Where to hire: Upwork for one well-defined feature, Toptal or an agency if you want candidates vetted for you, a development subscription for a steady stream of features, or a full-time employee if there are years of full-time work ahead.
What it costs: typically $10 to $100 an hour on Upwork, more through vetted networks and agencies, and a median $135,980 a year plus benefits for a full-time US developer.
What to test: the things only SaaS needs. Ask the three questions below, then run a short paid trial on a real task.
Hire a SaaS Developer at a Glance
| Where to hire | What it costs | How fast | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelance marketplace (Upwork) | Typically $10 to $100 an hour | Days | One well-defined feature or fix, if you can vet code |
| Vetted network (Toptal) | Higher hourly rates, plus platform fees | Toptal says about 48 hours to hire | Skipping the first round of vetting |
| Agency or staffing firm | A project quote or monthly team rate | Weeks | A large build that needs several people at once |
| Development subscription | A flat monthly fee | Days | A steady queue of features and fixes after launch |
| Full-time employee | A median $135,980 a year in the US, before benefits | Months | A product with years of full-time work ahead |
Before you sign, ask every candidate these three questions:
- Question 1, "How do you stop one customer seeing another customer's data?" A good answer covers more than the login screen. AWS's SaaS guidance says getting past a login or an API does not mean you have achieved isolation.
- Question 2, "What happens to a customer's access when their card payment fails?" A good answer names the payment events they listen for and when access is removed or restored.
- Question 3, "How would you add a 'viewer' role that can see but not edit?" A good answer checks permissions on the server, not just by hiding buttons.
Then run a short paid trial on a real, small task in a code repository your company owns.
Need SaaS features shipped without hiring?
A senior developer on subscription: $2,995 a month, as many requests as you like, each shipped within 2 to 3 business days, and your money back if the first 14 days don’t prove it.
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If you already know how to hire developers in general, this guide covers what is different about SaaS. For the general process (job posts, interviews, contracts and employee versus contractor), see our guide on how to hire a software developer.
What Makes a SaaS Developer Different
Plenty of developers can build a web app. A SaaS product adds problems that a brochure site or an internal tool never has, and they are expensive to fix later. Look for experience with each of these:
Tenant isolation
Many customers share one app. Each one's data has to stay separate, enforced in the database and the server, not just by the screens a user can reach. AWS says a user can be logged in and authorized and still reach another tenant's resources if isolation is missing.
Subscription billing
Trials, upgrades, downgrades, failed payments and cancellations each change what a customer can use. Stripe's own docs say to provision access once the invoice is paid or the subscription is active, and to revoke access when a customer cancels.
Roles and permissions
Inside one customer account, admins, members and viewers see and do different things. Permissions have to be checked on the server for every request.
Integrations and webhooks
Customers expect your app to connect to the tools they already use. That means APIs, webhooks that retry, and syncs that do not duplicate data.
Uptime and backups
When the app is down, every customer is down at once. Ask about monitoring, error tracking, and whether they have ever restored a backup, not just made one.
If you sell to larger companies, add security reviews to the list. Buyers often ask for a SOC 2 report, and a developer who has been through one will build with it in mind.
Where to Hire a SaaS Developer
Freelance marketplaces
Upwork and similar sites are the cheapest and quickest way to start. Upwork lists a typical range of $10 to $100 an hour for software developers. You do all the vetting, so this works best when you, or someone you trust, can review code.
Vetted networks
Toptal says fewer than 3 percent of applicants are accepted and that you can typically hire within about 48 hours. You pay more per hour for the screening.
Agencies and staffing firms
Useful when you need a designer, several developers and a project manager at the same time. Expect a scoping phase and a quote, and check who will actually write the code.
Development subscriptions
A flat monthly fee for a queue of requests, worked one at a time. A good fit for a live product that needs a steady stream of features and fixes rather than one big project.
Full-time hire
The right choice when there is a full-time job's worth of work for years and someone to direct it. Expect a search of weeks to months.
How Much It Costs to Hire a SaaS Developer
A developer with real SaaS experience usually charges toward the top of marketplace ranges or above them. For a full-time hire, add benefits to the salary: with benefits at the private-sector average share, the BLS median comes to roughly $194,000 a year by our estimate, before recruiting, equipment and the months it takes to hire.
The cheapest option is rarely the cheapest outcome. A billing bug that gives away paid features, or a permissions bug that shows one customer another's data, costs more than the difference in hourly rates.
How to Interview a SaaS Developer
Skip the algorithm puzzles. Ask about the work your product actually needs.
Questions that separate SaaS experience from general web work
- How do you keep one customer's data separate from another's, and where in the code is that enforced?
- Walk me through what happens when a customer upgrades, downgrades, or their payment fails.
- How would you add a new role to an existing account, and how would you test that it cannot do too much?
- A webhook from a payment provider arrives twice. What does your code do?
- Tell me about a time production went down. How did you find out, and what did you change afterwards?
- Have you restored a database from backup? How long did it take?
Run a short paid trial
Interviews show how someone talks. A trial shows how they work. Pick a small, real task, such as adding a field to a settings page with the permission checks it needs. Pay for it, and run it in a repository your company owns.
Judge three things: does it work, is it tested, and can they explain it in plain English. A developer who asks good questions before starting is a good sign.
Which Option Should You Choose?
The cheapest way to get a single piece built. Budget time for vetting, and write down what done looks like before work starts.
You pay more per hour so someone else does the screening. Ask who will write the code and whether they have built SaaS billing before.
A flat monthly fee for requests worked one at a time, so you get senior work without a hiring process or a salary.
The best long-term option once the workload justifies it. Many founders use one of the options above until then.
How StackTie Fits
StackTie is a development subscription. One senior developer, Michael, works through your requests one at a time, and you get each one back in days as a pull request with a plain-English summary. You own all the code, and there is a money-back guarantee if it is not a fit. It suits SaaS founders with a live product and more to build than they can hire for. It is not the right fit if you need native iOS or Android apps or a whole team at once. The price and what is included are on the homepage.
Once the product is built, keeping it healthy is its own job. Our guide to software maintenance services covers what that involves and what it costs.
