Fixed price, hourly, or a marketplace: three ways to buy a build

Most owners compare studios on price. The bigger decision is which way to pay at all, because each way changes who carries the risk when the scope turns out to be bigger than everyone thought. It always does.

Fixed price against a written scope

The studio writes down what will exist when the build is done, puts a number against it, and carries the risk of getting there. You pay by milestones and know the total on day one.

Good at: a defined outcome you want to own, with a start and an end. A website, a customer app, a back office.

Goes wrong when: the scope is thin. A vague scope with a fixed number means the studio either absorbs the overrun and cuts corners, or issues change orders for everything. Read the scope before you read the number.

The tell: a studio that asks a lot of questions before quoting is protecting you as much as itself. This is how Samastack works: one call, a written scope and a fixed number within two working days, and the bands are public so you can check the number before the call.

Hourly against a rate

You pay for time. The rate is known; the total is not, and every change of mind costs more hours.

Good at: open-ended work with a team you already trust, where the work genuinely cannot be specified in advance and you are comfortable steering week by week.

Goes wrong when: the buyer cannot judge progress. Hours are easy to bill and hard to audit. Local agencies in the US and Western Europe commonly publish $100 to $200 an hour; the number that matters is how many hours, and nobody can tell you that on day one.

The tell: if a studio's first question is your budget rather than your workflows, it is pricing to your budget, not to the work.

A freelancer from a marketplace

You post a task, choose from bids, and manage the work yourself. The platform takes a cut on both sides and holds the money in escrow.

Good at: small, well-specified tasks where you can judge the result yourself: a landing page, a script, a fix.

Goes wrong when: the task is really a system. A back office is not a task; it is a set of decisions about how your business runs, and a freelancer bidding low has every reason to build what you asked for rather than what you needed. Handover is also where marketplaces are weakest: who owns the code, where it is hosted, and who documents it are rarely in the brief.

The tell: if you would not know how to check the work, you are not the right person to manage it hourly or by task.

Three questions that decide it

• Can you describe the finished thing? If yes, fixed price. If the honest answer is "we will know when we see it", you are buying hours, and you should budget for that truthfully.
• Do you want to own it? Ownership has to be in the agreement whichever way you pay. With a fixed scope it is easy to write in; on a marketplace it is easy to forget.
• Who will judge the work each week? If it is you, insist on a live link every week rather than a report, whichever model you choose.

The model we chose is in the name of the scope builder: pick your layers, see the band, then one call and a fixed number. If a packaged product or a freelancer would serve you better, the first call is where we say so.

Where this applies: every band, in one place, clients outside India, custom software or SaaS: when each wins.