SDaaS vs. Hiring an In-House Development Team: Cost and ROI Comparison
Hiring a single senior developer in the US costs $150,000 to $200,000 per year. Daxable's SDaaS subscription delivers an entire team for under $60,000 annually. Here is the full comparison.
The average salary for a senior software developer in the United States is between $150,000 and $200,000 per year, according to data from Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When you add benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, and management overhead, the total cost of a single full-time developer often exceeds $200,000 to $250,000 annually. Most custom software projects require multiple specialists: a frontend developer, a backend developer, a designer, and a project manager. Building even a small in-house team can cost $500,000 to $800,000 per year.
SDaaS providers like Daxable offer a fundamentally different cost structure. Daxable's Standard plan costs $4,995 per month ($59,940 per year), and the Pro plan costs $8,995 per month ($107,940 per year). Both plans include access to senior full-stack developers, UI/UX designers, project management, and quality assurance. For the cost of roughly one-third of a single senior developer's total compensation, businesses get an entire team.
Beyond raw cost savings, SDaaS eliminates several hidden expenses that come with in-house hiring. There is no recruiting cost, which typically runs $15,000 to $30,000 per hire through agencies. There is no onboarding period, which averages 3 to 6 months before a new developer becomes fully productive. There is no risk of turnover, which costs an estimated 50 to 200 percent of annual salary when a developer leaves.
The ROI comparison also favors SDaaS for most small and mid-sized businesses. An in-house team requires management bandwidth: someone has to define requirements, prioritize work, conduct code reviews, and handle performance management. With Daxable's SDaaS model, clients submit requests through a structured portal, and Daxable handles all project management, technical architecture, code review, and quality assurance internally.
There are scenarios where in-house development makes more sense. If software is your core product (you are a SaaS company), if you need developers available for real-time incident response, or if your codebase is so complex that deep institutional knowledge is essential, building an internal team is likely the right choice. But for the vast majority of businesses where software supports the business rather than being the business, SDaaS delivers better value.
Daxable's SDaaS model is particularly effective for businesses in the $1 million to $50 million annual revenue range. These companies have real software needs, including client portals, internal tools, reporting dashboards, and workflow automation, but typically cannot justify the $500,000-plus annual cost of even a small in-house engineering team. Daxable bridges this gap by providing enterprise-quality development at a fraction of the cost.
When evaluating SDaaS vs. in-house, consider the total cost of ownership over 3 years. An in-house team of 3 developers costs approximately $2 million to $2.5 million over 3 years including salary, benefits, equipment, office space, and management time. Daxable's Pro plan over the same period costs approximately $324,000, delivering comparable output for about 15 percent of the cost.