When you commission a software build (an MVP, a web app, a website that's really an application), you're choosing between three models: a solo freelancer, a full agency, or a small senior team somewhere between the two. Everyone selling one of them will happily explain why the other two are a mistake. Here's the version that takes no side, including the cases where the answer isn't us.
The real difference between the three isn't the day rate. It's three things that never appear on the proposal: who does the coordinating, who carries the risk, and who's still answering in month two.
The freelancer: £5,000–£15,000
What you're buying: one person's hands and judgement, at the best hourly rate of the three. A strong freelancer on a well-bounded task is unbeatable value: no overhead, no layers, no meetings about the meeting.
The trade-off nobody explains: the rate is not the cost. Hiring a freelancer quietly makes you the project manager, the integrator and the QA department. Someone has to break the work into pieces, notice when the plumbing has cut a corner, decide what happens when two pieces don't fit, and chase the timeline. With a freelancer, that someone is you. And if you can't read code, you're supervising work you can't inspect. The hours you spend doing this are real money that never shows up in the comparison.
Then there's the bus factor of one. Holiday, illness, a better offer: your project stops, and there's rarely a handover anyone else can pick up cheaply.
When the freelancer is genuinely the right answer: the scope is small and well-bounded (an integration, a defined feature, a script), or you're technical enough to review the work yourself. If you do go this route on anything product-shaped, pay a second senior engineer for a one-day review before launch. It's cheap insurance against the corners you can't see.
The agency: £30,000–£80,000+
What you're buying: process, capacity and accountability on paper. Project managers, designers, engineers, QA, an account manager: a machine built to run several workstreams at once and survive any one person leaving.
That's genuinely valuable when a project truly spans design, build and marketing at once: the machine is exactly what you're paying for.
The trade-off nobody explains: you pay for the layers whether your project needs them or not. The senior people who impressed you in the pitch are rarely the people writing your code; day-to-day work is often done by the most junior person it can be given to, reviewed at intervals. And your questions travel through an account manager, which means slower answers and detail lost in both directions. For a first version of a product, a large slice of the fee buys coordination machinery the project is too small to need.
When the agency is genuinely the right answer: multiple parallel workstreams, several disciplines under one contract, formal procurement requirements, and a budget that treats £30k–£80k+ as proportionate to the risk being managed. (A large company buying one focused engineering build is not this case; see how to choose, below.)
The technical partner: £15,000–£30,000
The model in the middle, and the one without an established name: two or three senior engineers who take responsibility for the outcome, not just the tasks. This is the model we operate at TechChaps, so read this section knowing that, and discount accordingly.
What you're buying: the coordination problem moves off your desk without adding layers. You talk directly to the people writing the code. Architecture, plumbing and infrastructure get built by people who've shipped products before, and reviewed by a second senior engineer, not because a process document says so, but because there is a second senior engineer in the room. The bus factor stops being one, and the people who built it are the same people answering in month two.
The honest limits: a small team can't run five workstreams at once. If you need a fifteen-person delivery machine, this isn't it. It's not the cheapest option for a small bounded task; a £5k job doesn't need a team, and a good freelancer will do it for less. And you won't get the glossy decks and formal reporting cadence an agency provides. If your stakeholders need those, that's a real requirement, not a vanity.
The pitch, such as it is: not the cheapest per hour, but the cheapest per outcome, when the outcome is a product that has to survive real users.
The comparison
| Freelancer | Technical partner | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MVP-scale cost | £5k–£15k | £15k–£30k | £30k–£80k+ |
| Who coordinates | You | The team | Their PM (billed to you) |
| Bus factor | One person | Small team, shared context | Contractual continuity |
| Plumbing quality | Varies with the individual | Senior-built, peer-reviewed | Usually sound; junior-built in places |
| Who you talk to | The person doing the work | The people doing the work | An account manager |
| Month two | Depends on their availability | Same people, same context | Depends on the support tier |
How to choose in one minute
Ignore the rates for a moment and answer three questions:
- Can you personally review the work, or is the scope small enough that a bad corner can't sink you? Yes → freelancer, and keep the scope bounded.
- Is this several disciplines under one contract, or does procurement require a firm of a certain size? Yes → agency, and the premium is worth paying. But a large company buying one serious engineering build is a different case: that's still the senior-team model, at the top of its range.
- Is it a product that has to work when real users arrive? That's the small-senior-team case: £15k–£30k for a first version, more when the build is genuinely bigger.
And if what you're buying is a website rather than a software product, that's a different comparison with different price bands: start with what a website actually costs.
The pattern behind all three: whoever carries the coordination gets paid for it. With a freelancer you pay in your own time; with an agency you pay in layers; with a small team you pay a rate that includes it. The mistake isn't picking any one model; it's paying freelancer prices and expecting agency accountability, or agency prices for a project two engineers could carry.
Weighing up quotes right now? Book a 20-minute call. Describe the project and you'll leave knowing which model fits it and roughly what it should cost. If the right answer is “hire a freelancer”, that's what you'll hear.
