The three ways to hire, and what each really costs
There are three honest paths to getting development work done: hire a full-time employee, contract a freelancer, or bring on a vetted developer through a staffing partner that employs them for you. Each has a different true cost once you count everything, not just the headline number.
The mistake most founders make is comparing a full-time salary to a freelancer's hourly rate to an agency's monthly fee as if they were the same unit. They are not. A salary excludes benefits, payroll tax, equipment, and the months of recruiting before day one. A freelance rate excludes the management time you spend directing the work. Line them up on total cost of ownership and the ranking often flips.
Full-time hire: salary is roughly two-thirds of the cost
In the US, a mid-level web developer typically runs $95,000–$130,000 in base salary and a senior developer $130,000–$180,000, depending on stack and market. But base salary is only part of it. Once you add payroll taxes, health benefits, software and hardware, and paid time off, the fully-loaded cost is usually 1.25–1.4x the base — so a $140,000 senior developer costs closer to $175,000–$195,000 a year to actually keep on staff.
Then there is the cost before they start: weeks of recruiting, screening, and interviewing, plus the very real risk of a mis-hire. Industry estimates put the cost of replacing a bad technical hire at several months of salary once you count lost time and re-recruiting. A full-time hire is the right call when the work is continuous and core to your product — but it is the highest-commitment, slowest-to-start option.
Freelance: fast and flexible, until you scale
Freelance web developers on the open market typically charge $40–$100 an hour for mid-level work and $100–$200+ for senior or specialized work, with rates on marketplaces swinging widely by region and vetting. A freelancer is the fastest way to get a defined project moving and carries no long-term commitment.
The hidden cost is management and continuity. You are the one scoping the work, reviewing it, and covering the gap when the freelancer takes on another client or disappears mid-project. For a one-off build that is fine. For ongoing work, the coordination overhead and turnover risk quietly erode the hourly savings.
Staffing partner (employer of record): senior talent, less overhead
The third path sits between the other two. A staffing partner recruits and vets the developer, employs them as the legal employer of record — handling payroll, taxes, and compliance — and places them on your team to manage day to day. You get a dedicated, vetted developer without carrying them as a US full-time employee or absorbing the recruiting and HR overhead yourself.
This is the model Webly Studio uses. Because the developer is employed through us rather than hired as a US W-2, the all-in cost typically lands below a fully-loaded US full-time hire while still giving you a dedicated person rather than a rotating freelancer. We scope the arrangement to the work on a Discovery Call rather than publishing a fixed rate, because the right number depends on seniority and scope — but the structural reason it costs less is the same every time: you are not paying US-FTE overhead for talent you manage directly.
How to choose
Match the hire to the shape of the work, not the other way around:
- One-off build with a clear scope → freelancer.
- Continuous, product-critical work you can recruit and manage in-house → full-time hire.
- Ongoing work where you want a dedicated, vetted developer without US-FTE overhead or a hiring process → staffing partner / employer of record.