The real cost of hiring — it isn't just salary
- Salary + payroll taxes + benefits + equipment and software — substantial fixed costs stack on top of the nominal salary.
- The cost of hiring itself — time spent on postings, interviews and evaluation, and the paradox of a company with no developers having to evaluate developers.
- Attrition risk — a system built by one person easily becomes a black box nobody can touch once they leave.
- The limits of one person — a developer who is excellent at planning, design, servers, security and AI all at once is rare. Whatever's missing ends up outsourced anyway.
So the comparison isn't "salary vs outsourcing fee" but "total hiring cost + risk vs total outsourcing/managed cost".
When hiring fits, when outsourcing fits
| Situation | Right choice |
|---|---|
| Software is the product; daily development decisions are needed | Hire (or validate a first version via outsourcing before hiring) |
| You need operational systems — membership, booking, billing | Outsource / managed — hiring is overkill |
| You want to test market response with a first version (MVP) | Outsource to validate fast → decide on hiring once there's traction |
| You already have a dev team and need more hands | Partial outsourcing or hiring |
Honestly: if hiring is right for your company, we'll recommend hiring. Our job is to let companies where development is a "tool" have their systems without hiring.
The third option — subscribe to a development team (managed)
Between hiring and one-off outsourcing sits managed (SaaS). from ₩1M / ₩2.5M / ₩5M/mo, and it doesn't end at launch — server management, improvements, new features and a monthly performance report continue.
- Like hiring, it's continuous — but unlike hiring, no attrition risk and no management burden.
- Like outsourcing, you get a specialist team — but unlike outsourcing, no new quote every time something changes.
- No long-term lock-in, so it adjusts to your business situation.
Send us the task list that made you consider hiring a developer — we'll tell you honestly, with a demo, whether it can be solved without hiring.
Start with a free demo & diagnosis (₩0). Every plan includes server operations, data management, ongoing updates, the marketing video pipeline and SEO/GEO visibility work — no per-seat pricing. KRW is authoritative. Try the demo, and sign only if you like it.