IT services include a huge variety of activities like programming for various platforms, architecture design, testing, deployment, support, hardware-related activities (e.g., chip design or system administration…), as well as consultation services (staff training, mentoring sessions, documentation writing, etc).
IT outsourcing costs depend on a type of service in question, project scope, time restrictions, team size, and the outsourcing region.
In general, outsourcing is cheaper than sustaining an in-house team, which is one of the primary reasons to practice it. The other reason is access to the best talent in the world. As a result, numerous polls reveal the fact that productivity of remote teams is even higher in the majority of cases compared to the in-house ones.
It is extremely hard to draw a price baseline to compare all the other software development prices to. To reiterate, the variety of reasons come into play:
- The level of a specialist and their status: an independent freelancer or a company member.
- Home office location or the country of residence of a given team or individual.
- The technical complexity of a given task.
- The required programming language, development framework, and other technologies involved.
- The project scope and the number of times that the project requirements were changed in the course of development.
Last but not least, one may be paying extra for a brand name if they deal with a company that is recognized and respected globally.
That said, the floor IT outsourcing costs sit at $25-50 per hour per specialist on average, globally. A quick check on Glassdoor reveals that the floor rates in the US are slightly higher, sitting at $30-60 per hour. But these prices concern only low-tech solutions, i.e., the mainstream ones, those that are comparably simple: website front-end development, testing services, basic mobile app development, etc.
The IT outsourcing cost in the case of Senior-level specialists crawls up to $50-150 per hour.
Finally, the pricing of high-tech solution development (or consultation) spikes as high as $850 per hour.
Despite the seemingly depressive signs in the global economy (COVID-related lockdowns, war and the related provision shortages, environmental crisis), IT services keep gaining popularity. SMBs and startups direly need them because web and/or mobile presence is a must for every business that can afford it and is able to scale as necessary. Large entities and governments need them in no lesser degree because any of the novel IT inventions may become a source of unimaginable profits in a decade or so: AR/VR, AI/ML, RPA, IoT, DeFi, etc.
The market demand is going to rise, in other words. Will the global workforce be able to meet the demand? Or, on the contrary, the rates will go up as a response to the increased talent scarcity?
Business owners don’t want to gamble with the future prices: they prefer to secure the contracts and hire professionals right now. It is going to be easier and cheaper to retain the talent later than to find and hire them if the demand does disproportionately rise.
Luckily, there are plenty of options for every budget. One doesn’t have to go all-in in outsourcing: they can choose outsource vs outstaff. That is, fully delegate product development to a professional service provider or augment the core team with as many professionals as they like (even a single pro) to compensate for the lack of experience or skill.
Business owners risk nothing if they simply come up to service providers with a request to estimate the time and money investments required in their situation.
By the way, Ukrainian teams truly shine when it comes to balancing price with proficiency. Asian region countries may be the cheapest in the world, but, when it comes to quality, one can tell that the lack of infrastructure, experience, and STEM education is evident.
The IT industry of Ukraine perseveres and strives during the wartime, which is a sufficient proof of their capability.
Considering that Ukrainian teams are attractive both in financial and professional regards, it is advisable to select one such team to assist the core personnel or for full-stack end-to-end development services right now. For instance, Voypost is led by a Ukrainian Solution Architect with 12 years of professional software development, Nikita Sviridenko: his team is remarkable for flexible service conditions that appeal to startup owners.
Go ahead and support Ukrainian software development service providers; it is well-justified both in practical and ethical dimensions.
