You hire a cheap freelancer. 2 weeks later you discover the code is a mess. You fire them and hire another. How much did it really cost you?
Spoiler: much more than the price difference.
The Visible Costs (That You Do Calculate)
1. Lost Money
If you paid €2,000 to the first freelancer and the project is useless, that's €2,000 down the drain. Obvious.
2. Cost of the Second Freelancer
Now you pay €4,000 to someone senior to fix the mess. Total: €6,000.
So far, what everyone calculates. But there's more.
The Hidden Costs (That We Ignore)
3. Your Team's Time
Your CTO dedicated 15 hours to:
- •Reviewing the defective code
- •Doing code review of the second freelancer
- •Documenting what NOT to do
At €80/h internal cost = €1,200 additional.
4. Delay in Launch
You planned to launch on February 1st. Because of the mess, you launch on March 1st.
If expected revenue was €5,000/month, you lost €5,000 in deferred revenue.
5. Opportunity Cost
Your product team spent 3 weeks putting out fires instead of working on the next feature.
The opportunity cost of NOT having done that feature: incalculable (but real).
6. Team Morale
Your team is frustrated. "We have to fix someone else's code again."
Employee turnover costs between 1.5x and 2x annual salary. If a developer leaves due to freelance-related burnout, we are talking about €30,000 - €50,000.
The Final Calculation
| Concept | Cost |
|---|---|
| Freelancer 1 (failed) | €2,000 |
| Freelancer 2 (fix) | €4,000 |
| Team's Time | €1,200 |
| Deferred Revenue | €5,000 |
| Opportunity Cost | ??? |
| TOTAL VISIBLE | €12,200+ |
And that's without counting turnover cost, reputational damage if the bug reaches production, or team stress.
The Lesson
Hiring cheap is expensive.
It's not about always paying the maximum. It's about paying fairly to someone with validated technical fit.
At Ottly, all experts pass real technical tests before entering the platform. We don't filter by CV, we filter by evidence that they know what they're doing.
The result? 95% success rate in completed projects.