Now it’s time to witness 3 short battlefields to find out who is going to be “just right” for your app idea: a bunch of mobile freelancers or a mobile agency. Let the fight begin!

Myth: working with a freelancer is more cost-effective

We’re here to debug this myth. Under equal circumstances, a freelancer will likely have a lower hourly rate than an agency. But it doesn’t mean that your project will cost less if you hire a freelancer. Since too many times hidden expenses arise in the process. Finding the right freelancer to work on your product may become an overwhelming task, both time and money consuming.Sometimes it turns out to be this never ending trial and error process of hiring different developers until you find one that matches your product needs.

High rates are the most realistic disadvantage of working with a software development company. Freelancers are indeed cheaper and it’s kind of hard to argue on this. A company’s services will, for sure, cost you more.

On a long term, a collaboration with a mobile agency might be more feasible in the end. This is due to the fact that agencies can deliver high-complexity projects, with little presence or effort needed from your side.

Hint: It’s really important to know that company rates depend on the region. Let’s take for example, Indian agencies. They are famous for their low-cost development services. Сompanies from Western Europe and the US will cost you a fortune. There’s a reason why so many successful startups choose to work with companies in the Eastern Europe.

Proficiency (Expertise)

A freelancer usually is specialised in one area, while an agency has a full-deck of talent in the office. It’s got full coverage starting from developers with multiple programming languages, designers, project managers, testers and product strategists. Having a cross-functional team means that the right specialist is tackling each component of your app with the suitable expertise. We can’t speak up for all agencies, but for us, at Wolfpack Digital the competitive selection process brings highly-skilled software developers with a vast experience in several industries.They say the interviews at Google are savage? They haven’t tried the ones that we have.

Another thing to consider is that, while freelancers can mysteriously become ghosts, companies cannot. Software development companies value their reputations and strive to develop high-quality products that get positive feedback after they’re launched.

Accountability / Management

Usually in a developing agency there is a efficient already tested workflow guided by the team managers, product owners and scrum masters who take care that all the task are done flawlessly and on time. This way, you may have a very complex product and not worry about every single detail which goes wrong. Remember the higher cost we talked above? Imagine you have a team of freelance developers working on your product, and because it’s quite a complicated idea, you are obligated to check each step of the process with every person individually. Good thing agencies have one product owner which keeps you informed throughout the app evolution and has everything under control. In the end, development companies are looking for long term partnerships. Companies prefer building relationships of trust with individual clients and implementing projects on the long term. This is more efficient than a freelancer focusing on the quantity of incoming projects.

Coupled with your depiction, the Goldilock principle can save your time for research thoroughly. It means to find the ideal candidate to suit your product. Do you need the ‘best developing company’ for a basic app with several features a developer could easily build? Or are you letting a developer who has no vast experience and necessary management skills to develop a complex enterprise mobile/web app? You got the idea. Depending on the level of intricacy, requirements and the purpose of the software, your choice should fall on either freelancer or mobile agency’s side.