Should I hire internal developers or partner with a third party?

Hire when development is steady, daily and part of what you sell. Partner when the work comes in spikes, needs skills you'd use a few times a year, or would sit idle between projects. Most agencies under 30 people do both: one generalist on staff for upkeep, and a partner for builds.

Send a briefBack to the agencies guide

The real cost of one developer

A salary is the smallest part of the bill. Add benefits, tools, hardware, recruiting, ramp-up time and management attention. Then add the hours with nothing billable to do between projects. That idle time is where an in-house hire costs an agency most.

In-house developerDevelopment partner
Cost when busyLower per hourHigher per hour
Cost when quietFull salaryNothing
Health insuranceYours to cover, every monthIncluded in our rate
Benefits and payroll taxesPTO, retirement match, payroll taxesIncluded in our rate
Pizza taxEvery late night is on youWe bring our own
SkillsOne person's rangeA bench: design, front end, back end, QA, DevOps
Time to start2–3 months to hire and rampDays
Risk if they leaveKnowledge walks out the doorThe partner covers it
Culture and availabilityYours, every dayScheduled, by agreement

Put it on the scale

If your development work is steady and fills a full-time schedule, hiring usually wins. If it's light or comes in bursts, a partner usually costs less, because you pay for the hours you use instead of a salary sized for your busiest month. Move the sliders to weigh your own numbers.

Hire$150,0001 developer, 840 paid hrs unused
Partner$108,000720 hrs a year at $150

Partner. It saves about $42,000 a year.

60 hrs
10400
Seasonal

Busiest month is about 108 hrs

$150,000

Salary plus benefits, payroll taxes, equipment and software.

How the math works
  • One full-time developer delivers about 130 productive hours a month after meetings, PTO and holidays.
  • Spikiness sets your busiest month: from your average (steady) up to 3× your average.
  • Hire: enough developers to cover your busiest month, at the loaded salary, all year.
  • Partner: your average hours × 12 × $150/hr. You pay for hours used, so spikes don't add idle salary.

Nothing to sign up for. These numbers stay on your screen.

Three questions that decide it

Is the work steady?

Plot your last 12 months of dev hours. A flat line says hire. Spikes say partner.

Do you sell development, or do you sell outcomes?

If clients hire you for your engineers, build that team in-house. If they hire you for strategy and results, the build is a means.

What breaks if one person quits?

If the answer is "every client site," you've already got a risk to fix.

The hybrid most agencies land on

Keep one in-house generalist for small changes, content updates and client hand-holding. Send builds, platforms and anything specialized to a partner, who works inside your process and under your brand.

Our retainer clients stay with us for an average of 10.7 years.

We've been the development team behind Mighty 8th Media, a B2B and industrial agency, for 15 years. Over that time we've built for more than eight agencies under their brands.

When partnering is the wrong call

Your dev hours are high and flat all year.

Your pitch is "our in-house engineering team."

You need someone in the office every day.

Related questions

How does white-label web development actually work?

Should I tell my client I'm using a partner?

You don't have to, but never hide it if they ask.

Can a development partner handle SEO and AI visibility under my brand?

Yes. The technical half is engineering: keep the strategy and reporting, and let the partner fix what's under the hood.

How do I price white-label work and keep my margin?

How do agencies outsource development without losing control of the client?

Back to the agencies guide.

Let us buy you lunch. You like food, right?

Sit down with us and talk through your pipeline, your team and where builds get stuck. We'll tell you honestly whether a partnership is a good fit, even if the answer is "hire." Not in Atlanta? We'll send lunch to you and meet on video.

Emailhello@lbm.co