I’m an independent mobile engineer, so you know which side of this I’m on. But I’d rather win your project with an argument than with a pitch, so here it is, including the one case where I’d tell you to hire an agency.
First, the word “freelancer” asks the wrong question. It describes how someone is employed, not how good they are. The real question is this: who will make the decisions about your app, and will that person still be there when those decisions matter? For most first releases, the best answer is one senior engineer who owns the app from the first call to the store.
What an agency fee pays for
An agency quote covers more than the code. It pays for sales, account management and project management, and for a team whose members can change during your project. Some of that is useful coordination. A lot of it is the cost of running an agency, not the cost of building your app.
That structure has three side effects worth knowing about before you sign:
- The person who sells the project often isn’t the person who builds it. The senior people are on the sales call. Who writes the code is decided after you’ve signed.
- Context gets lost in the handoffs. What you explain to a salesperson goes to a project manager, and then to a developer. Every handoff loses some detail, and the detail is usually what matters.
- Your app is one of many. Developers move between projects, and the one who understood your app best can be moved to another client halfway through.
None of this makes agencies bad. It’s simply how the model works. But it means a lot of your budget goes into keeping a team coordinated, rather than into your app.
What one senior engineer gives you instead
- One person, start to finish. The engineer on the first call is the one who designs the data model, writes the code and handles the store release. Nothing gets lost, because there are no handoffs.
- Decisions made by the person who lives with them. If I choose an architecture, I’m the one who has to make it work at the next release. That’s a strong reason to choose well.
- Your budget goes into the work. You pay for engineering, not for layers of coordination.
- Experience you can’t get from a general team. An app that must work offline, share code between Android and iOS, or be rescued from a codebase nobody wants to touch needs someone who has done it before.
I’ve owned apps this way across 13 years on Android and iOS. A few of them:
- HelperBook, a household payroll app I built from the first commit to a public release on Google Play: product, architecture, UI, Hindi localisation and store submission.
- A video-first hiring platform, where I built 100% of the Android client from concept to production release: 30+ screens across the candidate and recruiter flows.
- Pulse, an inspection platform I owned on mobile, Android and iOS, from an early prototype to 100+ B2B clients and 50,000+ users in 10+ countries. Its Android app is rated 4.7★ from 3,300+ reviews.
In each one, a single engineer was accountable for the mobile app from the first decision to the release. That’s what you should be buying.
The cost difference: compare the total, not the rate
An agency’s day rate and an independent engineer’s day rate look like two prices for the same thing. They aren’t. Look at what each one pays for.
- An agency’s rate carries its overheads. Sales, account and project managers, offices, people waiting between projects, and the agency’s own margin are built into the rate for every developer on your project. You pay for them whether your app needs them or not.
- A blended rate can hide who does the work. Agencies often charge one rate for the whole team. If junior developers do most of the hours, you pay a rate set by the seniors you met for work done by the juniors you didn’t.
- Coordination is billable time. Status meetings, handoffs and re-explaining your app to each new developer all take hours, and you pay for those hours. With one engineer, most of them disappear.
- Rework is the most expensive line, and it’s never on the quote. A cheaper hour that produces code someone has to rewrite later isn’t cheaper. A senior engineer’s hour costs more than a junior’s, but it’s spent on the right thing the first time.
- AI savings reach you directly. When AI saves me time, your release comes sooner. With an agency, ask whether the time AI saves shows up in your estimate, or only in their margin.
The fair comparison is the total cost of getting a working release into the store, for the same scope. That’s hard to do when every quote is based on a different idea of what you’re building. It’s one reason I start every project with a written plan: you can take it to an agency and compare quotes for the same thing.
AI has shifted the balance further
An agency’s main advantage used to be headcount: more developers meant more code, faster. AI coding tools have weakened that advantage. A senior engineer with AI handling the routine work, such as boilerplate, first drafts of screens and test cases, can now own a scope that used to need a small team.
What AI hasn’t made any cheaper is judgement. It can draft a screen in minutes. It can’t decide what happens when an upload fails with no signal, fill in Google Play’s Data Safety form truthfully, notice that the app runs out of memory on a cheap phone, or decide whether a release is safe to roll out. Those calls make or break an app, and they need experience, not more people.
So the trade has changed. More people now mostly means more code to review. One experienced engineer using AI well means the code gets written fast, and checked by someone who knows what to look for.
I use AI tools every day, and I review everything they produce before it goes into a client’s app. Ask anyone you’re considering, agency or independent, who reviews their AI-written code, and where your code goes when they use these tools.
“What if you disappear?”
It’s the right question to ask an independent engineer, and it deserves a real answer rather than reassurance. Here’s mine:
- The code is yours, and you can see it from day one. I work in my repository, give you read access from the start so you can see every commit, and transfer the code to yours at each paid milestone.
- Decisions are written down, so another developer could pick the app up later. I build apps your own team can take over, not ones only I understand.
- You get working builds every week or two on a test track, so you always know where things stand.
- The store accounts and signing keys stay in your name.
It’s also worth asking the same question of an agency. With an agency, the risk that the person who knows your app leaves doesn’t go away. It’s just less visible, because a developer can be moved to another project without you being told.
Already have an agency or a team? Hire a lead, not more builders
If someone is already building your app, you may not need another builder. You may need someone senior on your side. That’s what I do as a fractional mobile lead: part-time ownership of your mobile side, working alongside your developers or agency, not replacing them.
It fits when:
- Your developers are junior, offshore or at an agency, and nobody senior is setting the direction or saying no to shortcuts that will hurt later.
- An agency is building, and nobody on your side can check the work. I review the code and the releases for you, not for the agency.
- You’re about to make your first mobile hire. I set up the architecture and help you interview, so the first engineer joins a codebase worth joining.
- Every release is a manual event and bugs keep coming back, but you don’t need a full-time lead yet.
I’ve done this job full-time. At Pulse, after starting as the founding engineer, I became Head of Mobility and led 4–6 mobile engineers: I interviewed candidates, set the review and sprint process, and introduced automated releases with GitHub Actions and Fastlane.
When I’d point you to an agency
Honestly, there’s one case: a big scope with a date that can’t move, where you need several developers working in parallel from the first week. One engineer can’t work in parallel with themselves, however good they are.
Even then, I’d hire someone senior on your side to review what the agency builds, and make sure the code, store accounts and signing keys are yours. A fractional lead does exactly that.
Questions to ask anyone you’re considering
Ask these on the first call, including to me. Here are my answers:
| Question | My answer |
|---|---|
| Who will write the code? | I will. The person on the call is the person building your app. |
| Who owns the code? | You do. Read access from day one, transferred to you at each paid milestone. |
| When will I see the app on a real phone? | Every week or two, on a test track. |
| Who handles the store release? | I do: signing, Play’s Data Safety form, and a staged rollout. |
| Who reviews AI-written code? | I do, before it goes into your app. |
| What if we stop working together? | You keep the code, the accounts, and the written decisions behind them. |
If an answer is vague, that tells you something too.
The next step
You don’t have to commit to a whole build to find out whether working with me suits you. Every project starts with a paid discovery sprint: a fixed ₹60,000 (US$900) for about a week. It ends in a written plan and an estimate that you own and can use with me, with an agency, or with anyone else. If you’re comparing options, it’s the cheapest way to compare them fairly.
The MVP page explains how a build runs from there. If you already have a team and need a lead, see the fractional mobile lead service, or just tell me about your app.