// free calculator
Build in-house or bring in a team? Run the numbers.
Salary is only part of the cost. Add benefits, recruiting fees, months spent hiring and ramp-up time to see what each option really costs per productive engineer-month.
Your project
Hiring in-house
Outside team
Enter the monthly quote you've received per engineer.
In-house total
$352,000
13.0 productive engineer-months
Outside team total
$460,000
22.0 productive engineer-months
Cost per productive engineer-month
In-house
$27,077
Outside
$20,909
An outside team gets you 9.0 more engineer-months of shipped work inside the same 12-month window.
Get a second opinion on these numbers
A senior engineer will review your numbers and follow up with the assumptions worth checking.
// faq
Frequently asked questions
- What does the true cost of an in-house engineer include?
- Base salary plus benefits and payroll taxes (often 25–40% on top), recruiting fees, equipment and software, and the months of lost output while you hire and ramp them up.
- Why does time-to-hire matter so much?
- Every month a role sits open is a month the work doesn't ship. For a time-boxed project, a three-to-six-month search can cost more in delay than the salary difference.
- When is hiring in-house the better choice?
- When the work is core, long-running and you can absorb the hiring time. Outside teams win on time-boxed projects, specialist skills and work you need started this quarter.
// let's build something
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Tell us what you're building — engineering capacity, AI, QA, cloud, or a fixed-scope software engagement. Our NYC team responds within one business day.
// what to expect
- Response within 1 business day
- 30-minute discovery conversation
- Recommended engagement model & pricing
- NYC-focused — in-person available
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