Hiring
In-house vs Outsourced
An in-house developer makes sense when the site changes weekly and is core to the business. Outsourcing makes sense when it changes a few times a year, because a role with nothing to do between projects is expensive in a way that does not appear on any invoice.
Side by side
| Compared on | In-house | Outsourced |
|---|---|---|
| Cost model | Salary, continuous | Per project or retainer |
| Availability | Immediate | Scheduled |
| Business context | Deep, accumulated | Has to be transferred each time |
| Breadth of skills | One person’s range | Whoever you hire for the task |
| Continuity risk | They leave and take the knowledge | They stop replying |
| Suits changing weekly | Yes | Awkwardly |
When In-house is the right choice
- The website is the product, or orders depend on it changing constantly
- There is genuinely a full workload — not two projects a year and eight months of maintenance
- Business context is complex enough that transferring it repeatedly is the main cost
When Outsourced is the right choice
- The site changes a handful of times a year
- You need several specialisms — design, build, SEO — and cannot employ all of them
- You want to compare approaches and prices rather than being locked to one person’s judgement
- The budget covers a project but not a salary, which is the common case
The hidden cost of in-house
Not salary — underuse. A developer with two projects a year and no other work becomes a maintenance role by default, and the person hired for the interesting work leaves. Both the cost and the turnover are predictable and neither is on the business case.
The hidden cost of outsourcing
Context transfer. Every engagement starts with explaining the business again, and details known internally get lost between projects. Documentation reduces this and never eliminates it, which is why long relationships with one supplier outperform repeatedly choosing the cheapest.
The arrangement most small businesses land on
Outsourced build, retained maintenance, with one supplier who accumulates context over years. It is not a compromise so much as the shape that fits a site changing a few times a year — which is most sites.
The verdict
Count how many days of work the website genuinely needs in a year. Under about sixty, outsource and retain. Above that, and rising, an in-house hire starts to make sense — but the honest count is usually lower than it feels.
If you want the full treatment
How to hire a web developer: measure the work, not the pitch covers this in about 4 minutes — free, ungated, written from client work.
Who wrote this comparison
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. Where a comparison involves something I sell, the page says so — and every comparison here has to name at least two situations where each side wins, because a comparison one option always wins is an advert with a table in it.