Laravel is a good choice for a product. It's mature, well documented, and there are plenty of UK developers who know it. The hard part is finding the right one, and working out which way of working with them suits where your business is.
There are four realistic options. Here they are side by side, then in detail, then the questions we'd ask anyone, us included, before handing over a codebase.
The four options at a glance
| In-house | Freelancer | Agency (per project) | Subscription | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | £54k–£77k a year to employ | £350–£600 a day | £5k–£30k+ a project | Flat monthly fee |
| Time to start | ~3 months | Days to weeks, if free | 2–6 weeks after proposal | Days |
| Design included | No | Rarely | Usually, at extra cost | Depends on the provider |
| Continuity | High, until they leave | Low to medium | Low between projects | High |
| Best for | Permanent, full-time product work | A defined job | A one-off build | Ongoing product work without hiring |
The figures are typical UK ranges, not quotes. For the full breakdown of employment costs, see what it really costs to hire a developer.
Hiring in-house
Job-advert data puts UK PHP and Laravel developer salaries at a median of around £45,000, with senior people at £55,000 to £65,000 and more in London. Add 15% employer's National Insurance above £5,000, pension contributions and, usually, a recruiter's fee of 15–25% of salary.
Choose it when the product is the business, you'll need full-time engineering for years, and someone in the business can judge a developer's work. If nobody can review their code, you won't know whether you've hired well until the second developer arrives and tells you.
Watch out for the single point of failure. One developer means one person who knows how everything works, and every holiday or resignation stops the work.
A freelancer
Experienced UK Laravel freelancers commonly charge £350 to £600 a day, depending on experience and specialism.
Choose one when you have a defined piece of work: an integration, a performance fix, a feature with a clear scope. A good freelancer will do it well and quickly.
Watch out for availability and handover. The good ones are busy, and when they move on the knowledge goes with them unless they've documented it. Most freelancers are developers, not designers, so someone still has to decide what gets built.
An agency, per project
A Laravel agency will scope, quote and build. Focused projects often land between £5,000 and £30,000. Larger platforms cost more.
Choose one when you need a defined build with design included and then expect little change for a while.
Watch out for what happens after launch. Products change constantly, and per-project agencies make every change a new quote. The team who built it has often moved on by version two, so you pay for someone to learn your codebase again. We wrote about this trade-off in more detail.
A subscription
This is what we sell, so read this section with that in mind.
A development subscription gives you a team working through a queue for a flat monthly fee. You add requests, they ship them one at a time, and you can pause or cancel any month. Ours is £4,500 a month for a senior product designer and a senior Laravel developer, with founding places at £3,500 a month for the first six months.
Choose it when you have a live product with a constant stream of work (features, fixes, screens, integrations) and want it shipping without hiring or managing anyone. The design is in the same team as the build, so nothing gets lost between the two.
Watch out for throughput. One active request at a time is a continuous lane, not a full-time developer at a desk. If you need several things moving at once, every week, permanently, that's a bigger plan or a hire. The full model and the maths are here.
What to ask before you hand over the codebase
Whoever you choose, these questions separate developers who'll leave you in a good place from ones who won't.
"Which Laravel version are we on, and what would upgrading involve?" A good developer will look before answering. Someone who says "no problem" without checking hasn't upgraded much.
"How will you test this?" You want to hear about automated tests, Pest or PHPUnit, run before every deploy. "I check it in the browser" is how regressions reach your customers.
"Where does access control live?" The right answer involves policies, gates or middleware on the server. If it's handled by hiding buttons in the interface, anyone can get at the data.
"How do deploys work, and how do we roll one back?" You want a repeatable process, a staging environment, and a rollback someone has actually done.
"Who owns the code and the hosting accounts?" It should be you, in your name, from day one. If a supplier holds the keys, you can't leave.
"What happens when you're on holiday?" One person with no cover is a risk you should know you're taking.
"Will you use AI tools, and who reviews the output?" Most good developers use them now. The question is whether a senior person reviews everything before it reaches your users.
What we'd suggest
If you're pre-revenue with an idea, prototype it yourself first. Lovable or Bolt are fine for that, and if you need help taking it further, read what it takes to go live.
If you have a product with users and the work never stops, try a subscription before you hire. You'll ship while you learn what the role really needs, and when you do hire, you'll write a much better job spec.
If you know you need permanent full-time engineering, hire, and get someone technical involved in the interviews.
If you want to see how we work, the two-week kickoff sprint is £1,950 and comes off your first month if you subscribe within 30 days. Or see how the product team works and book thirty minutes to talk it through.
