Outsource web development: how it works, what it costs, and what goes wrong.
Outsourcing web development means paying an external team to build what you would otherwise build in-house — as a fixed-price project, a developer committed to you monthly, or people working inside your own process. Rates run from a few dollars an hour to agency prices; ours is ₹2,000 / $40. The rate is the part that matters least, and this page is mostly about the parts that matter more.
This is a guide rather than a pitch. The offer is at the bottom, and most of what is above it applies whoever you end up hiring.
Three ways to do it, and what each one fails at
Most bad outsourcing experiences are the right supplier bought under the wrong model.
Project-based
Fixed scope, fixed price, a deliverable
Best when you know exactly what you want built and it has an edge. You buy an outcome rather than time, and the supplier carries the risk of it taking longer than expected.
Fails when the spec is vague. A fixed price against a fuzzy scope becomes a monthly argument about what was included, and both sides end up resenting it.
Dedicated developer
A person, committed monthly, directed by you
Best when the work is continuous but the shape of it changes — a product with a roadmap, a client base with a steady flow of tickets. You get continuity and someone who learns your codebase.
Fails when nobody on your side has the time to direct them. A dedicated developer with no product owner produces a month of plausible work that solves the wrong problem.
Staff augmentation
Inside your process, your tools, your standups
Best when you already have engineers and a process that works, and simply need more hands inside it. Your repo, your review, your definition of done.
Fails when your process is the bottleneck. Adding people to an unclear process makes it slower, and that is true whether they are in your office or not.
What it actually costs, beyond the hourly rate
Rate comparisons by region are everywhere and most of them are marketing. Here is the arithmetic that is actually load-bearing.
- The rate is the small half
- An hourly rate tells you very little on its own. What decides the real cost is how many hours reach useful output, and that is a function of the spec and the review process rather than of geography. A team at twice the rate that needs half the direction and produces work you accept first time is cheaper, and the difference is usually larger than the rate gap.
- Management overhead is real
- Somebody on your side has to write briefs, answer questions and review work. Budget five to ten hours a week of your own people at your own cost. Suppliers rarely mention this because it appears on your payroll, not on their invoice.
- Rework is the hidden multiplier
- A cheap hour that produces something you reject twice is not cheap. This is where most outsourcing disappointments actually live, and it is almost always caused by a missing written spec rather than by the developer.
- Recruitment and ramp-up disappear
- The comparison people forget is against hiring. A permanent engineer carries recruitment, notice periods, benefits, equipment and two to three months of ramp-up before they are productive.
For the avoidance of coyness, our rate is ₹2,000 / $40 an hour in 40-hour blocks. That sits below a Western agency and above the bottom of the freelance market, and we would rather put it in the middle of a page about costs than leave you to ask. Every price we charge is published.
Six things that go wrong, and the clause that prevents each
Every guide ranking for this phrase lists the benefits. These are the six ways it actually falls apart, in the order we see them.
- 01
No written spec, so scope is argued monthly
Fix it with a written scope signed before money moves, and a change-request process where anything outside it is quoted and approved before it enters the work.
- 02
A timezone gap with no overlap
Every question costs a day, and a three-question problem costs a week. Fix it with a contractually agreed overlap window rather than a vague promise of flexibility.
- 03
No code review, so you inherit debt
Work that nobody on your side reads becomes a codebase nobody on your side can change. Fix it by requiring pull requests into your repository, reviewed by you, from day one.
- 04
Unclear IP assignment
The default in many jurisdictions is that the author owns the copyright unless it is assigned. Fix it with an explicit assignment clause on payment, covering code, designs and documentation.
- 05
One developer with no cover
They take leave, they get ill, they leave the supplier. Fix it by requiring a named second who has actually touched the code, and documentation as a deliverable rather than a favour.
- 06
Communicating only through a salesperson
Every technical answer relayed twice loses something. Fix it by insisting on direct access to whoever is writing the code, in a shared channel, before you sign.
Six things to insist on, from any supplier
Including from us. If a supplier resists any of these, that is the information you were looking for.
