What this costs
Indicative rate bands by experience and market. Published so you can compare us against a local hire before you talk to us.
| Experience | United States | United Kingdom | Australia | United Arab Emirates | Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| build2–4 years | $20–28/hour$3,200–4,480/month | £150–210/day£3,000–4,200/month | A$28–38/hourA$4,480–6,080/month | AED 95–135/hourAED 15,200–21,600/month | C$30–40/hourC$4,800–6,400/month |
| senior5–8 years | $28–38/hour$4,480–6,080/month | £210–300/day£4,200–6,000/month | A$38–52/hourA$6,080–8,320/month | AED 135–185/hourAED 21,600–29,600/month | C$40–54/hourC$6,400–8,640/month |
| lead9+ years, or tech lead | $38–52/hour$6,080–8,320/month | £300–450/day£6,000–9,000/month | A$52–70/hourA$8,320–11,200/month | AED 185–250/hourAED 29,600–40,000/month | C$54–72/hourC$8,640–11,520/month |
Rates are indicative and shown as an equivalent hourly or daily figure so you can benchmark us. Engagements are contracted as a monthly capacity fee for a pod, a monthly fee per engineer for staff augmentation, or a fixed price against a defined scope — see engagement models for which shape fits which situation.
For the wider market picture — what other regions charge, what a rate should include, and the four questions that make vendor quotes comparable — see the offshore developer rate guide.
Where a role is unusually scarce — a specific SAP module, a niche embedded stack, a security specialism — the band moves and we say so in the quote rather than quietly placing someone cheaper.
What is not charged for
Setup
No setup or mobilisation fee
Recruitment
No fee for sourcing or shortlisting
Replacement
Free if someone is wrong in the first two weeks
Management
No coordination surcharge; pod leads are in the pod fee
Working out the monthly cost
The arithmetic, without a sales call
A full-time engineer is 160 hours a month. A senior engineer at the US band of $28–38/hour is therefore $4,480–6,080/month, all in — no employer taxes, no benefits load, no recruitment fee, no equipment cost, and no cost at all for the months you do not need them.
A four-person pod — two senior engineers, one build-level engineer and a QA engineer, with a delivery lead included — typically lands between $17,000 and $21,000 per month as a single capacity fee.
Compare that to the loaded cost of the same team in your own market, including recruitment fees, payroll taxes, benefits, equipment and the three to five months you would spend hiring.
Commitment and notice
- Minimum term
- 3 months
- Notice after that
- 30 days
- Shortlist
- 3 CVs in 48h
- Start after acceptance
- 5 business days
- Permanent conversion
- Free after 12 months
Start with one or two engineers for three months, 30 days' notice to stop.
Invoicing by market
How invoicing works where you are
- United States
- Invoiced from India as an export of services. No US sales tax on services; W-8BEN-E on file. Priced in USD, per hour.
- United Kingdom
- Invoiced without VAT; your finance team accounts for it under the reverse charge and normally recovers it. Priced in GBP, per day.
- Australia
- Invoiced without GST; the reverse charge applies where your acquisition is not fully creditable. Priced in AUD, per day.
- United Arab Emirates
- No UAE withholding tax. Invoiced without VAT under the reverse charge. Priced in AED, per hour.
- Canada
- Services performed entirely in India sit outside Regulation 105 withholding. Priced in CAD, per hour.
This describes how we invoice and what our contracts say. It is not tax advice about your own position — your finance team or adviser should confirm the treatment for your entity.
Questions
Pricing
- Why publish rates at all?
- Because buyers are told to treat opaque pricing as a warning sign, and they are right. A published band also means a senior rate buys a senior engineer — you can check the CV against the price rather than taking our word for the seniority.
- Are there setup or recruitment fees?
- No. No setup fee, no recruitment fee, no per-engineer onboarding fee and no management surcharge. The rate or the pod fee is the cost.
- What about equipment, software and security tooling?
- Included. Our engineers work on machines we provide and manage, with endpoint protection, disk encryption and access control that we run. Licences for your own systems — your ATS, your IDE seats, your cloud — stay yours.
- How do pods get priced?
- One monthly figure for the whole team, quoted from the roles in it and fixed for the quarter. There is no hourly billing, no overtime line and no change request for an extra day of work.
- Do rates change?
- Not inside a contract term. At renewal we index for Indian wage inflation and tell you the number in advance; we do not reprice mid-engagement because a market moved.
- What happens on withholding tax and VAT?
- Invoices are issued from India as an export of services and carry no Indian GST. Your own indirect tax treatment depends on your jurisdiction — most of our clients self-account under a reverse charge and recover it. We will set out the mechanics for your country during contracting, and your tax adviser should confirm them.
Send us one role brief
One page is enough: the stack, the seniority, the first month of work and the hours you need covered. Three shortlisted CVs come back within 48 hours, with the rate band and notice period attached.