Comparison · Engagement model
Individual freelancers or one integrated build? One task, one person: freelancer. Several disciplines: someone has to own the seams.
Freelancers are often the cheapest and fastest answer. This page describes the point at which coordination between several of them costs more than the rate advantage returns.
How we compare
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We sell the alternative
This is not a neutral review. That is why price date, assumptions and the maths sit openly next to it.
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Both outcomes are shown
Including the scenarios where the vendor wins. A comparison that always ends in our favour would be advertising.
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Only evidenced numbers
List prices with a source. Where a vendor does not publish, no invented total appears.
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Your numbers decide
The calculator takes your users, your volume and your term instead of our assumption.
In short
One freelancer on a bounded task is hard to beat. The effort appears once several people work on the same system, because somebody then has to own the seams between them. If that somebody is nobody, the work lands with you.
Why there is no calculation here: There is no three-year calculation on this page. Hourly rates are negotiated and vary widely, and the real difference is not the rate but the number of handover points. What can be compared is the structure.
In detail
Where the models differ
| Point | Freelancers | FW Delta |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly rate | usually lower | usually higher |
| Coordination | yours, as soon as more than one person is involved | inside the project |
| Responsibility for the whole | each person for their part | for the outcome |
| Consistency | each person brings their own patterns | one set of conventions |
| If someone drops out | it hits the part only they know | absorbed inside the project |
| Documentation | as agreed, case by case | part of the handover |
| Afterwards | continuing depends on that person being available | code, configuration and documentation stay |
The decision
What speaks for which route.
One integrated build fits when
- several disciplines converge on the same system
- nobody in-house can or wants to run the coordination
- the system will be carried on by others after completion
- a reliable timeline matters more than the hourly rate
Freelancers fit when
- · the task is clearly bounded and one person can do it alone
- · somebody in-house can own the handover points
- · budget is the deciding factor
- · the work is repeatable and needs no deep system knowledge
If you want to switch
What happens next
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30 minutes
Conversation
We walk through your starting point and say honestly whether a move pays off for you.
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within five working days
Fixed-price proposal
With scope, assumptions and what is explicitly not included.
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depending on scope
Build and handover
Code access from day one, manual at the end, no obligation to keep us.
Common questions
Why are there no failure-rate percentages here?
Because we cannot measure them. Frequencies like thirty or eighty percent appear in plenty of comparisons with no survey behind them. Numbers like that look solid and are not.
Are freelancers cheaper?
On the hourly rate, almost always. Whether the project comes out cheaper depends on how many handover points appear and who owns them. With one person the answer is clear; with four it rarely is.
Do you work with freelancers?
Yes, where the skills fit. The difference is that the coordination then sits inside the project rather than with you.
Read on
Where to go next.
Next step
Talk about the scope
For a clearly bounded task we will tell you a freelancer is enough.
Reply within 24 hours. No obligation, confidential.