- A written scope before any money moves, however small the first piece is
- A named lead developer, not a pool of interchangeable resources
- Your repository, your continuous integration, your code review
- A weekly demo of working software rather than a weekly status email
- An agreed overlap window with your working day, in the contract
- An exit clause that hands over credentials, documentation and a running environment
Hire a dedicated WordPress developer
If the work is continuous rather than a single project, this is the shape most of our partners settle into.
A named developer rather than a pool, working your hours inside your process: your repository, your tracker, your standup, your code review. They learn your codebase and your conventions, which is most of what makes the second month cheaper than the first.
WordPress, WooCommerce and Shopify are the core, with Next.js and Node where a project needs it. If your work is broader than that, the development side of what we do says what else we build.
Monthly rolling with 30 days’ notice, a named second who has touched the code, and documentation delivered as part of the work rather than promised at the end. Intellectual property is assigned to you on payment, and we sign your NDA and your client’s before anything starts.
₹2,000 / hour
$40 / hour outside India
- Bought in 40-hour blocks, one block minimum
- A named developer and a named second
- An agreed overlap with your working day
- IP assigned to you on payment
- Mutual NDA before anything starts
- 30 days’ notice, no lock-in
Why we can say the timezone thing credibly
Because it is already how we work. 86% of our development revenue is for clients outside India, across dozens of engagements since 2018. Async by default, written updates, staging links you can review when you wake up — not because it is fashionable, but because it is the only thing that works across eight time zones.
If you are an agency
And you are reselling the work under your own brand rather than extending your own team, the terms are slightly different — invisibility, your branding on every deliverable, and no contact with your client unless you invite us.
Outsourcing questions, answered
What is outsourcing in web development?
Paying an external team or individual to build software you would otherwise build in-house. It ranges from a one-off project with a fixed price, through a developer committed to you monthly, to people working inside your own process and tools. The word covers all three, which is why so many conversations about it talk past each other.
Is outsourcing a dying concept?
No, but the cheap-labour-arbitrage version of it is under real pressure. When the pitch was only a lower hourly rate, code generation tools have compressed that advantage considerably. What has not been compressed is the value of a team that has shipped this kind of thing before, holds the context, and is accountable for the result — and that is what the market is moving towards buying.
Is web development still worth it?
As a business investment, yes, with the caveat that the bar has moved. A brochure site that exists is no longer an achievement. What returns money is a site that is fast, that people can actually complete a task on, and that somebody maintains — and that combination is harder to buy cheaply than the price of a template suggests.
Who owns the code?
You do, assigned to you on payment, covering code, designs and documentation. Get that in writing wherever you outsource: in several jurisdictions the default is that the author retains copyright unless it is explicitly assigned, and discovering that during an acquisition is a bad day.
What timezone do you work in?
We are in Bengaluru, on India Standard Time. We set a fixed daily overlap with your working day at the start of the engagement and put it in the agreement. Most of our development work is already for clients in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, so this is a solved problem here rather than a hopeful one.
Can I meet the developer before committing?
Yes, and you should — with any supplier. Ask to speak to the person who will do the work, not the person selling it, and ask them a technical question about your actual problem. If a supplier will not arrange that, you have learned something useful for nothing.
What happens if the developer leaves?
A named second has already touched the code and the documentation is a deliverable rather than a promise, so a handover is days rather than months. This is the risk that costs the most when it is not planned for, and it is entirely plannable.
Do you sign our NDA, and our client's?
Both, before anything starts, and we do not ask for a case-study exception. If you are an agency and your client's contract has terms we need to inherit, send them and we will sign back-to-back rather than negotiating around them.
What is the minimum engagement?
One 40-hour block at ₹2,000 / $40 an hour. That is deliberately small enough to be a trial rather than a commitment — a block is roughly a five-page WordPress build or a month of steady tickets, which is enough work to find out whether we are any good.
Start with one block
Forty hours is small enough to be a trial and large enough to be a real test. Tell us what you would give us first and how many hours a month you think you need.