Should you outsource your app? What to demand if you do.

We build our own products and we build for founders, so we've been on both sides of this. Here's the straight version.

When outsourcing makes sense

You're not technical and don't want to become technical. Learning to code to ship your own product takes a year before the product is any good. If the idea has a shelf life, that year costs more than a builder does.

You're technical but the app isn't your job. A founder who can code but has to sell, raise, hire, and support customers will build slower than someone who only builds. Your time is the expensive input.

You need a first version, not a team. Hiring an engineer costs $8,000 to $15,000 a month in salary alone, plus recruiting time, plus the risk they leave after four months. A fixed-scope build gets you a working product for the price of two or three of those months.

The scope is clear. You can describe the core flow in a paragraph. Someone signs up, does X, gets Y. If you can write that, someone can quote it.

When it doesn't

You don't know what you're building yet. Paying someone to figure out your product for you is the most expensive way to figure out your product. Sketch the flow, talk to ten people who'd use it, then hire.

The product is the technology. If the moat is a model, an algorithm, or infrastructure nobody else has, that needs to live inside the company. Outsource the app around it, not the thing itself.

You want a partner, not a build. A builder ships and hands over. If what you want is someone who owns the technical side for years, that's a cofounder, and cofounders don't come from a quote. More on that call in do you need a technical cofounder.

Your budget is under $3,000. Below that, you'll get a template with your logo on it, or a freelancer who disappears in week three. Use no-code, ship something ugly yourself, and come back when the idea has legs.

What to demand before you pay

We put all six of these in our own agreements. If a builder won't, ask why.

1. Fixed scope, fixed price. Not hourly. Hourly rewards slow work. A fixed price means the builder eats the overrun, which is how it should be. It also means you must agree what's in the first version and what isn't, in writing, before anything starts.

2. You own the code, from day one. The repository is in your GitHub account. The builder has access while they work and loses it when you say so. If a builder wants to keep the code and "license" it to you, walk.

3. Deployed on your accounts. Your Vercel, your Supabase, your Apple Developer account, your domain. If the builder disappears, everything keeps running and you can hand it to anyone.

4. A demo every week. Working software, not a slide. Ten minutes on a call, you click through it. If there's nothing to click by week two, something is wrong and you found out early.

5. A named person. You should know who's writing the code and be able to message them. Big shops sell you a senior and staff you with whoever's free. Ask who's building it, and ask if that changes.

6. Fixes after launch, included. Things break in the first two weeks with real users. That's not a change request, that's the build finishing. Two weeks of fixes should be in the price.

What it should cost

We published our numbers: how much it costs to build an app. Short version: a small tool in two to three weeks is $4,000 to $7,000. A full first version is $10,000 to $20,000. A two-sided marketplace is $15,000 to $25,000. Larger shops in the US quote three to five times that for the same scope.

If a quote is far below those ranges, the scope is smaller than you think or the builder is. If it's far above, ask what's in it that you didn't ask for.

Questions to ask on the first call

• Have you shipped something of your own? Show me.
• What would you cut from my scope to ship in half the time?
• Who exactly will write the code?
• What happens when I want a feature you didn't quote?
• What do I get if you disappear halfway?

Anyone who's done this before answers all five without flinching. If they don't, that's your answer.

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We build for founders the way we build for ourselves: fixed scope, weekly demos, your accounts, your code. Get an estimate or tell us what you're building.