exactly this: to see how the developer integrates, how they communicate and what the code quality is. It's worth defining success criteria in advance, for example how many Pull Requests closed without a second round of fixes, and whether the right questions were asked. We wrote about more early signals in five signs in the first month that your project is on track.
Questions to ask every vendor before signing
- Who will actually work on your team, and can you interview them?
- How was their experience verified, and who did the check?
- What is included in the monthly price and what isn't?
- Which working hours will suit your team?
- What happens to your code and data, and who signs for confidentiality?
- What does the first month look like?
A vendor who struggles to answer questions like these directly is showing you what the day-to-day will look like. Comfort with these questions is worth more than any presentation.
At our company the developer is employed by our own company in the Philippines, and if the client asks, they also sign an NDA. Working hours are adapted to the client.
What happens when you skip the checks
Skipping checks usually happens under time pressure: you need a developer tomorrow, and you take the first one available. The problem is that the result is felt only after weeks, when you have already invested in onboarding and context. By then every course correction costs more, because you lost time and momentum as well.
The solution is a structured process that moves the checks before the commitment. When candidates have already been screened and only those who passed reach you, you can decide fast and still know what the decision rests on. For us, the time from a request to the first developer is usually 2–4 weeks, and sometimes a matter of days.
When the cheap option does make sense
There are cases where it's reasonable: a defined, closed task, with no dependency on existing code, that is easy to verify. A one-off script, a static page, a data conversion with clear validation. In such cases the management cost is low and the risk is small.
Once you're talking about a product that will live for years, code that will grow, or a system that touches money and sensitive data, a low price becomes a gamble. That's where it pays to pay for judgment.
The bottom line
Compare quotes by total cost: how much management and explanation time a developer needs, how many fixes will come back to you, and what risk is created for the product. Check quality through code and a conversation about decisions, and test fit in a trial period with real tasks.
If you want experienced developers who join your team and are managed by you, our Outstaffing track is the starting point.
