Freelance developer or agency: what actually changes for your project

With an independent developer, you talk directly to the person doing the work. With an agency, you get a team with several specialties and more capacity to work in parallel. Neither is better across the board: it depends on how big the project is, how many skills you need at once and how you like to work.

Full disclosure: I'm an independent developer, and I work alone. So I'll lay out the differences as fairly as I can, including the cases where an agency is a better fit than I am.

What you'll notice as the client

Both sides vary a lot: there are very organized freelancers and very hands-on agencies. This describes what's typical, not every case.

When an agency is the better call

If your project needs many disciplines at once, an agency saves you from coordinating several professionals yourself: branding, photography, copywriting, paid ads and development under one roof. The same goes for a very tight deadline on something very large, since several people can work simultaneously.

And if your company already runs on formal processes, with a purchasing department, multi-level approvals and regular reporting, agencies are usually more used to that rhythm. That's not a knock on anyone. They're different ways of working that suit different businesses.

When an independent developer fits better

When you want to talk to the person who builds it. You explain a problem in your business, and the same person who listened is the one deciding how to solve it, so nothing gets lost in translation. That matters a lot in custom work, where the details of how you operate today are the whole point.

It also fits small and mid-size projects, or ones that can be built in phases: a website, an internal tool, a quote tool, an app. And it suits you if you value flexibility. If halfway through you realize something should work differently, we talk it over and adjust. I wrote about why I chose this setup in why I work as a one-person team.

The awkward question: what if something happens to you?

When you hire one person, it's natural to wonder what happens if they get sick, go on vacation or stop working. But the same question applies to agencies: teams change, the person who knew your project leaves, and sometimes agencies close.

What protects you isn't who you hire but how the project is set up: domain and accounts in your name, data you can export, and work that someone else could pick up. I go into this in who owns your website code.

A five-minute way to decide

Answer yes or no:

• Do you also need ads, social content or branding as part of the same project? If yes, a point for the agency.
• Is your deadline very tight for the size of what you want? Another point for the agency.
• Do you want to talk directly with whoever builds it and make decisions quickly? A point for the independent developer.
• Can the project be done in phases? Another point for the independent developer.
• Are you working across borders? Both can do it; working with a remote developer explains what it looks like day to day. I'm in Buenos Aires (UTC−3), one to two hours ahead of New York depending on the time of year.

Either way, the same checks apply

Whoever you go with, ask for work you can open and try, a written proposal that says what's in and what's out, and clarity on what happens after launch. My list of questions to ask a developer before hiring works just as well for an agency. In a different field, real estate renderings, I looked at a similar choice in local vs remote rendering studio.

Frequently asked questions