In 2026, hiring an experienced developer in India costs roughly 1.5 to 4 lakh rupees a month through an agency, about $1,800 to $4,800, or £1,300 to £3,500. A junior developer starts near 80,000 a month and a lead or architect runs to 6 lakh. Put beside what the same person costs to employ in the United States or the United Kingdom once salary, tax, benefits and a desk are counted, an Indian engineer is about a third of a UK hire and about a fifth of a US one. Those ratios, not the hourly rate, are the number to take into a budget meeting.
This guide is written for two readers who search the same phrase and mean different things. One runs a company in the US or the UK and is deciding whether to build a team in India. The other runs a company in India and is deciding whether to hire employees, freelancers or an agency team. Both get the same rate card, the same arithmetic, and the same honesty about when India is the wrong answer. If what you want is the price of a finished app rather than the cost of a person, that is a different question, answered in our app development cost guide.
The rate card: monthly cost by role
These are agency rates for a dedicated engineer, the arrangement where one person works only on your product, inside your process, billed monthly. Dollar and pound figures use 84 rupees to the dollar and 113 to the pound, and the hourly column divides the month by 160 working hours so you can compare with an hourly quote.
| Role | Experience | Monthly (INR) | Monthly (USD) | Monthly (GBP) | Hourly (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Junior developer | 1 to 2 years | 80,000 to 1.5 lakh | $950 to $1,800 | £700 to £1,300 | $6 to $11 |
| Mid-level developer | 3 to 5 years | 1.5 to 2.5 lakh | $1,800 to $3,000 | £1,300 to £2,200 | $11 to $19 |
| Senior developer | 6 to 10 years | 2.5 to 4 lakh | $3,000 to $4,800 | £2,200 to £3,500 | $19 to $30 |
| Lead or architect | 10 years and up | 4 to 6 lakh | $4,800 to $7,100 | £3,500 to £5,300 | $30 to $45 |
| UI/UX designer | 3 to 8 years | 1.2 to 3 lakh | $1,400 to $3,600 | £1,050 to £2,650 | $9 to $22 |
| QA engineer | 2 to 6 years | 1 to 2.5 lakh | $1,200 to $3,000 | £900 to £2,200 | $7 to $19 |
| DevOps or cloud engineer | 4 to 8 years | 2 to 4 lakh | $2,400 to $4,800 | £1,800 to £3,500 | $15 to $30 |
| AI or ML engineer | 3 to 8 years | 2.5 to 5 lakh | $3,000 to $6,000 | £2,200 to £4,400 | $19 to $37 |
Three things about this table before you use it. The ranges are wide inside each row because the top of every band is a Bangalore or Pune engineer from a product company and the bottom is the same title in a smaller city or a services firm. Specialists move up a band: an engineer who has taken an AI feature to production, or who knows a payments or healthcare domain, is priced a step above a generalist with the same years. And the hourly column exists only for comparison. Nobody sensible hires a dedicated engineer by the hour; the point of the arrangement is that the month is yours.
Why Indian rate cards say $25 to $80 an hour
Search for developer rates in India and most agency pages quote hourly rates two to four times the ones above: $25 to $50 for a mid-level developer, $60 to $80 for a senior, $80 to $120 for AI specialists. Neither set of numbers is wrong. They price different things.
A dedicated monthly rate is the engineer's cost plus a margin for cover, hiring and the office. You direct the work, so nobody is charging you for managing it. A fixed-price project rate blends engineers with designers, testers and a delivery lead, and carries the risk that the scope grows, which is why our project work prices at $15 to $40 an hour blended. A published hourly rate card from a large agency with a sales office in Texas or London carries that office, the account managers and a healthy margin, and it is a starting point for a negotiation rather than a price anyone pays for a year.
If you are comparing two quotes, ask which of the three each one is. A $70 hourly rate and a 3 lakh monthly rate can be for the same person.
