Why build with an India team, and what goes wrong
India has deep engineering teams at rates that are typically well below the US, UK and Western Europe. Builds still fail, for reasons that have nothing to do with talent. Here is the honest picture.
Indicative cost of the same small MVP
Same scope, same hours, different rates. Indicative only: rates vary by seniority, stack and team. Your sprint budget replaces these with real numbers for your product.
| Who builds it | Senior developer rate, USD per hour (indicative) | An 800-hour MVP build (indicative) |
|---|---|---|
| Local agency, US | $120–250 | $96,000–200,000 |
| Local agency, UK or Western Europe | $90–180 | $72,000–144,000 |
| Vetted India team | $30–65 | $24,000–52,000 |
Indicative ranges summarised from published 2026 developer-rate surveys and MVP cost guides, not quotes. Build cost assumes 800 hours for a small MVP. We do not promise a saving: the sprint tells you what your product will cost.
Three ways offshore builds fail, and how the partner role prevents each
FAILURE 1
Nobody owns the product on your side
The team builds what it understood, not what you meant. Small gaps compound over months.
The fix: we sit in planning and reviews and own the plan with you, so every sprint is checked against it.
FAILURE 2
Estimates nobody can check
Hours grow, invoices grow, and you have no way to tell whether either is fair.
The fix: we review estimates and invoices against the scope, and raise scope creep before it becomes cost.
FAILURE 3
Silence until it is late
Bad news travels slowly across timezones. By the time you hear it, the deadline has gone.
The fix: a written update every week and a demo every sprint, so problems surface while they are still small.
How many working hours we actually share
Our day runs 09:00-18:00 India time (IST), with an evening window of 18:30-21:30 IST for the Americas. Here is the overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are.
| You are in | Your 09:00–17:00 in India time | Shared with our 09:00–18:00 IST day | Shared with our 18:30–21:30 IST evening window | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UAE | 10:30–18:30 | 7.5 h | 0 h | Most of your working day. |
| UK | 14:30–22:30 or 13:30–21:30 | 3.5–4.5 h | 3 h | Your morning to early afternoon. |
| Central Europe | 13:30–21:30 or 12:30–20:30 | 4.5–5.5 h | 2–3 h | Your morning to mid-afternoon. |
| Australia (Sydney) | 03:30–11:30 or 04:30–12:30 | 2.5–3.5 h | 0 h | Your afternoon, our morning. |
| US East | 19:30–03:30 or 18:30–02:30 | 0 h | 2–3 h | No shared working hours. Meetings run in your morning, our evening, on a fixed weekly slot. |
| US West | 22:30–06:30 or 21:30–05:30 | 0 h | 0 h | No shared working hours and no evening overlap. Meetings are scheduled, not ad hoc. |
Computed for mid-January and mid-July 2026, so daylight-saving changes show as a range. India does not change its clocks.
For US clients, the retainer includes a fixed weekly meeting slot in your morning. On the US West Coast that slot sits outside our evening window, so we agree the time in advance.
Get a real budget, not a range.
The Discovery Sprint prices your product with an India team and a local agency side by side.