The Cost of Software Development in Europe

Cost of Software Development: Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe region has always offered a wide range of IT services. Developers from such countries as Ukraine and Belarus have a high level of education, good English language skills and advanced programming. Because of these factors, the demand for a programmer in this region keeps increasing. These benefits are usually aided by the moderate costs that accompany the labor market of the region. In average, cost of developing software varies from $25 to $35 an hour. Depending on the country, the level of developer expertise and the complexity of requirements for the product, the cost can be above $40/hour.

Costs for IT services in Eastern Europe

Let's see how much the price depends on the quality. For this, we'll use the Upwork's criterion that show the percentage of successfully completed projects. We are going to compare the average price for developers' services with 80% success and over 90% success.

Average cost for IT services in Eastern Europe

The chart shows that projects' outcome doesn't influence greatly the cost of IT services in Eastern European countries. What is more, only 6 countries with developers that have lower costs at higher quality. Ukraine is among them. Here I should note that freelancers with 80% jobs success are not low-skilled developers. The freelancers' score is based on the following factors:
-Feedbacks received for the job done;
-Long-term relationships with the clients (whether the repeat contracts take place);
-Contacts without any activity. If a freelancer has an excessive lack of feedback, the score is decreasing.

Here is a formula that shows how Upwork does the calculations:

(successful contract outcomes - negative contract outcomes) / total outcomes

Another important thing, during the research, we didn't pay attention to the participants with job success score below 80%.

Cost of Software Development: Western Europe

You were not mistaken if you assumed that freelancers here earn well, very well indeed. The category "up to $10" for all the countries here is relatively small. Although in Switzerland it is only 4.75%, in Great Britain it is 12.5%, which is higher than in all Scandinavian countries altogether. As for those freelancers whose software development rates are above $60 the value varies from 15% up to 20%.

Costs for IT services in Western Europe

An interesting situation is if you choose the criterion of 90+% success rate. In countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, groups of freelancers with salaries of $60 or more are decreasing, while in England and France the usual trend is maintained. The average cost of software development in France, UK and Switzerland rises sharply.

Average cost for IT services in Western Europe

This suggests that German, Dutch and Swiss freelancers face large competition, and IT services price list does not depend on quality. That is why, customers who want to hire freelancers in these countries can find good specialists for the average price of $40/hour.