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Fixed-price MVP vs offshore development
Short answer
Offshore teams offer the lowest headline rates available, often $15 to $40 an hour, and there are genuinely excellent offshore developers. The costs that do not appear in the quote are timezone lag, specification overhead and rework: with a 10-hour time difference, one misunderstanding costs a day. A fixed-price $3,500 AUD build removes the specification burden because scoping is part of the service, and delivers in a single weekend. Choose offshore for a long, well-specified project where the hourly saving compounds. Choose fixed-price for a first version where speed and clarity matter more than rate.
Side by side
| Factor | an offshore development team | Launch My MVP |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | $15–$40/hour, total depends on hours | $3,500 AUD fixed |
| Timezone | Often 5–12 hours offset | Australian business hours |
| Who writes the spec | You, in detail | Written for you from a 30-minute call |
| Correction cycle | A day or more per round trip | Same day |
| Legal jurisdiction | Theirs | Australia |
| Best suited to | Long, well-specified projects and maintenance | First versions and fast validation |
The case for an offshore development team
The hourly rate is genuinely much lower, and on a long project that saving is large and real.
Large offshore firms can put more developers on a problem than you could afford locally.
For maintenance and well-defined feature work against an existing codebase, it works well and is widely used for exactly that.
Where an offshore development team tends to go wrong
- Communication cost is the real expense. Anything ambiguous in your specification comes back built wrong, and the correction cycle is a day long at best.
- You need to write a far more detailed specification than you would for a local developer, and writing that specification is most of the hard work.
- Quality varies enormously and is difficult to assess from the outside, especially in the low-rate segment.
- Code quality problems tend to surface later, when you or someone else tries to extend it, by which point the team has moved on.
- Legal recourse across jurisdictions is, in practice, close to theoretical for a small project.
The case for a fixed-price build
Scoping is included. You describe the problem in a 30-minute call and get a written scope back — you do not write a specification.
Australian timezone and a single point of contact means a question is answered in minutes, not tomorrow.
Australian consumer law applies, and the contract is enforceable in a court you can actually reach.
The total is fixed, so a slow week costs us rather than you.
Choose an offshore development team if
- You have a detailed specification already, or a technical lead who can write and enforce one.
- The project is long enough that a lower hourly rate compounds into real savings.
- You need ongoing development capacity at a sustainable monthly cost.
- You have worked with the team before and trust their output.
Choose a fixed-price build if
- You cannot write a technical specification and do not want to learn how.
- You want it finished this month, not iterated on for a quarter.
- You want a contract under Australian law with one person accountable for the result.