What it costs to hire an offshore developer from Australia (2026)
The short answer: a senior software engineer employed in Sydney costs around A$15,000 a month in salary and super alone, before payroll tax, recruiting, equipment or office space. A vetted senior engineer from an offshore team like ours costs from about A$4,600 to A$5,000 a month, with recruiting, payroll and replacement included.
That gap is real, but it is not the whole story. This post walks through both sides in Australian dollars, including the costs that never show up on an invoice.
What a senior developer costs in Australia
Salary data varies by source, but the numbers cluster together:
- Glassdoor puts the average senior software engineer in Sydney at A$162,000 a year, from over 4,000 reported salaries.
- Indeed puts the national average for senior software engineers at about A$152,000.
On top of salary, an employer pays:
- Superannuation at 12% of ordinary time earnings from 1 July 2025. On A$162,000 that is A$19,440 a year.
- Payroll tax, once your total wages pass your state's threshold. In NSW the rate is 5.45% above the threshold.
- Workers' compensation insurance, equipment, software licences and desk space.
- Recruiting: an agency fee or weeks of your own team's time interviewing.
And the employee is paid for time they are not working. Under the National Employment Standards, full-time staff get four weeks of paid annual leave and ten days of paid personal or carer's leave a year, plus public holidays.
Salary and super alone come to about A$181,000 a year, or A$15,100 a month, for a senior engineer in Sydney.
What an offshore senior engineer costs
Offshore prices are usually quoted in US dollars. Ours are public on our rate card, per engineer per month for about 160 hours of work. At roughly US$0.70 to the Australian dollar (early November 2026), that converts to:
Role, per month | US$ | About A$ |
|---|---|---|
Mid-level frontend or backend engineer | $2,400 | $3,430 |
Senior frontend or backend engineer | $3,200 | $4,570 |
Senior full-stack engineer | $3,500 | $5,000 |
Lead full-stack engineer | $4,500 | $6,430 |
These include recruiting, vetting, payroll, equipment, a project manager and replacement if someone leaves. There is no recruiting fee, and the first two weeks are free if it isn't working out.
Side by side: one senior engineer for a year
| In-house, Sydney | LoudlyDev senior full-stack |
|---|---|---|
Salary or fee | A$162,000 | about A$60,000 (US$42,000) |
Super | A$19,440 | Included |
Payroll tax, workers' comp, equipment | Extra | None for you to pay |
Recruiting | Agency fee or weeks of interviews | Included |
If they leave | Start hiring again | Replacement and handover |
Ending it | Notice, redundancy rules | One month's notice |
Total before the extras | about A$181,000 | about A$60,000 |
Even before payroll tax and recruiting, the offshore engineer costs about a third as much.
The costs that don't show up on either invoice
An honest comparison has to count these too.
Your management time. An offshore engineer needs a clear backlog and someone on your side who can answer questions. If nobody has that time, the savings disappear into waiting. Our comparison of staff augmentation and outsourcing covers when a managed team is the better fit.
Time zones. Lahore is five to six hours behind Sydney, so a normal working day only overlaps for two or three hours unless the engineer shifts their day. Ours do, but ask any vendor for the exact hours in writing. Our guide to Pakistan, the Philippines and India compares the overlap for each.
Currency. If you are billed in US dollars, a weaker Australian dollar makes every month more expensive. At US$0.65 the senior full-stack engineer above costs about A$5,400 a month instead of A$5,000. Budget for some movement.
Onboarding. Any new engineer, local or offshore, takes a few weeks to learn your codebase. A good vendor shortens this with a handover week and someone senior checking the early work.
Quality risk. A cheap engineer who ships bugs costs more than an expensive one who doesn't. The vetting process matters more than the rate, which is why we explain how we vet engineers step by step.
Tax and contracts
Paying an overseas company for services is not the same as employing someone: super and payroll tax generally apply to wages, not to a supplier's fee. Contractor rules have exceptions, though, and GST depends on how your business is set up, so ask your accountant before you sign anything.
If the engineers will see personal information about your customers, the Australian Privacy Principles still apply to you. Make sure your contract covers confidentiality, data handling and IP ownership from the first commit.
How to get a real number
- Decide the role and seniority you need, and whether it is one engineer or a small team.
- Ask each vendor for a monthly price per engineer in writing, and what is not included.
- Convert at a cautious exchange rate, not today's best one.
- Add an honest estimate of your own management time.
Our hire builder does the first two steps in a minute: pick a role such as full-stack developers or React developers, choose the seniority, and see the monthly price and start date before you talk to anyone.