Arc.dev pricing and what an Arc developer costs per year

Arc.dev pricing has two parts. Freelance developers bill by the hour, from $15 to over $110 an hour depending on the developer, with a risk-free trial of up to two weeks. Full-time hires carry a one-time fee of 20% of the developer's annual salary. On a $150,000 engineer that is a $30,000 fee per hire, and it repeats for every developer you hire through Arc.

Arc publishes those numbers on its own pricing page, which makes it easier to budget than most talent networks. The harder part is what they add up to over a year, or over three hires. Below are the published terms, the yearly math for both models, what Arc leaves unstated, and when finding and testing the engineer yourself costs less. If you already know you want to hire full-time, the side by side table on our Arc.dev alternative page puts Arc next to Toptal, an agency and a flat plan.

How much does Arc.dev cost?

Arc.dev costs an hourly rate for freelancers and 20% of first-year salary for full-time hires. Everything in this table comes from arc.dev/pricing. The last two rows are terms Arc does not publish, so get them in writing before you sign.

Third-party review sites quote replacement windows from 60 to 90 days and mention a refundable deposit. None of that is on Arc's pricing page, so treat those figures as unconfirmed until Arc puts them in your contract.

How much does an Arc.dev developer charge per hour?

An Arc.dev freelancer charges anywhere from $15 to more than $110 an hour, and the rate is set per developer. The spread is wide because Arc's pool is global. Three things decide where a quote lands:

• Location. A developer in South Asia or parts of Latin America can bill near the bottom of the range. A senior engineer in the US or Western Europe sits near the top or above it.
• Seniority. A mid-level web developer and a staff engineer who has run a platform team are priced far apart, even in the same country.
• Stack. Machine learning, data engineering and niche frameworks cost more than general frontend or backend work.

Arc does not show how the hourly rate splits between what the developer earns and what Arc keeps. On a two month project that matters little. On a contractor you keep for two years it is the largest line in the cost.

What does a year with an Arc.dev freelancer cost?

A full-time Arc.dev freelancer at 40 hours a week costs about $104,000 a year at $50 an hour and about $208,000 at $100 an hour. Half-time work halves those numbers. These are the rates most teams hiring senior remote engineers end up quoting:

The yearly figure stays the same in year two and year three. The developer is still a contractor, still billed through Arc, and still not on your team in any formal sense.

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How much does Arc.dev charge to hire a developer full-time?

Arc.dev charges 20% of the developer's annual salary for a full-time hire, paid once per placement. The fee scales with the salary, so the better the engineer you hire, the more you pay Arc. Here is what that looks like at common US salary levels:

Next to a contingency recruiting agency at 20 to 25 percent, Arc's 20% sits at the low end of the usual range, and it comes with sourcing and a recruiter. Next to a flat-priced hiring tool it is expensive, because the fee repeats per person and grows with pay.

Is Arc.dev cheaper than Toptal and Turing?

On the hourly rate, often yes. Arc's published range starts near $15 an hour, lower than the other big networks advertise, while Toptal adds a $79 monthly platform fee on top of developer rates and Turing quotes per role without a public rate card. For full-time hiring the comparison changes, because Toptal and Turing are built around contractors and Arc publishes a placement fee. The full numbers for the other two are in our Toptal pricing and Turing pricing breakdowns, and the same exercise for a network with a fixed $20,000 buyout is in Lemon.io pricing.

What costs do Arc.dev buyers tend to miss?

The rate card is short, and the lines that hurt later are the ones not on it:

• The fee follows the offer, not the plan. If you raise the salary during negotiation, the 20% grows with it. A $10,000 bump costs $2,000 more in fees.
• No published guarantee. If a full-time hire leaves in month two, what you get back depends on contract terms Arc does not post. Ask before the first placement, not after.
• Interview time. Arc screens for communication and technical basics, but your engineers still run the rounds that decide the hire. Senior engineering hours are not free.
• Converting a freelancer. Teams often start hourly and decide to keep the developer. Ask how a conversion is priced before the trial ends.
• Offer paperwork. Once you pick a candidate, the offer letter, contractor agreement or employer of record contract is your job. Most teams sign the offer letter electronically so a remote hire can start the same week.

When is Arc.dev worth the price?

Arc.dev is worth it when you need speed and a recruiter more than a low total cost. Three situations fit it well:

• You need a vetted freelancer for a project with a known end date and want a two week trial before committing.
• You hire one senior engineer a year and would rather pay one fee than run a hiring process.
• Nobody on your team can source candidates, and you want a recruiter to own the search.

Outside those cases the fee becomes a serious share of the hiring budget. A startup planning three or four engineering hires this year can spend close to the price of another engineer on fees alone.

Is hiring a developer directly cheaper than Arc.dev?

Yes, for teams that hire more than once a year. The salary is the same either way, because a full-time Arc hire is your employee too. What changes is the fee. Three hires at $150,000 through Arc cost $90,000 in fees. The same three hires through a flat-priced hiring platform cost the subscription.

What you have to replace is the part Arc does well: finding candidates and checking that they can code. If you can get that done at a fixed price, the 20% is pure margin you no longer pay. That is the job our technical recruiting platform does, with a coding assessment and an AI interview for every candidate.

What should you ask Arc.dev before you sign?

Five questions turn the rate card into a contract you can compare:

1. Is the 20% fee calculated on base salary only, or on base plus bonus and equity?
2. When is the fee due, and is any deposit required up front?
3. What replacement or refund applies if a full-time hire leaves in the first months?
4. How is a freelancer priced if we convert them to a full-time employee?
5. Can the hourly rate change during a freelance engagement, and with how much notice?

How DeveloperHiring prices the same job

DeveloperHiring does the sourcing and testing, then steps aside. You paste the role, and we source candidates, run a coding task with hidden tests and an AI interview about each candidate's own code, and hand you a ranked top five with scorecards. You make the offer and employ the developer directly, through an employer of record, or as your own contractor. The Startup plan is $99 a month billed yearly, $1,188 a year, for up to 2 new roles a month. There is no percentage of salary, so a raise during negotiation costs you nothing extra and a third hire costs the same as the first. See all plans and limits, or what we test when you hire Python developers.