What's actually different?
A freelancer is one person on your project part-time. An agency is 4–8 people on your project full-time with a project manager in the middle. A vibe-coded studio like ours is two senior builders, AI-augmented, shipping at agency speed at freelancer prices.
When should you hire a freelancer?
When the spec is fully written, the design is done, and you just need someone to build the screens. $20–$80/hr. Risk: they get sick, go on holiday, or take a bigger job mid-project.
When should you hire an agency?
When the project is six figures, governance matters (regulated industries, enterprise procurement), and you need a paper trail. $100k+. Risk: 30% of the budget pays for the project manager and the slide decks.
When does a vibe-coded studio win?
0-to-1 MVPs, internal tools, AI features, anything that needs to ship in weeks not quarters. $4k–$25k. Risk: we're a small team, so we cap how many projects we run at once.
The honest bit
If you need 12 months of roadmap delivered with a Jira board and weekly steerco, hire an agency. We're not that. We're the team you call when you want it live by month-end.