A senior software engineer costs about $23,700 a month in the US once benefits are added to a $195,000 median base salary, and senior vendor rates run about $11,200 to $24,000 a month at 160 hours. Published senior rates in Latin America, Eastern Europe and India start lower, at $4,000 to $6,400 a month, but time-zone overlap with New York ranges from a full workday to none. Ryz prices senior engineers at $10,000 to $15,000 per engineer per month, on US business hours.
Conversion used throughout: 1 month = 160 working hours, so hourly rate × 160 = monthly rate. Sources and exchange rates are listed under the table.
In-house pay is Levels.fyi's median total compensation for senior software engineers, divided by 12 and converted to USD at the ECB euro reference rates of November 13, 2026 and, for the hryvnia, the NBU official rate of UAH 45.43 per dollar (November 2026). Overlap counts the hours a 9-to-5 local workday shares with a 9-to-5 New York workday in November (timeanddate.com).
Rate sources: Arc's 2026 freelance developer rate guide (published May 2026, from a survey of 5,302 freelance developers plus market data) and Uvik's Software Developer Rate Index 2026 (senior Python bill rates, which Uvik says include vendor overhead; updated November 2026). Only the US row carries an employer-cost load, because the BLS ratio is a US measure; for every other country, the in-house column is pay only and the true employer cost is higher. Methodology and the full US data set are in the Ryz Engineer Rates Index 2027.
New York is the most expensive common comparison for US buyers, so here is the full arithmetic for a four-engineer team. The BLS figures come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area, Software Developers (SOC 15-1252), May 2025: median annual wage $166,830, 75th percentile $205,970, 121,000 people employed (BLS OEWS, read through the BLS public data API). The load is the BLS finding that wages are 68.5% of total compensation for private-industry management, professional and related workers, so wage ÷ 0.685 estimates wage plus benefits (BLS ECEC, June 2026). We use the 75th percentile as a stand-in for senior pay, because BLS doesn't report wages by seniority.
Against the loaded BLS median, four senior Ryz engineers cost $254,190 to $494,190 less a year ($974,190 − $720,000 and $974,190 − $480,000). Against the loaded 75th percentile, the gap is $482,745 to $722,745. The in-house rows still leave out recruiting fees, the interview hours your own senior engineers spend, equipment, and the months a seat sits empty while you hire. The Levels.fyi row includes equity at grant value, and adding benefits to it would push it higher. Plug in your own salary bands with the talent cost savings calculator.
Ryz publishes its price per engineer per month, and every figure on this page about Ryz comes from these bands:
What the rate buys: senior engineers from the top 1%, because only the top 1% of the tens of thousands of engineers we have interviewed make it. They work on US business hours, including New York hours, so code review happens the same day. Ryz engineers work on your team, reporting to your leads, in your repos, standups and CI. Before anything starts you get a scoped plan, a price and the names of the people who would do the work, and teams can start in under two weeks once you say go. Our vetting process explains the screening, and staff augmentation at Ryz covers how a team is set up.
In the regional table, the Ryz senior band sits inside the US agency bill-rate range and at the top of the published Latin American and Eastern European vendor ranges. That is deliberate. The price covers senior people who share most of the US workday and have been through a screen most candidates don't pass, not the lowest rate a region can produce.
A staff augmentation or agency rate bundles the engineer's pay with sourcing, vetting, replacement if someone leaves, and the vendor's margin. Revelo, for example, describes its Latin American monthly figures as engineer pay, coverage and its margin combined. A freelance rate is what the freelancer charges, sometimes plus a platform fee, and you carry the vetting and continuity risk yourself.
The US is the cost ceiling and the time-zone baseline. Levels.fyi's senior median for the New York City area ($255,000 in total pay) sits above the US senior median, and BLS puts the New York metro median software developer wage $30,850 above the national median of $135,980. Canada's senior median converts to about $121,900 a year, but Canadian senior freelance rates on Arc ($80 to $130 an hour) are close to US rates.
UK senior pay converts to about $156,500 a year and German senior pay to about $106,600. Vendor rates are close to US levels on Arc's freelance data and lower on Uvik's agency data. The limit is the clock: London shares three hours of a New York day, Berlin two, and less with the West Coast.
Poland has the highest senior pay of the three countries here (about $84,400 a year), then Ukraine (about $61,400) and Romania (about $52,800). Romania and Ukraine have fewer reports (n=165 and n=230), so read those medians as directional. Overlap with New York is one to two hours.
Senior pay in the five largest markets runs $44,593 to $63,324 a year, and published senior vendor rates run $6,400 to $10,700 a month. The difference from other offshore regions is the clock: Bogotá shares a full New York workday, Mexico City seven hours, São Paulo and Buenos Aires six. Country detail is on our Latin American developer salaries page and in the Latin America engineering talent report.
India has the deepest Levels.fyi sample here (n=8,002), a senior median of about $52,700 a year and the lowest published senior rates. It also has no overlap with a 9-to-5 New York day, so work runs on handoffs, or one side works shifted hours.
Published senior rates run about $11,200 to $24,000 a month for US-based engineers at 160 hours, about $6,400 to $10,700 for Latin America, $5,600 to $9,600 for Eastern Europe and $4,000 to $9,600 for India (Arc, Uvik and Revelo, 2026). Ryz senior engineers are $10,000 to $15,000 per engineer per month, on US business hours.
About $23,700 a month: the $195,000 Levels.fyi median senior base salary divided by 0.685, the BLS wage share of total compensation, then by 12. That leaves out equity, bonus, recruiting and equipment.
Multiply by the monthly hours in the quote. This page uses 160 hours, so $60 an hour is $9,600 a month and $100 an hour is $16,000. Use the same hours for every quote you compare.
Four NYC software developers at the BLS median wage, loaded with benefits, cost about $974,190 a year; at the 75th percentile, about $1,202,745. Four senior Ryz engineers cost $480,000 to $720,000 a year.
Canada and Latin America. Toronto and Bogotá share a full New York workday, Mexico City seven hours, and São Paulo and Buenos Aires six. London shares three, Central and Eastern Europe one to two, and India none.
Our price covers senior engineers from the top 1% of the tens of thousands we have interviewed, who work on your team on US business hours, including New York hours. Price is set by the quality of the people and the hours they share with you, not by the lowest rate a region can produce.
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