Kamo vs hiring in-house

Usually the right long-term answer, and not always available

We will start with the conclusion, because it is not the one you would expect from a page like this: if software is central to your business and will remain so, you should hire. People who work only on your problem accumulate context nobody external can match, and over several years the economics favour employment clearly. The reason this comparison exists at all is that hiring is not always available when the need arrives.

Where we differ from hiring in-house, including where they are stronger.
Dimensionhiring in-houseKamo
Cost over three yearsLower, once you count benefits, equipment, recruitment and managementHigher per hour, no fixed commitment
Time to productive workThree to nine months including notice periods and ramp-upWeeks
Accumulated contextCompounds, and is the single largest long-term advantageReal but bounded; we document deliberately to reduce the gap
Breadth of skillOne or two people cannot cover design, front end, back end and operationsA team that already covers all of them
Risk concentrationA single hire leaving can halt everythingNo single person is the dependency
Hiring wellHard without an engineer to assess candidates, and the failure mode is expensiveYou can see our work before committing
Peak demandEither overstaffed most of the year or a bottleneck at the peakScales with the engagement

When hiring in-house is the better choice

  • Software is your core product and will be for years
  • The work is continuous rather than project-shaped
  • You can already assess engineering candidates credibly
  • You have the runway to wait several months for someone to become productive

The honest verdict

Hire if you can. The cases where an external team is the right answer are: you need to start before a hire could possibly be productive, the work is project-shaped rather than continuous, the breadth required exceeds what one or two people can cover, or you need something built well enough that your first engineering hire inherits a good system rather than a mess. We are happy to build something and hand it to the person you hire next year — that is a good outcome, and we write the handover expecting it.

Questions we get asked

Other comparisons

Kamo vs a marketing agencyThe incumbent, and the one this whole argument is aboutKamo vs WordPressThe default, and sometimes the right answerKamo vs a website builderWix, Squarespace, Webflow and the restKamo vs offshore developmentThe rate comparison, and what the rate does not include

Tell us what you are trying to do

A short conversation is usually enough to tell whether we are the right people. If we are not, we will say so and point you somewhere better.

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