Four ways to hire, and what each really costs
The rate card is one of four routes. Here is the same mid-level developer, five years of experience, bought four ways.
| Route | Monthly cost (INR) | What is inside it | What is not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee, in-house in India | 1 to 1.7 lakh in salary, plus 15 to 25 percent for the desk, the laptop, insurance and the recruiter | A person who is yours and learns your product for years | Cover when they leave, the three months it takes to replace them, and the management |
| Freelancer, retained monthly | 1 to 2.5 lakh | One person's hours, cheapest per hour | Anyone to fill in, anyone to review their work, and any obligation to stay |
| Agency dedicated engineer | 1.5 to 2.5 lakh | The person, plus cover, replacement if it does not work, and the office they sit in | Direction. You still run the work |
| Agency fixed-price project | Priced per project, not per person | Design, engineering, QA and delivery, with the scope risk carried by the agency | Flexibility. Changing the scope changes the price |
The in-house row deserves a closer look, because most Indian founders compare an agency's 2 lakh with an employee's 1.3 lakh and stop there. An employee's cost to company is not the employer's cost. Add the recruiter's fee, commonly a month's salary, the laptop, the seat, the insurance, the notice-period gap when they leave after eighteen months, and the share of a manager's week that goes into appraisals, and the honest monthly figure lands within 10 to 20 percent of the agency rate. What you are choosing between is not price. It is whether you want to own the hiring problem.
The freelancer row is the cheapest per hour and the most expensive per surprise. It is the right answer for a bounded task with someone technical to direct it, and the wrong one for a product that has to keep shipping when that one person takes a better offer.
India, the US and the UK: the same engineer, fully loaded
Hourly rates flatter the comparison. The fair one is the fully loaded monthly cost of an equivalent person, which for an employee means salary plus employer taxes, benefits, equipment and space. The US figures below use a 1.3 multiplier on base salary, which is the low end of what employer surveys report once payroll tax, health insurance and equipment are counted. The UK figures use 1.2, for employer National Insurance, pension and overheads. Contractor rates are what the market quotes in 2026 and need no loading.
| The same mid-level engineer | Monthly cost | In rupees, roughly | Against India agency rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| India, agency dedicated | 1.5 to 2.5 lakh | 1.5 to 2.5 lakh | 1x |
| India, in-house, loaded | 1.2 to 2.1 lakh | 1.2 to 2.1 lakh | About 0.9x |
| UK, in-house, loaded | £5,000 to £6,500 | 5.7 to 7.3 lakh | About 3x |
| UK, contractor at £500 to £650 a day | £10,000 to £13,000 | 11 to 15 lakh | About 6x |
| US, in-house, loaded | $13,000 to $16,000 | 11 to 13.5 lakh | About 5.5x |
| US, contractor at $80 to $150 an hour | $12,800 to $24,000 | 10.8 to 20 lakh | About 8x |
So the honest ratio is about a third of a UK employee and about a fifth of a US one, and far less than either country's contractors. That is the arithmetic behind the "60 to 75 percent cheaper" claim on every Indian agency page, and it holds. What the claim skips is the next section.
What the rate does not include, on either side
An engineer in India at a fifth of the US cost is not a fifth of the total cost of getting the work done. Four things sit outside the monthly rate, and a budget that ignores them is the reason offshore teams get a bad name.
- Management. Someone on your side has to set priorities, review work and make decisions, in a window that overlaps with India. For a team of four that is a fifth to a third of a product manager or lead engineer's week. Budget it. A team with nobody directing it is expensive at any rate.
- Ramp-up. The first month is slower than the sixth. Codebase, domain, tools, the reasons things are the way they are. Expect 60 to 70 percent output in month one and full speed by month three, and pay for it knowingly rather than discovering it.
- Communication overhead. Written specifications, recorded demos, a shared channel that is answered inside the overlap window. This is a discipline cost rather than a cash one, and teams that already work well remotely pay almost nothing for it.
- The people you replace. If an offshore team replaces an in-house one, the in-house knowledge leaves with the people. Overlap them for a month and pay twice for that month. It is cheaper than the alternative.
On the Indian side, the missing line is the same as for an employee anywhere: the cost of a bad hire. An agency with a replacement clause carries it. A freelancer does not. An employer carries it alone.
Where the money goes: a four-person team for six months
Tables hide the arithmetic, so here is a team costed three ways. A senior developer leading, two mid-level developers and a QA engineer, for six months, which is the shape of most first dedicated teams we set up.
| The team, six months | India, agency dedicated | UK, in-house, loaded | US, in-house, loaded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior developer | 3.2 lakh a month | £7,500 a month | $19,000 a month |
| Two mid-level developers | 2 lakh each a month | £5,800 each a month | $14,500 each a month |
| QA engineer | 1.5 lakh a month | £4,500 a month | $10,000 a month |
| Monthly total | 8.7 lakh | £23,600 | $58,000 |
| Six months | 52.2 lakh, about $62,000 | £141,600, about $180,000 | $348,000 |
| Time to assemble | 2 to 3 weeks | 2 to 4 months of recruiting, plus fees | 2 to 4 months of recruiting, plus fees |
The Indian team costs about a third of the British one and under a fifth of the American one, and it starts three months earlier, which for a product with a deadline is often the larger saving. Add the management line from the previous section, say a fifth of a US product manager at $2,500 a month, and the Indian figure rises to about $77,000 over six months. It is still a fraction, and now it is an honest fraction.
