Choosing between a web development company, such as GO-Gulf, and hiring a freelancer is not a straightforward choice. There are many aspects you need to consider before making the decision. Both have their bits of advantages and disadvantages, but knowing the specific needs of your project will make it easy for you to make the decision.
What exactly is the difference between a web development firm and a freelancer?
A web development company is a group of expert individuals who work together under one company name. The company is normally a registered legal entity that has a structured way of doing business. Normally, each employee is an expert in a specific field such as web design, responsive design, copywriting, and so on.
Freelancer, on the other hand, is a self-employed person (sometimes known as ‘independent contractor’) who takes on projects directly from the clients. Freelancers are today prominent in content writing, programming, graphic design, and web design, among others. That being the case, it means that one has to engage more than one freelancer in order complete an entire web development project; from design to content writing.
Knowing that, you may be trying to decide between hiring a web development firm and going with a freelancer for your design work. There is often an assumption that it doesn’t matter who you decide to go with because they will both produce the same end product. But nothing could be further from the truth. The two are very distinct as shown in this infographic. In the same way, one cannot specifically say one is good, while the other is bad. You have to consider several things before making a decision. Here are a few things you need to consider before hiring a freelancer or a web development company:
- Costs: what is your budget? Overall, freelancers are going to be cheaper than companies and may be the better option for small businesses that operate on a shoe-string budget. However, the cost of a project is not the only factor for many businesses. Things like support, technology, expertise, quality and performance are very important factors to consider as well.
- The size of the project: depending on the size of your project, you might want to consider either a freelancer or a web company. For instance, if you need to fix a small bug on your website that will take no more than 20 minutes, it is better to hire a freelancer. However, if you are construction an eCommerce website, complete with shopping cart and mobile responsiveness, why not go for a web development company?
- Reliability: do you want to hire a freelancer and run the risk of not hearing from them after a couple of days only to resurface after another seven days? Do not get me wrong hear. Some freelancers are very professional, but there are many who work part time and reliability may become a big issue.
Other things you need to consider include communication, flexibility, customer support, experience, industry quality standards, guarantees and warranties, creativity, and innovations, among others.
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