The sticker price is not the cost
Salaries and hourly rates leave out hiring time, management overhead and rework. We compared all three for a typical 12-week product build.
The numbers
An in-house team came to about $212k including recruiting and ramp-up. Freelancers came to $118k with significant coordination time. A senior agency squad came to $96k with dated milestones.
When in-house wins
If the product is your core business and you'll run it for years, build the team. We often help clients hire their own engineers and hand the codebase over.
