Pricing that you can plan around
Senior engineers from $20 to $40 an hour depending on the role, or a fixed price for a fixed scope. The same rates we publish on every hire page, in one place.
Hourly rates
Rates by role
Ranges reflect seniority within the role. Every engineer is vetted for the specific position; there is no junior tier hidden inside a senior rate.
| Role | Typical experience | Hourly rate (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| PHP / Laravel Developers | 4+ years | $20–28 |
| Frontend Developers | 3+ years | $22–30 |
| Vue.js Developers | 3+ years | $22–30 |
| Python Developers | 4+ years | $24–32 |
| Django Developers | 4+ years | $24–32 |
| React.js Developers | 4+ years | $25–33 |
| Angular Developers | 4+ years | $25–33 |
| Flutter Developers | 3+ years | $25–33 |
| Backend Developers (Node, Python, .NET) | 4+ years | $26–34 |
| React Native Developers | 4+ years | $26–34 |
| Full Stack Developers | 5+ years | $28–36 |
| AI Engineers | 5+ years | $30–38 |
| SSO / Identity Experts | 5+ years | $30–38 |
| Digital Signature & PKI Experts | 6+ years | $32–40 |
| Mortgage Software Experts | 6+ years | $32–40 |
Rates are per engineer hour, billed weekly against tracked time. A minimum engagement of 20 hours a week applies to hourly contracts.
Engagement models
Three ways to buy engineering
Pick the model that matches how defined the work is. We will say which fits, including when the smallest one is right.
Fixed-scope project
A defined product or MVP at a fixed price.
A written scope, a price, a timeline. Best when requirements are already clear: a defined MVP, an integration, a migration. Changes to scope are quoted as changes rather than absorbed silently or argued over later.
Quoted per project · typical MVP $8k–25k
Dedicated team
A squad embedded in your roadmap.
Two or more engineers working in your repositories and standups on an ongoing basis, with a project lead included. Scale up or down with two weeks’ notice. Best for continuous product development after the first release.
Role rate per engineer · lead included
Staff augmentation
A senior engineer inside your team.
One engineer, vetted for a specific role, who joins your existing team and process. Best for filling a skill gap — a Laravel specialist, an SSO expert, an AI engineer — without changing how your team works.
Role rate · 20 hrs/week minimum
What moves the number
What actually affects cost
Four things drive most of the variance in a quote. Knowing them lets you shape the scope before we price it.
How much is already decided
Wireframes, a data model and a written list of screens cut discovery time and remove the risk premium from a fixed price. A vague brief costs more because the uncertainty has to be paid for somewhere.
Integrations and compliance
Each third-party system — payments, identity providers, marketplaces, legacy databases — is real engineering. Regulated domains such as eSignature, lending or healthcare add audit and evidence requirements that must be built, not bolted on.
Platforms
Web only is cheapest. Adding iOS and Android from one cross-platform codebase adds roughly a third. Native apps per platform, or an embeddable widget for third-party sites, add more.
AI features
Retrieval over your own data, voice, or private model hosting each carry evaluation and infrastructure work beyond the feature itself. The ongoing cost is API or GPU spend, which we engineer down — up to 50% on token usage in one production system.
Next step
Get a real number
Every engagement starts with one of these, and none of them costs anything.
Request a quote
Describe what you want built. Within 24 hours you get a fixed price and timeline, or a recommended team and weekly cost, with the reasoning.
Get a scoped quote →Book a call
Thirty minutes with an engineer, not a salesperson, to work out which model fits and what the scope should be.
Schedule a consultation →Browse roles
See the skills, experience and rate for each developer role before you decide who you need.
See all roles →FAQ
Pricing questions we get asked
How do you decide between hourly and fixed price?
Fixed price when the scope is written down and agreed: a defined MVP, an integration, a migration. Hourly when the work is open-ended or the scope will evolve as you learn, which is most product development after the first release. We will recommend one, and we will not offer a fixed price on scope we cannot yet define, because that number would be a guess.
What does a typical MVP cost?
A focused first release with authentication, one core workflow and payments usually lands between $8,000 and $25,000 depending on the stack and how much design exists. That is a range, not a quote; a scoped quote takes a short call and is free. Our largest single build, an enterprise eSignature platform, ran to $157,650 over two years, so we are comfortable at both ends.
Why are your rates lower than US or European agencies?
The team is in Lahore, Pakistan, and that is the whole explanation. The engineers are senior — the lead has a decade in .NET and a 100% Job Success record across 47 Upwork contracts and 6,166 hours — and the cost difference is geography, not seniority. We overlap US and European working hours and communicate in English as a first language.
Is there a minimum engagement?
Hourly contracts run at a minimum of 20 hours a week so the engineer can hold real context on your product. Fixed-price projects have no minimum beyond their own scope. Short troubleshooting engagements, such as an SSO fix, are quoted as small fixed-price jobs and have ranged from $150 to $300.
How is time tracked and billed?
Tracked time, reported weekly with what was done against it, billed weekly or fortnightly. Through Upwork if you prefer its escrow and dispute protection, or by direct invoice. You see the hours before you pay for them.
What is included in the rate?
The engineer’s time, code review within the team, project communication, and handover documentation. Not included: third-party costs such as cloud hosting, paid APIs, app-store fees and licences, which are billed at cost or paid directly by you. We do not mark up infrastructure.
Can we start small and scale up?
That is how most engagements go. A fixed-price audit or a single engineer for a few weeks, then a dedicated team once the working relationship is proven. There is no penalty for scaling in either direction, and we ask for two weeks’ notice to wind an hourly engagement down.
Do you offer a dedicated team rate?
Yes. A dedicated team of two or more engineers on an ongoing basis is priced per engineer at the role rate, with a project lead included rather than billed separately. The saving over assembling the same people individually comes from that lead and from the continuity.
Who owns the code and the accounts?
You do, from the first commit. Work is delivered into your repositories and cloud accounts under an agreement that assigns it to you. You can bring in another team at any point without asking us.
How do I get an actual number?
Request a quote with a description of what you want built. We reply within 24 hours with either a fixed price and timeline, or a recommended team and weekly cost, and the reasoning behind it. There is no charge and no obligation.