A senior US web developer costs $12,000 to $18,000 per month fully loaded — salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, equipment and recruitment amortised. A US contractor is $100 to $200 per hour. An offshore studio engineer is $3,500 to $6,500 per month. The gap is location cost, not skill, but it is paid for in timezone overlap and market context.
Most comparisons put a salary next to an hourly rate, which is not a comparison. Here is what each option actually costs once everything is included.
Salary to loaded cost
Time to hire
Recruiter fee
Ramp to productive
US senior web developer: $120,000–$165,000 depending on metro. Mid-level: $90,000–$125,000.
Adds roughly 25–40%: employer taxes, health insurance, retirement match, paid leave.
15–25% of first-year salary through an agency, or months of your own team's time.
Three to five months before a senior hire is fully productive. That is real, paid, low-output time.
$3,000–$5,000 in year one, plus $100–$300 a month in software seats.
A bad hire costs severance, lost time and re-recruitment — commonly 6–12 months of salary.
| Option | Monthly cost | Time to start | Commitment |
|---|---|---|---|
| US employee (senior) | $12,000 – $18,000 loaded | 2–4 months | Permanent |
| US contractor | $16,000 – $32,000 | 2–6 weeks | Contract term |
| US agency | $15,000 – $30,000 | 4–8 weeks | Per project |
| Eastern Europe studio | $5,500 – $9,000 | 2–4 weeks | 30 days notice |
| Latin America studio | $5,000 – $8,500 | 2–4 weeks | 30 days notice |
| India studio | $3,500 – $6,500 | 1–2 weeks | 30 days notice |
| Freelance marketplace | $1,500 – $8,000 | Days | Highly variable |
The middle three offer different timezone trade-offs at similar quality. Latin America gives the best US overlap; Eastern Europe suits East Coast mornings; India costs least and overlaps mornings on the East Coast and afternoons in the UK.
| Line item | Annual |
|---|---|
| Base salary (senior, US average) | $140,000 |
| Employer payroll taxes | ~$11,000 |
| Health insurance and benefits | ~$18,000 |
| Retirement match | ~$5,000 |
| Recruitment fee (amortised over 2 years) | ~$14,000 |
| Equipment and software | ~$5,000 |
| Total year one | ~$193,000 (≈$16,000/month) |
For a mid-sized US company without an existing engineering team, a studio is usually the right first step. Hire in-house once the workload is proven continuous and someone internal can manage it.
Cost of living and local salary markets, not skill. A senior engineer in India earns a good local salary at a rate that looks low in dollars. What you pay for the difference is timezone overlap and local market intuition.
Often, but not always. For a small defined task with a clear deliverable, a good freelancer is excellent value. For anything that needs to be maintained for years, the variance in code quality is the risk you are actually pricing.
Convert both to monthly fully loaded cost and include ramp time. An agency at $15,000 a month starting in two weeks often beats a $140,000 hire who starts in three months and ramps for four more.
US agencies $125–$250, US contractors $100–$200, Eastern Europe $45–$75, Latin America $40–$70, India $25–$45. Monthly retainers usually price better than hourly for continuous work.
How we think about this work, in more depth.
Cost guide
A 30-minute call, then a written proposal with scope, price and timeline within two to three working days. No retainer required to get a real number, and no obligation if the answer is that we are not the right fit.