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Are you searching for someone who would create a tailored software or mobile application for you? Is your budget limited and are you choosing between cheaper freelancer and IT company? What should you be careful about when choosing a contractor? What should you consider before investing your money in development?

In this article we will focus on the main differences, advantages and disadvantages that choosing the contractor to work on your software brings.

Areas of expertise

When choosing developer, it is necessary to think about the type of contract you will need. Will it be long-term collaboration or not? Freelancers are usually experienced in one area in which they might excel. But that can cause additional need of search for another person or company that would solve subsequent requests.

Choosing an IT company gives you the advantage of delivering a full service package starting with consultations, proposal through the development and latter technical support and maintenance of the solution. IT company covers various areas of expertise and therefore can meet most of your demands.

Price

At first glance, choosing a small freelancer has one big advantage. Their costs are much small compared to IT companies and therefore freelancers are able to set their price lower which is very much appreciated by smaller clients. Freelancers usually work for hourly wage and as the time goes it can get out of hands and you might overpay it by hundreds of euro, or more. What also happens to freelancers is that sometimes they have a gap in between the projects and then let their new clients pay for that free time.

In case you choose a company, a more accurate estimate of the final price is given after considering all the requirements during consultation period. The development process is based on teamwork, open communication of the team, engagement of the client and overall flexibility and openness to change thanks to agile approach. Agile development is mostly applied when working on a complicated or innovative software for which setting requirements is very difficult at the beginning of the project. These are sequentially specified or adjusted according to the client's feedback.

Reachability and substitutability

Freelancer might be a part-timer which means he may also be studying for example hence may not always be reachable. Even if a freelancer is full-timer, he or she is the only person working on your project and so is not substitutable. It means that if the freelancer leaves for vacation the project stands by and you are not in contact. In case of any questions regarding the project, you are not guaranteed any response.

There is a project manager in an IT company to secure this. Project manager supervises the work of programmers, monitors fulfillment of the plan and the development of your project. You are in contact with this person at any time through-out the whole project and he or she gives you information about the development phase in which the project currently is.

It is possible that some flaws appear over time after the delivery of the solution, which you aren't able to solve on your own. In that situation you are forced to contact the contractor of your project again.

A stable IT company is a better choice in comparison to freelancer who can be unreachable for various reasons, might even end his trade or decide not to collaborate with you anymore. Company continues to take care of your software, provides maintenance and technical support as the warranty period of a software is 1 year by law. It can fix all the bugs with your help.

	Freelancer	IT company
specialization	1-2	more
price	✅	❌
reachability	❌	✅
substitutability	❌	✅
technical support	❌	✅

What could a team of IT specialists from freevision help you with?

• web applications
• mobile applications for Android and iOS
• CRM systems
• software integration