Quote from: Terk on May 21, 2013, 05:08:26 PM

A great developer costs $100k/y + perks assuming he's not in SV or NY (where you need to pay more, add some equity and/or provide opportunity to work on a really exciting project and with a great team). For freelancers hired for short/mid-term projects, add 50-100%, because lot of their time is not billable and they have to account some risks in their rate. That sets you anywhere between $70 and $150 per hour. For Central/Eastern Europe based developers, slash that in half as you can find great Ukrainian or Polish programmers at $30-70 per hour if you know where to look.

I don't claim that you have to spend that much. You can find some decent developers for half of this rate (that is $30-50 in the US/Western Europe and $15-25 in Eastern Europe) and they may deliver a great and bulletproof product, but it's always a gamble as they are more likely to deliver buggy software than the top developers. And if we're talking handling bitcoin and hot wallets, you need to answer yourself if you'd like to gamble.

You can also find some Asian developers (especially from India or Philippines) working for just a fraction of these rates, but it's not even a gamble and more like a russian roulette, as 9 out of 10 extremely cheap developers will deliver complete shit. I am not discriminating here based on location, it's more about the rate. Those who have the skills and are smart enough to work for abroad clients, they know how much to charge. I worked with some brilliant Asian developers but they charged almost European rates. So I'm talking here about $5-10/h developers who may be good for installing wordpress and some plugins, but will most likely deliver shit if they need to actually write some software.

Again, I don't claim that $10/h developers can't deliver great software for you (in fact I hired once a brilliant developer at this rate, who did a great job despite some communication issues), but in this business, in 80% cases you get what you pay for. And if you don't have the skills to find one of 10% great developers among those with mid rates or one of 1% great developers among those with low rates, you either pay top rates or gamble.

Alright, thanks! But isn't it generalising that prices differ per area of i.e west and east Europe? Or is this really true?