Pricing
Published rates. No games.
Most firms hide rates behind discovery calls. We don't. Here is what it costs to work with us. If the numbers work, we go deeper. If not, you haven't wasted a call.
Hourly rates
$30 to $245 per hour, individualized per engineer.
Skill sets the rate. Experience sets the rate. Nothing else is going on behind the scenes.
Each engineer has one rate tied to their skill and experience. The low end is junior contributors who support senior work, not replace it. The high end is principal and distinguished engineers, including the founder. Most engagements run toward the upper half of the range because the bench is principal-heavy.
We bill individually per engineer per hour. No blended-rate mystery. You see which engineers worked on what, for how long, and what each one cost. The total cost of an engagement scales with the seniority you actually need, not with a firm-wide rate card that overcharges for juniors and undercharges for principals.
Engagement shapes
The world runs on hourly.
A salaried engineer is paid for forty hours a week. If they worked five, you would stop paying them. That is hourly with the math hidden. We bill the same unit directly, so nothing is hidden.
Hourly is the default. Most of our work is exploratory or has scope that will evolve, and hourly keeps both sides honest about what the work actually takes.
Budget-managed gives you a fixed monthly spend with RoushTech managing priorities and delivery like an internal engineering manager. You set the budget. We run the team against your goals, adjusting scope month to month as the work calls for it.
Fixed-price, rarely. Most software engagements have too many unknowns for fixed-price to be good for either of us. When the scope is tight, the problem is well-understood, and nobody is guessing, it can work. Most of the time those conditions don't hold.
Equity occasionally comes up when the product and economics line up to offset costs. If that's on your mind, raise it.
Commitment discount
15 to 25 percent off for 12-month engagements.
Engagements committed for twelve months or longer get 15 to 25 percent off the published rates. Bigger engagements get the bigger reduction. Predictability lets us staff properly; you get sharper numbers.
How engagements start
Try us out small. Commit bigger when you're happy.
You don't have to bet on us before we've shown you anything.
The first conversation lays out what you're building. Assuming it's a fit, we get started fast, usually hourly with monthly invoices for hours worked. That's a low-commitment way to see whether the team fits before any larger bet. When it's working, commit to twelve months and pick up the 15 to 25 percent discount. When it isn't, you haven't locked yourself into a big number to find out.
What it looks like in practice
Recent engagements, by the numbers.
Real data points to ground the rates above. Anonymized, but the numbers are accurate.
Some MVPs hit market for under $20,000. Tight scope, honest negotiation.
A full SaaS platform rebuild: $250,000. Gaidge, end-to-end practice analytics for orthodontics.
A competitor's $400,000 quote ran past $1,500,000 before the work was fixed. Cheaper hourly rates don't make cheaper projects. They often make much more expensive ones.
These are anchors, not quotes. Your engagement will be scoped on what you actually need. If a number on this page is surprising, that usually means we're either a good fit or not at all. Either is useful information.
Not for everyone
Who this isn't for.
We compete on total project cost, not per-hour rate. Senior engineers who execute correctly land most of our engagements in the lower half of total cost, even against firms with cheaper hourly rates, domestic or overseas. If the spreadsheet you're evaluating bids in has only a per-hour column, we're the wrong firm.
Want real numbers on your project?
Tell us what you're building. We'll give you a concrete scope, concrete hours, and concrete rates. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you honestly. No discovery funnel, no surprises.
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