Outsourced tech team: the five models, and the one criterion that separates them
"We are going to outsource development" settles nothing: it covers five models with different prices, different risks and a very different load for you. Which one asks what, who carries the coordination, and what a dedicated team is really worth.
"We are going to outsource development." The sentence is said as though it settled something. It settles nothing: it covers five models with different prices, different risks, and a very different load for you.
So the first job is not choosing a provider, it is choosing a model. Most bad outsourcing experiences start here: a company buys a model that requires a skill it does not have, usually the ability to coordinate technical people.
This article is not trying to sell you a model. It is trying to stop you buying one that assumes skills you do not have, which is the most common and most expensive mistake.
02
The five forms, and what each asks of you
They all present themselves as "a team at your service". They do not ask the same thing of you at all.
01
The lone freelancer
Cheapest per hour, most demanding to steer. You define the need, you arbitrate technical choices, you check the quality. One main skill: as soon as design or infrastructure is needed, you go looking for someone else. Excellent when you know exactly what to ask for.
02
The freelance collective
Several independents gathered for an engagement. Coverage is better, but coordination often stays with you, or with one of them who bills for it without necessarily owning it. Check who decides when two of them disagree.
03
The consultancy, on time and materials
You buy days, profiles are made available. It is the clearest model administratively and the most opaque on outcome: you pay for time spent, not for what ships. It assumes you have someone in house able to supervise, otherwise you pay for days without knowing what they produce.
04
Offshore
The hourly rate drops sharply, the specification load rises just as sharply. Time zones and cultural distance turn every ambiguity into a twenty-four-hour round trip. It works well on very precisely described scopes, and badly on everything else.
05
The studio on subscription
A multidisciplinary team that carries the framing and the coordination itself, for a monthly amount. You say what matters, they organise the work. The most expensive per theoretical hour, the cheapest in your own time spent.
03
The real criterion: who carries the coordination
The table below does not compare prices, because prices are not comparable across these models. It compares what each one leaves on your hands.
What each model asks you to carry
Model
Who frames the request
Who coordinates
Lone freelancer
You
You
Collective
You, usually
To clarify before signing
Consultancy, time and materials
You
You, or a billed project manager
Offshore
You, very precisely
An intermediary, sometimes
Studio on subscription
The provider
The provider
That load appears on no invoice, which is exactly why it is systematically left out of the comparison. It is paid all the same, in evenings, in meetings and in decisions pushed back.
"Dedicated development team": the phrase that means nothing
Every provider on the market promises a dedicated development team. The phrase has become a synonym for "serious", while describing nothing until it is quantified.
Dedicated means two very different things depending on who is talking. Either named people, assigned to your account at a known share of their time. Or a stable team that also works for other clients, reserving you capacity without reserving you individuals.
Both are defensible. The second is often preferable for a small company: it costs less and it survives holidays. But you need to know which one you are buying, because the first promises an availability the second does not.
The third is the most useful. A provider who cannot answer it is selling a team that is not one, only a person with a logo behind them.
05
The three traps, and how to see them coming
They show up in almost every failed outsourcing arrangement, and none of them is technical.
01
The provider who becomes the only one who understands your product
After a year, nobody at your company knows how what was built actually works. You are no longer a client, you are captive. The defence is one requirement: documentation and access belong to you and live at your end, not theirs.
02
The quality neither of you measures
With nobody technical in house, you judge what you see on screen. What sits underneath, tests, security, debt, stays invisible until the day it breaks. Ask who reviews the code and insist the answer is not "whoever wrote it".
03
The scope that grows while the budget does not
You ask for a small addition, they say yes, and the following month the pace has slowed without anyone knowing why. A model that makes visible what comes before what spares you that conversation, because it replaces it with a priority order.
These three traps share one property: they close slowly, over months, and they are painless at first. That is what makes them hard to see from inside the relationship.
06
When not to outsource
Two cases, and they are more common than people think.
The first: technology is your competitive edge. If what you sell rests on a technical capability nobody else has, that capability should belong to you rather than be rented. Outsource the periphery, keep the core.
The second: you have no decision maker available. Every model, including the one that carries coordination, assumes someone at your end who answers questions and approves. Without that person the queue stops and you pay for capacity that waits. It is the one case where outsourcing costs money and produces nothing.
Frequently asked
What we get asked most often
Three questions that come up before choosing a model.
What is the difference between an outsourced tech team and a consultancy?
A consultancy on time and materials makes profiles available and bills you for their time: framing and coordination stay with you. An outsourced team in the studio sense takes on the framing, the coordination and the delivery, and bills you for an outcome or for capacity. The first model assumes you have technical supervision in house, the second does not. That difference matters far more than the provider's legal form.
How do I check a team is genuinely dedicated?
Ask for three things in writing: the number of people and their assigned share of time, the number of other clients those same people serve in parallel, and the procedure if one of them leaves. If all three answers come back straight, the phrase means something. If they stay vague, you are buying a sales argument.
Do I need someone technical in house to outsource?
It depends entirely on the model. The lone freelancer, the collective and time-and-materials all assume it: someone has to arbitrate technical choices and judge quality. A studio that carries the framing does not, but it assumes something else, a decision maker available two to three hours a week to answer and approve. No model works with nobody on the other side.
07
Choose the model before the provider
Outsourcing development is not a binary choice between keeping and handing over. It is a choice of distribution: who frames, who coordinates, who judges quality. The five models answer those three questions differently, and price follows that distribution rather than setting it.
So start there. Look honestly at what your company can carry today, rule out the models that assume more, then compare the providers that remain. You will have three candidates instead of twenty, and they will be comparable.
“The right outsourcing model is not the cheapest. It is the one that does not demand a skill you do not have.”
