HOW MUCH DOES POLISH OUTSOURCING COST? PART 1

Disclaimer: Many agencies are hiding values to hide their margins and gain a lot on somebody’s else work. Often quality doesn’t go with the price. Few days ago Elon Musk gave his great Tesla technology as open source to the public. Was that wrong? Of course not. He creates new rules in the market. I might be afraid of someone reading this article and not willing to use my help facilitating enclosed data. Surely I can’t help everyone and I don’t even want to. On the other hand I know that data is beginning to long journey and you need to know how to apply it. Values I present some agencies keep in secret. I will try to explain where it comes from and for what you should pay, if you let someone find best work force for you.

While I was talking many times about pros and cons of outsourcing work to Poland, I didn’t mention they key element – price. I don’t think that price should be your main driver to pick subcontractors in such difficult a industry like IT, but still it’s significant. Still I can honestly say that Polish developers may not compete by price with India or Philippines, but can compete both with price and quality with all European resources. Compared to Ukrainian or Belarusian, who are still very high quality, it’s far more stable (compared to what happens now in Ukraine) and accessible (compared to no VAT reverse charge and non-EU outsourcing restrictions for Belarus).

If you want to have statistical information about how much developers costs in Poland, you can visit wynagrodzenia.pl. Because their copyrights I will leave them numbers and diagrams about median and average values. For sure numbers given won’t fully apply to your case because:

• for proper, secured outsourcing you will look for agencies or senior freelancers, who may not be counted into Polish market price stats;
• you need candidates who can communicate with you, so more likely already work for non-Polish customers/employers and may be not considered as statistical group;
• numbers will lie about most interesting group, which are sole traders and will show their net income, when you look into gross invoice values;

Rambo

Let’s start with easy scenario. You just need your personal MI5 double “o” to help you with a project. It may be your raw idea, untypical order from your client or rescue mission. You need someone who is self-sufficient, reliable and experienced. Simple answer. While query we made to our list of potential subcontractors most of them priced 2-3 years experienced all-stack PHP/HTML/JavaScript developer for 5 days per 8 hours asked about 2000 EUR per month (what would be around 1600 GBP/mth or 19200 per annum). With experience price spanned to 2500 EUR. From personal experience I can say that this level is sensible. Giving less is still possible, but may bring issues with quality. Giving more will be simply spoiling your contractor. For price as given you may expect proper skills and VAT free invoice (reverse charge service purchase from EU state).

EDIT June 16th 2014: Based on valuable comments from readers I have to mark that this scenario works to situation when you hire long term full time developer with relatively short experience. That person still can solve many of your problems. Situation will show totally different, if you talk about more experienced workers and/or freelancers. Because flexibility you gain with them and expertise you have to consider higher values. I will extend that topic, in further articles.

On top of it you should consider following costs:

• software licences proper to your project – it may happen you use software specific for your project and you would have to count it as extra cost;
• head hunting activity costs
  • check of your needs, requirements and budget and how it meets possibilities
  • job posting, appliances qualification and intermediate interviews
  • candidates background checks
  • help to organise efficient remote work scheme

Most of agencies will charge your one or two agreed gross monthly salaries just on posting job and giving you list of potential candidates. Is it worth it? I think you need a bit more. If you don’t want to waste your time nor money feel free to contact me, other Hire Poles consultants or any other competent oversea hire service.

In next articles we will consider:

• multilingual customer support
• project teams
• branches
• designers and illustrators

Photo by Maciej Kowal. Model Pawel Podolak. Both extremely recommended by me developers I worked with before and can also help you with advice.