The same table for UK contractors comes to about £270,000 for six months at 2026 day rates, which is why UK companies with a long roadmap are the most frequent callers we get.
The seven things that move the rate
- Seniority, and what it means. Years are a proxy. What moves the rate is whether the person has owned a system in production, made decisions that cost money when wrong, and shipped without a lead checking every line. Ask for the systems, not the years.
- The stack and the domain. Generalist web and mobile engineers are the widest pool and the most competitive rate. Native iOS, data engineering, security, and AI engineers with production experience are 30 to 50 percent above the band. Domain knowledge in payments, healthcare or logistics adds a step too.
- The city. Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad engineers from product companies sit at the top of each band and are the most likely to leave for a better offer. Engineers in cities like Indore cost 15 to 25 percent less at the same level and stay longer, which is our own model and the reason our bands sit where they do.
- Who manages the work. A dedicated engineer is priced without management. Add a lead who runs delivery, standups and reviews, and the team costs more per month and needs less of your time. Which is cheaper depends on what your time is worth.
- Overlap hours. A team that works a shifted day to give you four hours of live overlap with San Francisco is paying people to work evenings, and it shows in the rate. A UK overlap costs nothing extra, because the Indian afternoon is the British morning.
- Contract length. Three months is the usual minimum. Twelve-month commitments earn a lower monthly rate because the agency's hiring and ramp-up costs are spread further. Month-to-month from the start costs more, if it is offered at all.
- Exclusivity and notice. A person who works only for you, with thirty days notice on both sides and a replacement clause, costs more than a person shared across two clients with no commitment. The second arrangement is what a surprisingly large number of "dedicated" contracts describe, and the price is the clue.
For companies in the US and the UK: how it actually works
Most of the questions we get from American and British companies are not about rates. They are about the mechanics, so here are the answers we give on the first call.
Contract. A master services agreement and a statement of work per engagement. It can be governed by the law of your state or by English law if you prefer; most established Indian agencies will sign either. The clauses that matter are IP assignment, confidentiality, the notice period, the replacement policy and what happens to access on the last day.
Intellectual property. Everything the team produces should be assigned to you from the moment it is created, in writing, with your repositories and your cloud accounts as the place it lives. If the agency's contract has the code in their name until the final invoice, that is a negotiating position, and you should decline it.
Payment. Monthly invoices in dollars or pounds, paid by bank transfer or through a payments platform. Services exported from India are zero-rated for Indian GST, so no Indian tax appears on the invoice. UK companies account for VAT on imported services under the reverse charge, and US companies generally have no sales tax on it; ask your accountant, because the rules depend on where you are.
Time zones. India is four and a half hours ahead of London in summer, five and a half in winter, and nine and a half to twelve and a half hours ahead of the US depending on the coast and the season. The practical shape: a UK team gets the whole Indian afternoon as live overlap, a US East Coast team gets the Indian evening, and a West Coast team gets an early Indian evening if the engineers shift their day. Standups, reviews and demos go in the overlap; deep work goes outside it.
Trial. Interview the actual people who will work for you, not a sales engineer. Start with one or two engineers for a month before scaling to a team. Any agency that resists both of these is telling you something.
What goes wrong. In our experience, offshore teams fail for three reasons and rate is not one of them: nobody on the client side owns the priorities, the specification lives in someone's head across an ocean, and the first difficult conversation is postponed until it is a contract dispute. All three are fixable in the first month if someone is looking.
When India is the wrong answer
A good agency will tell you this before you ask, so here it is in writing.
- The work is smaller than a month. Ramp-up eats the saving. Hire a freelancer for a week, or an agency for a fixed-price piece.
- Nobody on your side can direct the work. A dedicated team without direction produces exactly what you would expect. Buy a fixed-price project instead, where the agency carries the scope, or add a lead to the team.
- The role needs a body in the room. Hardware, on-site support, or a culture that decides things at the whiteboard at 5pm. Some of this can be designed around. Some cannot.
