April 25, 2016 / Nirav Shah
Whether, it is better to hire a freelancer, or a web agency, ultimately depends on the nature/type of the Web Development work. For simple & straight website designs, a freelancer may be a good option for the client. For more complex web development where a long-term relationship with the developer may be beneficial, a web agency may be a better option for the client.
Hiring a web development freelancer or a web development agency is an important job for any client or the end user. Let ultimate decision from the end user will decide the future of his/her costs.
Let us now discuss some common factors which set apart both a freelancer and a web development agency making it easy for the end user to choose in between these two options for his/her web development work.
Costing & Budget : The costs of the web development work assigned to the freelancers are low as compared to the web development agencies because of less overhead costs. A simple website design does not require analysis, wire framing, complex development and manual or automated QA of the website. Such type of website may use freelancers because it needs very limited proficiency which the freelancers posses.
If the website is dynamic in which business analysis is required with wireframing, phase wise project management, execution plan, and the project also needs to be assigned to more than one developer to quickly complete the project, contains complex modules and their implementations and also need to do a good QA of the website and most importantly if the client has a huge budget then the web development agency is a good choice.
If the web development work is assigned to a freelancer then various costs such as Administrative cost, Infrastructure costs and machine costs, and other company costs will not be there.
IP Protection & Confidentiality : If the end user assigns the web development work to a web development agency as compared to a freelancer than the user will not have to worry about the website details and its’ contents as the web development agencies will provided some sort of confidentiality through the Signed NDA with the end user and also the agencies provide IP protection which ensures the security of the website details and data of the end user. On the other hand, the freelancer may reveal the details of the client website which is harmful for both the client and the freelancer.
Reliability : The end users should not rely on the freelancers regarding the web development work because the freelancers are unable to prioritize their tasks and may fail to devote appropriate time to their project. The freelancer can move to other project if they found a good price offer from any other client.
The web development agency can prioritize the project of end users and they finish the project in a fixed time. Companies are more committed compare to freelancer once they finalize the deal they never give up due to pricing factor.
Almost every web development companies have project management system through which they can plan project milestone which gives trasparacy to the end client.
Communication Skills : The project managers working in a web development company are quite professional and exact in communicating their ideas and approaches towards a project with the client. While a freelancer may not be able to communicate with the end user in a specific way. Also, project management approach of a freelancer is haphazard as compared to the web development company which has an organized approach. The freelancer does not use various project management systems which does not help the client know the progress/track of their project. The web development agencies use real time project management systems which help them track the progress of the project easily.
Post Launch Support : This is another major advantage that of hiring a web development firm over a freelancer. An offshore web development company provides various post launch services to its clients and the agency also has a dedicated team of experts who can handle any post-launch issues the users may have. However, a freelancer may not be able to provide any such services as he is developing the websites all by himself.
Minimization of Risk Factor : If the end user assigns the web development work to a freelancer then there are many issues with it.If the freelancer makes mistakes in designing the layout or in the development work.The clients are not able to get their money back from the freelancer. Whereas if the web development work is assigned to the web development companies the risk factor is reduced significantly as they will provide proper service and also if there are unable to fulfill the requirements they can give your money back as well in a specific time.
As a Director of Eternal Web Private Ltd an AWS consulting partner company, Nirav is responsible for its operations. AWS, cloud-computing and digital transformation are some of his favorite topics to talk about. His key focus is to help enterprises adopt technology, to solve their business problem with the right cloud solutions.
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