Outsourcing software development: the options compared

Your product needs to move forward, and nobody in-house has the time or the skills to move it. Hiring takes months. So the question comes up fast: who do you hand the development to, and in what form?

Outsourcing software development means handing all or part of the design, build and maintenance of software to a team outside your company. For a European SME, there are five forms: the fixed-price agency, the freelancer, the offshore or nearshore team, staff augmentation through an IT services firm, and the development subscription.

This guide compares the five options with current public figures, the risks specific to each, and a grid to choose based on your situation.

The reasons have changed. For a long time, companies outsourced to pay less. Today they also outsource to reach skills they do not have, and to move faster than a hire.

Deloitte's Global Outsourcing Survey, run in 2024 with more than 500 executives, puts it this way: skilled talent and agility have joined cost reduction as key drivers for outsourcing. And the trend is not slowing down.

For an SME, the reasons are very concrete. In France, hiring a manager-level profile takes two to three months on average according to the Apec study on recruitment practices, before any ramp-up. A product needs front end, back end, design, infrastructure, sometimes AI: rarely a single person. And the workload changes from one month to the next, while a salary does not.

Outsourcing is not always the right answer. If you have full-time work for one person, for years, and someone to manage them, hiring usually remains the most cost-effective option over time.

Hiring or outsourcing, point by point: Figue vs hiring.

Five options, and they do not buy the same thing. That is the first question to ask before comparing prices: are you paying for a project, for time, or for deliveries?

To go further, option by option: Figue vs agency, Figue vs freelancer, the full guide to development as a service, and how slots and the queue work on the unlimited development page.

Same need, five ways to pay for it. The table gives orders of magnitude for an SME working with the French market, figures checked on 22 September 2026. Offshore and nearshore rates vary too much between vendors for a single figure to mean anything, so they are given in relative terms.

Sources: the Malt rate barometer for freelancers in France (€575 a day for an experienced developer, or €10,350 for an 18-day month), and Qubit Labs' analysis of offshore rates, based on Clutch data, for the gap between regions. The agency and subscription ranges reflect public offers on the market. These figures move from year to year: check current terms before building a budget on them.

Two ways to read the table. On the rate card, offshore almost always wins. On total cost, it all depends on what the option leaves on your plate: scoping, review, back-and-forth. A low hourly rate with three times as many exchanges is not a saving. And a developer working alone, wherever they are, with nobody reviewing their code, produces code you will pay for twice.

The cost of a developer, employees included, is broken down in how much a developer costs in 2026. For a product that is already live, the question is mostly about maintenance: the cost of application maintenance.

Outsourcing means handing part of your assets to someone else. Four risks come up whatever the option. Each has a simple safeguard, to negotiate before signing, not after.

At Figue, rights to the code are assigned as paid work is delivered, and the subscription has no commitment and ends at the close of the current period. It is written in the terms of sale, not just on a brochure.

If the break-up has already happened and you need to recover a product: taking over code from a vendor, the checklist.

The right choice does not depend on the rate card but on three questions: is the need one-off or ongoing, do you have someone to steer, and does the product already exist?

If you are torn between two options, pick the one that is easiest to stop. A short contract or a no-commitment subscription can be tested. A multi-month offshore contract or a hire is much harder to undo.

We sell the subscription, so we might as well be clear about its limits. It does not fit in four cases.

Outside these cases, for a live product that needs to evolve every month with nobody to manage a developer, a subscription is often the simplest option to try. At Figue Unlimited: €1,990 per month ex VAT per slot at public price, lower launch pricing for the first clients, no commitment, cancellable at the end of each period. Work starts after an onboarding call: access, product context, first priorities.