Software development as a service (SDaaS) means an outside company builds and maintains your software, and you pay for the work instead of hiring engineers. You can buy it as a dedicated team, as extra specialists for your own team, as a fixed-price project or by the hour. At Rocketech a dedicated developer costs $6,000 to $9,000 a month and hourly work is billed at $39 to $55. A team can start in 3 to 5 days, or within 2 weeks if we hire someone new.
Have you thought about building a web or mobile app, for your own staff or as a new product? Then you need a developer or a whole team. Few companies have spare in-house developers for that, and hiring takes months. That is the gap SDaaS fills.
The SDaaS model means handing software development to an outside contractor, from single freelancers to a dedicated team that works only on your project and business requirements.
It covers everything from adding features to a product you already have to starting a new one from product discovery. The limits are your budget and the vendor’s experience.
The contractor finds the specialists, pays them and organizes the work, in an office or remotely. You bring the vision of the product and decide which features come first.
Two kinds of companies sell software, and only one of them sells development as a service.
Service-based companies, also called IT outsourcing or consultancy vendors, build custom software for clients. Every project has an outside client with its own goals and requirements. What you get from them: skilled people you don’t have to hire yourself, technical and business advice, and experience across industries and tech stacks.
Product-based companies build and sell their own software, from desktop tools to mobile and web apps. They do their own research and marketing and sell the same product to as many customers as possible.
If standard functionality is enough, buy a ready-made product. Some can be customized, but extra features and deep changes usually come only on enterprise plans and cost a lot. If you need software built around your own process or product, hire a service-based company. A SaaS product sits in between: a ready product you rent for a monthly fee. If you want to build one yourself, see our guide to building a SaaS platform from scratch.
With SDaaS you work with the team as if it were your own staff, without hiring it. These are the advantages that matter most.
When deadlines are tight or several features have to move at once, you can add specialists without hiring them. The work goes better when you give feedback often, set an agenda for each meeting and hold a weekly call with the team.
You pay for the features your project needs, not for a ready-made product’s whole feature list. A good vendor gives you a budget estimate for the scope and regular reports on the team’s work. When the market changes, you can grow the team, shrink it or change what it builds.
SDaaS firms bring developers, QA engineers and UI/UX designers who have built products in other domains, from simple e-commerce stores to fintech.
Hiring and onboarding take time and money. In the US, the median software developer earned $135,980 in May 2025, before benefits, recruiting and equipment (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). With SDaaS, the vendor proposes people for your project, and its project managers help you pick them if you can’t judge technical skills yourself. You can add or remove people as the work changes.
Remote work is normal now: in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026, 34.8% of respondents worked fully remote and 17.6% fully in person, with the rest hybrid or free to choose.
A custom software company handles your data and your users’ data, so it should follow current security standards, consider risks from the start and test every release, manually and with automated tests, before it ships.
Good SDaaS vendors have dedicated QA specialists who check each iteration, run manual and automated tests and support user acceptance testing. A settled QA process is usually a sign of a mature vendor.
It matters more now that so much code is written with AI tools. In the 2025 edition of the survey, 84% of respondents said they use or plan to use AI tools in development, and 45.7% said they distrust the accuracy of AI output. Ask any vendor how AI-written code gets reviewed and tested.
A quick MVP launch and fast feedback let you release what the market wants now, then add features based on what users do.
At first sight the two look the same. The differences show up after the first release.
In a long-term SDaaS relationship, the team already knows your product, so it ships updates faster than a new outsourced team that has to learn the code first.
A good SDaaS partner stays after launch and helps when something breaks. Classic outsourcing often ends at handover and focuses on finishing the project rather than on how the product performs.
Outsourcing often covers one-off tasks with no maintenance. An SDaaS vendor checks progress daily, and its project managers report on the work done, so delays show up early.
If your budget or plans change, a good vendor adjusts the scope and grows or shrinks the team.
A one-off outsourcing deal can look cheaper at first. SDaaS gives you a long-term relationship with an agreed budget, and any change is agreed through the contract.
The price depends on how you buy the work. We sell it in four ways:
| Model | How you pay | Rocketech price | Fits when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated team | A monthly fee per developer | $6,000-9,000 per developer a month | Your backlog will keep changing for months |
| Staff augmentation | An hourly rate per specialist | $39-55 an hour | Your team is short on one skill, such as QA or DevOps |
| Fixed-price project | One price for the agreed scope | $5,000-15,000 for an MVP in 2-4 weeks | The scope is small and clear |
| Time and materials | The hours spent | $39-55 an hour | You want to start now and shape the scope as you go |
At these rates a team of three developers comes to $18,000 to $27,000 a month. Our dedicated team cost guide shows the math for other team sizes, next to the rates other companies publish by region.
For a first product, market prices help as a check. Across 95 agencies, the median published MVP starting price is $13,234, and a week of MVP work costs a median $3,618 (Rocketech MVP Price Index 2026, H2 edition).
You can also change models as the product grows. Hays, the recruitment company, started with us on a fixed price for a tool that formats CVs. When the tool grew into a larger internal system, the work moved to a dedicated team. Formatting one CV went from up to 2 hours to 2 minutes.
SDaaS teams often work from another country. Ours is an offshore team in Kyiv with HQ in Singapore. Before you hire an offshore development team, ask how it will fit into your process. With us, your product owner sets the priorities and accepts the result of each sprint. The team works in Scrum, with sprints of up to four weeks and a review at the end of each one. We do the hiring and onboarding, so a team can start in 3 to 5 days, or within 2 weeks if we hire someone new. What the hourly rate leaves out is in our guide to offshore software development cost.
The model should follow the scope, so we start from the scope. Our project estimate turns your brief into user stories. You confirm what is in scope, and every hour in the budget traces back to a story you kept. We check the hours the model suggests against what our team actually books on finished projects, then multiply by our published rate of $39-55 an hour. You get an hours range, a budget range and a timeline.
A small, clear scope points to a fixed price. A long or moving backlog points to a dedicated team or time and materials. It is a planning range, not a fixed quote, and it takes about four minutes: run your idea through our project estimate.
It’s a way to get software built without hiring your own engineers. An outside company supplies the people, from one specialist to a full team, and takes care of hiring and managing them. You decide what gets built and pay by the month, by the hour or by the project.
With us, one developer on a dedicated team is $6,000 to $9,000 a month, and hourly work costs $39 to $55. A fixed-price MVP is $5,000 to $15,000 and takes 2 to 4 weeks. Other companies’ published rates range widely by region.
Classic outsourcing often covers one project and ends at handover. With SDaaS the same team stays on the product after launch, so it already knows the code when you need an update or a bigger team. The budget is set in advance, and any change goes through the contract.
With us, in 3 to 5 days when everyone comes from our staff or pool, or within 2 weeks if we hire someone new. We hire and onboard the people, and your product owner sets the priorities from the first sprint.
SDaaS covers everything from single freelancers to a full team, so first decide how much of the product you want to manage yourself. If you need a complete team that works to your priorities, a dedicated team is usually the closest fit. Explore dedicated development team and the Guestroom case study.
Pick the delivery model that fits your product
Start with an AI-assisted project brief covering scope, budget, market assumptions and risks. Review its hypotheses before making a commitment.
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