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> Our pricing is also transparent I'm sure there are reasons, but your pricing isn't truly transparent until I can find it from the homepage, without signing u

> Our pricing is also transparent I'm sure there are reasons, but your pricing isn't truly transparent until I can find it from the homepage, without signing up for an account. Should I have to sign up with my burner/spam email address just to access that? Edit: I'm not able to find the pricing even after creating an account. This isn't a great user experience for someone trying to figure out how much the platform might cost (and I'm actually in the market for this kind of thing)

jacsamira 4y ago
Andrew, thank you for the feedback. This is something we'd love to be able to be better at and would love any advice you may have. We send the rate with each developer. We don't have a flat rate; otherwise, that means we set the rate. The developers set their own rate and we send that over with their profiles after you state what you're looking for and who in our platform is a match. What's a better way of going about this?
- andrew_ 4y ago
  I'd recommend some document that outlines the fees Astro charges based on selections for the teams. Any AWS pricing calculator is a decent model to use.
  - jacsamira 4y ago
    amazing suggestion, seems so obvious but we had never considered - thank you! <3
FrankLicea 4y ago
Thanks for the feedback, I see your point! That's on oversight on our side, nothing nefarious intended, we'll have to figure how to best spell out the pricing. Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are comparable to a developer's salary here in the US (Austin, TX), the fees are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment, offices, perks, etc... When you decide to make an offer to someone, you'll get a break down of 1) the teammates's personal salary requirement), 2) the benefits and taxes and, 3) our management fee. Because we don't set the rates, the candidates do (just like in the US), it's hard to say exactly what the price will be, it depends on the individual's requirements. That said, we can def offer guidance on what the market tends to be!
- andrew_ 4y ago
  What percentage does Astro charge on top of that (e.g. management fee)? Where's the breakdown? You're claiming transparency but it looks fairly opaque. I'm not trying to be combative, merely pointing out the marketing pitch is at odds with the data available.
  - FrankLicea 4y ago
    Oops, forgot to mention that. The management fee is 15%. You would get a break down for any teammate that you want to interview for your team. It would look something like: 1) The teammate's desired salary 2) Benefits and taxes 3) 15% management fee I see you point about this not being spelled out on our landing page! Good catch!
- rootsudo 4y ago
  "Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are comparable to a developer's salary here in the US, the fees are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment, offices, perks, etc..." Well, then as a USA based org, I'd have to say - what's the point? If it's comparable to a USA dev Salary, what savings/arbitrage/win a I achieving here? Wouldn't it be easier for a USA based company to just corp 2 corp/1099 or such someone onshore, then offshore and have a middle man?
  - FrankLicea 4y ago
    So for us, hiring domestically (either 1099 or FTE) vs internationally, wasn't a mutually exclusive decision. Finding good people was a real risk to our growth. So we expanded the top of our funnel to more locations simultaneously. However, we weren't just interested in salary arbitrage, we really did need to attract good people with premium benefits. Good international teammates aren't going to leave their team only to risk being a second class contractor on a foreign team. So we found that by offering our teammates a premium experience: health insurance, gym perks, education resources, Macbooks, and other apple products, career paths and salary reviews, we expanded the pool of people that were interested in working with us beyond the pool of people on Toptal/Turing and other platforms with no fulfillment on the ground. Not all teams are interested in that philosophy in hiring but we've had the most success with it.

jacsamira 4y ago

Andrew, thank you for the feedback. This is something we'd love to be able to be better at and would love any advice you may have. We send the rate with each developer. We don't have a flat rate; otherwise, that means we set the rate. The developers set their own rate and we send that over with their profiles after you state what you're looking for and who in our platform is a match. What's a better way of going about this?

andrew_ 4y ago
I'd recommend some document that outlines the fees Astro charges based on selections for the teams. Any AWS pricing calculator is a decent model to use.
- jacsamira 4y ago
  amazing suggestion, seems so obvious but we had never considered - thank you! <3

FrankLicea 4y ago

Thanks for the feedback, I see your point! That's on oversight on our side, nothing nefarious intended, we'll have to figure how to best spell out the pricing. Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are comparable to a developer's salary here in the US (Austin, TX), the fees are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment, offices, perks, etc... When you decide to make an offer to someone, you'll get a break down of 1) the teammates's personal salary requirement), 2) the benefits and taxes and, 3) our management fee. Because we don't set the rates, the candidates do (just like in the US), it's hard to say exactly what the price will be, it depends on the individual's requirements. That said, we can def offer guidance on what the market tends to be!

andrew_ 4y ago
What percentage does Astro charge on top of that (e.g. management fee)? Where's the breakdown? You're claiming transparency but it looks fairly opaque. I'm not trying to be combative, merely pointing out the marketing pitch is at odds with the data available.
- FrankLicea 4y ago
  Oops, forgot to mention that. The management fee is 15%. You would get a break down for any teammate that you want to interview for your team. It would look something like: 1) The teammate's desired salary 2) Benefits and taxes 3) 15% management fee I see you point about this not being spelled out on our landing page! Good catch!
rootsudo 4y ago
"Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are comparable to a developer's salary here in the US, the fees are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment, offices, perks, etc..." Well, then as a USA based org, I'd have to say - what's the point? If it's comparable to a USA dev Salary, what savings/arbitrage/win a I achieving here? Wouldn't it be easier for a USA based company to just corp 2 corp/1099 or such someone onshore, then offshore and have a middle man?
- FrankLicea 4y ago
  So for us, hiring domestically (either 1099 or FTE) vs internationally, wasn't a mutually exclusive decision. Finding good people was a real risk to our growth. So we expanded the top of our funnel to more locations simultaneously. However, we weren't just interested in salary arbitrage, we really did need to attract good people with premium benefits. Good international teammates aren't going to leave their team only to risk being a second class contractor on a foreign team. So we found that by offering our teammates a premium experience: health insurance, gym perks, education resources, Macbooks, and other apple products, career paths and salary reviews, we expanded the pool of people that were interested in working with us beyond the pool of people on Toptal/Turing and other platforms with no fulfillment on the ground. Not all teams are interested in that philosophy in hiring but we've had the most success with it.