The comparison

Folowise vs marketplaces, agencies and local hiring

Us against local hiring, global marketplaces and agencies, line by line, including the row that says where we are the wrong answer.

To the table Pricing

Criterion	Folowise	Freelance marketplaces	A development agency	Local hiring
What you actually buy	A seat or a whole team at a visible monthly price	One freelancer at a time; you assemble the team yourself	A closed project or a team behind a custom quote	An employee you fully own
Who is the legal employer	We are, on a formal Jordanian contract with social security	Nobody; the freelancer is an independent contractor	Usually the agency; details vary	You, with everything that follows
Price visible before any callMost agencies sell quote-only. Marketplaces show an hourly rate per individual, not per team.	Yes	Partly	No	Partly
Team composition and price published togetherIn our market survey, no vendor we checked published both together. This is the gap the catalogue is built around.	Yes	No	Partly	No
If the person does not work out	Replacement with no invoice for the vacant seat, in any month	You search again and onboard again yourself	Per the contract; read it carefully	A termination and a new hire; months and money
Realistic time to start	A shortlist in 5 days, a start in 3 to 6 weeks	Days for whoever is free, at variable quality	Weeks for the quote before any work	Two to four months per seat
Who runs the day to day	You, or we do on a managed team. Your choice	You, always	The agency, with limited visibility for you	You
Where our model can go wrongEvery model has a place it fails; it is only fair we write ours down too.	Our network is smaller than a global marketplace, and some roles are recruited rather than on the bench	-	-	-

One comparison at a time

The detailed pages

01Folowise vs freelance marketplacesPick the marketplace if you need under 40 hours a month, a two week task that never comes back, or a skill so rare our network does not cover it. We will tell you that on the first call.
02Folowise vs a development agencyPick the agency if your scope is genuinely written and closed and you want no relationship with the team after handover. Our project contract covers that case too, but it costs more than monthly seats because we carry the overrun.
03Folowise vs hiring locallyHire locally if the role is the technical heart of your company, if your procurement requires SOC 2 today, if full US West Coast overlap is non-negotiable, or if you need seats that count toward a nationalisation quota. Read the timezone page before you decide.

FAQ

The difference, in three questions

How is this different from ordinary outsourcing?

The practical difference: an outsourcing firm sells you a fixed-scope project and leaves at handover. We sell you ongoing engineering capacity that stays inside your team, assessed by engineers who actually build software at Folowise. The second difference: we tell you when we are not a fit. Read the "do not pick this" box on every engagement model page.

Who employs the engineer? Who pays them?

Folowise employs them in Jordan on a formal employment contract, and pays salary, social security and applicable taxes. You pay Folowise one monthly invoice. There is no direct contractual relationship between you and the engineer, which is what protects you from worker-classification exposure.

What happens if the engineer leaves?

We start the replacement search immediately at our cost, and we do not bill you for an empty seat. We commit to a replacement shortlist within 10 working days, and to covering knowledge transfer from the departing engineer during their notice period. What we cannot commit to is that a replacement arrives just as fast for a rare role. We will tell you the truth on day one, not in week four.

Next step

Tell us what you are trying to ship

Not the headcount. Tell us the product, the date, and what team you have today, and we will propose the shape. If we think what you need is not more engineers, we will say so on the first call.

Send a brief Book a 20 minute call

Typical response within one business day · everything you share is treated as confidential