North American Developer Rates Are Kinda Nuts
Say you’re from the US where the hourly rate of a developer averages to about USD80.
Whether or not you can afford it, you’d most likely love to lower it – if you could.
Well, now you can – here are six places to outsource your software development in 2024.
An Overview of The Six Locations
The three factors we’ll be using as comparisons are:
- Average hourly developer rate
- Time zone differences with North America
- Average English proficiency
For average hourly developer rates, we’ll be citing numbers from a recent blog by YouTeam, a developer outsourcing agency that connects organizations with developers across the world.
They work with teams from different continents and have no reason to lie.
Plus their Malaysian rates are (sadly) accurate, so we’re comfortable using them as a source of average.
Based on their blog, the six locations we’ll be comparing to North America are:
- Mexico
- Eastern Europe
- Latin America
- India
- Asia Pacific
- Africa
For time zone differences, we’re using California as an anchor point.
And lastly, we’re using the International English Proficiency Index and bands for English level.
We then collated all the information into one table for a straightforward side-by-side comparison.
| REGIONS | AVERAGE HOURLY RATE | TIME DIFFERENCE WITH CALIFORNIA | AVERAGE ENGLISH PROFICIENCY |
| North America | $77 | 0 to +3 hours | Native |
| Latin America | $61 | +2 to +5 hours | Very low |
| Mexico | $61 | 0 to +3 hours | Low |
| Eastern Europe | $58 | +9 to +12 hours | Very low |
| Africa | $33 | +7 to +10 hours | Low |
| India | $32 | +12.5 to +13.5 hours | Moderate |
| Asia Pacific | $28 | +15 to +18 hours | Low |
Based on the table above, if we were a North American company looking to outsource app development, here’s how we’d approach it.
- India and Asia: Great for cost-effective rates despite the time zone differences.
- Mexico: Ideal if you’re in the US and especially if you speak Spanish.
- Eastern Europe and Latin America: A balance of lower rates and small time differences.
- Africa: Not a top pick unless you’re after something very specific.
Of course, knowing where to outsource is half the battle – the other half is how!
How to Safely Outsource App Development
Hiring developers across the world isn’t too different from hiring locally, it’s just a lot riskier!
To mitigate that risk, here are a few steps you should always take before signing a cheque:
Establish Key Details
You need to cover their development methodology, processes, team size, roles, and credentials.
Here are six questions you should ask developers during interviews:
- What’s your development methodology and process?
- Have you worked on similar projects?
- What tech stacks do you use?
- What will our communication process be?
- How many team members will be on my project?
- How much will it cost and how long will it take?
Beware overly optimistic or eager answers – that’s a developer red flag if we’ve ever heard one.
Ensure Time Zone Overlap
Outsourcing automatically means you won’t have a perfect overlap of usual working hours.
However, developers who cater to overseas clients are happy to accommodate odd hours.
Use tools like World Time Buddy to help you track time zones and schedule meetings during overlapping office hours using Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.
All things being equal, you want to minimize this difference to make it easy to manage your offshore team over the course of the project.
Consider Outsourcing Experts
If the stakes are high, engaging services like YouTeam or Comet can simplify the process.
These agencies handle vetting and matching developers, though they do cost more. It can save you from the headaches and expenses of replacing a poor fit later on.
Beware The Biggest Outsourcing Mistake
In our blog post about a particularly spectacular software outsourcing failure on Reddit, the employers committed the cardinal sin of outsourcing: hiring the cheapest of the cheap.
They paid the price for it, and so did their in-house team!
This has nothing to do with the country where you outsource, and everything to do with your own priorities as businesses owner or project manager.
The point of outsourcing is to get access to the same or higher levels of talent for lower prices.
If you start compromising on the quality of developers to save money, you’re not outsourcing.
You’re just going to throw money away and end up as a horror story thread on Reddit!
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