- The data cannot leave the country. Some regulated workloads can be structured so the team works on synthetic or masked data. Some cannot, and it is better to find out before the contract than after.
How to read a dedicated developer quote
Six checks, ten minutes.
- Ask to interview the person. Not a representative engineer. The one who will be in your standup.
- Ask what the monthly fee includes. Leave cover, equipment, a seat, replacement if it does not work out, and management, or not. Two quotes 30 percent apart are often the same price once this is answered.
- Ask for the notice period and the replacement clause, in the contract rather than the conversation.
- Ask whether the person is exclusive to you. If the answer takes more than one word, they are not.
- Ask who owns the code and where it lives. Your repositories, your accounts, from day one.
- Ask what happens if you want to hire them directly. A conversion fee is normal for the first year. A refusal is not.
The checklist for choosing an agency for AI work specifically, with a scoring rubric, is in our guide to hiring an AI development company.
Questions people ask
How much does it cost to hire a software developer in India?
Through an agency, on a dedicated monthly basis, 80,000 rupees to 1.5 lakh a month for a junior developer, 1.5 to 2.5 lakh for a mid-level developer with three to five years, and 2.5 to 4 lakh for a senior. In dollars that is about $950 to $4,800 a month, and in pounds £700 to £3,500. As an employee in India the salary is lower but the employer's overhead, recruiting and cover bring the true figure close to the agency rate.
What is the hourly rate for software developers in India?
Freelancers bill 800 to 3,000 rupees an hour, roughly $10 to $36. Agency project work prices at a blended $15 to $40 an hour with design, QA and delivery inside it. Large agencies publish rate cards of $25 to $80 an hour that include their sales offices and scope risk. A dedicated engineer at 1.5 to 4 lakh a month works out at $11 to $30 an hour, but is not sold by the hour.
How much does a dedicated developer in India cost per month?
1.5 to 4 lakh rupees a month for an experienced engineer, about $1,800 to $4,800, billed monthly with a three-month minimum in most contracts. Juniors start near 80,000 and leads and architects run to 6 lakh. The fee should include cover for leave, replacement if the person is not a fit, and the equipment and office they work from; ask, because not every quote does.
Is it cheaper to hire developers in India than in the US or the UK?
Yes, by more than the hourly rates suggest once the US or UK hire is fully loaded. A mid-level engineer costs about 1.5 to 2.5 lakh a month in India, about £5,000 to £6,500 a month as a UK employee, and about $13,000 to $16,000 as a US employee. That is a third and a fifth respectively. Contractors in both countries cost more again. The rate is not the whole story: management, ramp-up and communication sit outside it, and they are the reasons offshore teams succeed or fail.
How do US and UK companies pay developers in India?
Monthly invoices in dollars or pounds, settled by bank transfer or through a payments platform, under a services agreement that can be governed by your own law. Exported services carry no Indian GST. UK buyers account for VAT under the reverse charge and US buyers generally owe no sales tax on the service, but confirm both with your accountant.
What is the salary of a software developer in India?
In 2026, roughly 4 to 8 lakh a year for a fresher, 10 to 20 lakh for three to six years, and 18 to 35 lakh for a senior engineer, with Bangalore paying 15 to 20 percent above the national average and product companies paying 40 to 60 percent above services firms. Those are salaries, not costs. Add 15 to 25 percent for the employer's overheads to compare with an agency rate.
Why do Indian agency rate cards show $60 to $80 an hour for a senior developer?
Because a published hourly rate from a large agency includes a sales office abroad, account management, a margin for scope risk, and room to negotiate. The same senior engineer on a dedicated monthly contract costs 2.5 to 4 lakh, about $19 to $30 an hour. Ask any quote which of the two it is before comparing.
How do I hire developers in India from abroad?
Decide first whether you need a fixed-price project or a team you direct. For a team, shortlist agencies with clients in your country and references you can call, interview the actual engineers, start with one or two people for a month, and sign a contract with IP assignment, a notice period and a replacement clause. Our dedicated development teams page describes how we run this, including the three-month minimum and the two-week replacement guarantee.
Getting a real number
Ranges end where your actual roles begin. We staff dedicated teams from one office in Indore, priced per person per month inside the bands above, with no recruitment fee and a replacement at our cost if someone is not the right fit in the first two weeks. What that looks like, and the questions we ask before quoting, is on our dedicated development teams page.