Almost every brief we receive starts from the same place: someone has a clear idea of what the app should do and no clear idea of who should build it. The options look interchangeable from the outside. Hire a freelancer, hire a studio, or hire your own developers. All three can produce an app. They produce very different projects.
We are a studio, so read this with that in mind. But we have also turned work away when one of the other two was the better fit, and the reasons we gave are the ones below.
What you are really buying
An app is not one skill. A store-ready app needs product thinking (what to build and what to leave out), interface design, iOS and Android engineering, usually a backend, and then a long tail of work nobody puts in the first estimate: store listings, screenshots, privacy forms, App Review, analytics, crash reporting, in-app purchases, and the first round of fixes after real people start using it.
So the question is not "who can code this?". It is who is responsible for the whole chain, and what happens at the joins between those skills. Most app projects that go wrong do not go wrong inside one discipline. They go wrong at a handoff: a design that cannot be built in the budget, a build that cannot pass review, a launch nobody planned for.
A freelancer
A good freelancer is fast, focused and usually the most affordable way to get skilled hands on a problem. If you already know exactly what you need, and the need is one discipline, a freelancer is often the right call.
Where it works well
- You have finished designs and need them built.
- You need a specific feature added to an app that already exists.
- You have someone technical on your side who can review the work and own the product decisions.
Where it gets hard
Most freelancers are specialists, which is their strength. When a project needs design, mobile, backend and launch, you either find several people and become the project manager yourself, or you find one person and accept that some of those areas are outside their core. Availability is the other risk: one person's illness, holiday or bigger client becomes your delay, and there is rarely anyone to cover.
An in-house team
Hiring your own developers makes sense when the app is the business and will be worked on continuously for years. Nothing beats a team that lives inside your product every day, knows your customers and carries the history of every decision.
Where it works well
- The product is your core and you expect years of continuous development.
- You have the funding to hire before you have proof the product works.
- You or a co-founder can lead engineers and make technical hiring decisions.
Where it gets hard
A team is slow to start and expensive to stop. Recruiting takes months, a single mobile developer rarely covers design, iOS, Android and backend, and you carry the salaries whether or not the first version finds its users. For a first version, when the most important thing is to learn whether the idea works, that is a lot of fixed cost to commit before you know.
A studio
A studio sells the whole chain as one responsibility: product design, interface, build, launch, and often what comes after. You talk to the people doing the work, get a scope and a price, and receive an app in the store under your own developer account.
Where it works well
- You need a first version, or a serious rebuild, with a fixed scope and a date.
- You do not have a technical co-founder, or yours is busy with the rest of the business.
- You want design and engineering decided together rather than passed over a wall.
- You want someone who has already been through App Review, store policies and launch week.
Where it gets hard
A studio costs more per week than a freelancer, and a bad studio is worse than either alternative: an account manager in the middle, juniors doing the work, and a proposal written by people you never meet again. The model only works if the studio is small enough that the person who reads your brief is the person who ships it. That is why we take on two client engagements at a time and no more.
Side by side
| Freelancer | In-house team | Studio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to start | Days | Months | Weeks |
| Covers design to launch | Rarely alone | If you hire for every role | Yes, that is the product |
| Who manages the project | You | You or your CTO | The studio, with you deciding |
| Cost shape | Hourly or per task | Ongoing salaries | Fixed scope and price |
| Best for | Well-defined, single-skill work | A product you will develop for years | A first version or a rebuild, done properly |
None of these is the best option in general. They are best at different moments. A common and sensible path is a studio for the first version, then an in-house team once the product has proved itself, with the studio handing over a codebase and design system that a team can pick up.
If you choose a studio, check these five things
- Have they shipped their own apps? A studio that has put its own money into an app has dealt with rejections, bad reviews and retention curves. That experience is hard to fake and it shows up in your project.
- Will you talk to the people building it? Ask who will design and who will write the code, and whether those people are on the first call.
- Is the scope written down with a price? Hourly billing on an undefined project moves all the risk to you. A fixed scope forces both sides to decide what the first version is.
- Will you see progress every week? Not reports: builds you can install on your own phone through TestFlight or a test track.
- Is the app published under your account? You should own the developer accounts, the store listing, the code and the design files. Always.
How we do it
At BettaDev we build and publish our own apps first. Vokap, our word game, runs real-time duels, daily puzzles and seasonal leagues, with a store listing in 27 languages. Everything we learned shipping it goes into client work.
A project starts with a thirty-minute call where we tell you honestly whether we are the right studio. Then comes a written scope with a fixed price, two to three weeks of design with a prototype you test on your own phone, and a build phase where you get a new TestFlight build every week. We submit to the stores, handle review and stay on for the first updates. The details are on our engagement page.
Not sure which of the three fits your project? Send us a short brief anyway. If a freelancer or your own hire is the better answer, we will say so.