Who can develop my app when it's already half-built?

If your app is started but stuck, hire someone who has taken over other people's code, not only someone who builds new apps. The two jobs differ, and a developer who is good at one can be poor at the other.

Three kinds of people can develop your app

An agency brings a team: front-end and back-end developers, designers and often a project manager. Agencies charge higher hourly rates, and one cost guide says they make most sense if you are willing to spend $100,000 or more. Some won't take small projects at all.^[1]

A freelancer or small studio costs less, because fewer people share the overhead. You also talk directly to the person doing the work. The trade-off is that freelancers often have no set project process, and one person may not cover design, back end and testing.^[1]

A rescue specialist is a team that takes over existing code as its regular work. In theory any experienced team can do this. In practice some do it much better, because a team that only builds new apps may find it hard to tell you the existing code is worse than you hoped, or that finishing will take twice as long as the last developer said.^[2]

Why a started app is a different job

On a new build, the developer chooses how to build what you describe. On a started app, someone must first read what exists and work out what is done, what is broken and what is missing. A quote given before that reading is a guess.

One vendor of rescue work goes further. It says any company that offers to finish a project without reviewing the code is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.^[2] The same vendor says a review takes three days to two weeks, depending on the size of the project. It should end in a plain-language report that says what is done, what is broken, what is missing, what it will take to fix and roughly what it will cost.^[2]

What it costs

Cost guides for new apps say a simple app on one platform starts at about $25,000, and complex ones can pass $1 million.^[1] Rescue work has its own ranges. The same vendor puts a simple rescue, with reasonably clean code and 20 to 40 percent of the work left, at $20,000 to $80,000. It puts a rescue where the architecture needs repair at $40,000 to $190,000.^[2]

Treat those as one vendor's figures. Its rates are for offshore teams, at $25 to $60 an hour, and it says Western teams charge three to five times as much for the same work.^[2] The point is the width of the range. What you owe depends on what the review finds, so you can't get a reliable number before someone reads the code.

Questions to ask any candidate

• Will you read the code before you quote a price, and what will I get at the end of that review?
• Which takeovers have you finished, and may I call one of those clients?
• Ask that client about a time the project went badly and how the team handled it. One vendor calls this the most revealing question you can ask a reference.^[2]
• Will the code, hosting and accounts sit in my name?

The last question matters because developers often set up services under their own accounts as a shortcut, and access leaves with them.^[2]

Before you call anyone

Collect what you can: the code repository, the hosting account, the domain, and the keys for any outside services. Don't change the code yourself yet. Edits made without understanding the code can break dependencies or overwrite work in progress, and they make the reviewer's job harder.^[2]

Where Moosara fits

Moosara is a software rescue practice run by Robert Lara III. It starts with a review of the code, then tells you what finishing will cost and how long it will take. If the team is the problem, Moosara can interview and hire developers to replace it. The aim is a stable system that less expensive developers can maintain and that costs little to host.

The first step is a direct conversation with Robert about where your app stands.