Heads up: we're Ryz Labs, so we have skin in this game. What follows is the advice we give buyers on calls, including the times we tell them to go with someone else.
Choose Arc if you want to hire individual remote developers, freelance or full-time, with published rates, a short trial and a self-serve start. Choose Ryz Labs if you want senior Latin American engineers working inside your team on US hours for the long run, or an AI pod team that builds AI systems inside your stack. We're trusted by Fortune 500 engineering teams, and only the top 1% make it through our vetting.
A quick note on names: Arc (arc.dev) is a separate company. Our in-house candidate-ranking system is also called ARC. They're unrelated.
Published pricing. Arc lists freelance rates of $15 to $110+ an hour on its pricing page (its FAQ says most developers charge $60 to $100+), a flat 20% of annual salary for full-time hires, and nothing to pay until you hire. You can budget before you talk to anyone. We can't offer that.
Written guarantees. Arc offers a risk-free trial of up to two weeks for freelance roles and a 3-month guarantee with a free replacement for permanent hires. That's a clear way to de-risk a first hire.
Speed and flexibility. Arc says contract roles can be filled in 24 to 72 hours and full-time roles in 14 days. You can hire one person part-time, on a retainer, or as your own employee.
Wider reach. With talent across the US, Europe, Latin America and beyond, Arc can find people in places and roles we don't cover, including designers and marketers.
Guaranteed US hours. Every Ryz engineer is in Latin America and works within about an hour of US time zones. Standups, pairing and code review happen the same day. With Arc, you screen each candidate for overlap yourself.
Embedded, not placed and left. Arc places individuals, and you manage the day-to-day work. Our engineers join your standups, repos and roadmap from week one, as part of your team, for the long run. You sign one contract with Ryz; our engineers work with us as independent contractors, and we handle paying them.
Top 1% vetting with people making the calls. Recruiters source candidates, our in-house ARC system ranks the pipeline, and every candidate does a structured NTRVSTA AI interview. Recruiters review each candidate before and after. AI scores are advisory; people decide. Only the top 1% make it, out of tens of thousands of engineers interviewed, and you run the final interview. Our vetting page explains each step.
AI pod teams. Arc fills seats. We also run dedicated pods of senior engineers (often about 7 people, including a tech lead, an ML engineer and backend engineers) that build AI systems inside your cloud, in AWS, Azure, GitHub and Postgres, with Anthropic and OpenAI models. Our case studies include an AI marketing-compliance system for a global capital management firm that took review of 8,000+ documents from days to hours.
Arc publishes its pricing. Freelance developers cost $15 to $110+ an hour on its pricing page, billed hourly (invoiced weekly) or on a weekly retainer. Full-time hires cost 20% of annual salary. Contract-to-hire conversion carries a fee that isn't published. There's a risk-free trial of up to two weeks for freelancers and a 3-month replacement guarantee for permanent hires.
Our pricing is a custom quote, scoped per team. After a first call you get a scoped plan, a price, and the names of the people who would do the work. If you want to see a number before you talk to anyone, Arc is easier.
More reading: our Arc alternatives, Ryz Labs vs Toptal, and our guide to developer staffing for startups.
Arc's pricing page lists $15 to $110+ an hour for freelancers, and 20% of annual salary for full-time hires. Its FAQ says most developers charge $60 to $100+ an hour.
Yes. Arc offers a risk-free trial of up to two weeks for freelance roles and a 3-month replacement guarantee for permanent hires. We don't publish a trial, and that's a point in Arc's favor.
Arc says most are in the US, Europe and Latin America, with talent in 190 countries. Ask for candidates in your time zone when you brief them.
No. Arc (arc.dev) is a separate company. ARC is the in-house system we use to rank candidates. If you'd like to see how it works, talk to us.
We checked every provider on this page in October 2026. If something has changed, tell us and we'll update it.