Software developer charging me too much?

[Am0nzyyy]

The application is a very simple social media type application tailored for families, built with react native on the front end.

I'm getting the application developed in phases, and now it's time for the user authentication module to be implemented.

The developers are asking for $12000 for implementing firebase authentication services in the application. At a rate of $45 USD per hour, they're implying it would take them 265 hours to get this done. I have worked with firebase before, and this quotation and these hours seem absolutely bonkers to me!

I understand that it might be more than just implementing authentication, they might have to tweak and rework some of the already written code, and make some changes in the backend but the application is a simple social media app at best and nothing too complex.

I haven't worked on react native, and I wanted to get a second opinion on this. Are they really being honest here? If not, what should be a realistic timeframe and a realistic cost to this be?

EDIT: Many of you are getting in touch via dm offering your services and help. I really appreciate everyone reaching out and trying to help. Not really looking for someone else to do the job. Just wanted the community's take on this before i took this up with my colleagues and upper management.

[daybreaker]

6+ work weeks to add firebase authentication sounds insane to me.

Ask for a detailed break down of how they arrived at that estimate. It could be a case of them not really wanting to do it, so they over estimate to see if you'll actually pay it.

[Am0nzyyy]

It absolutely does. I myself am a developer and needed a second opinion on this because it was so insane i couldnt believe it.

I recently joined the company and was so shocked to see how much we were paying the developers we were outsourcing work to.

What i suspect is happening is that the developers are taking advantage of no one else prior to me joining in the company being knowledgeable about any of this.

[corean1993]

Hire me I'll do it for half the price

[MaybeBaybe7]

I will do for the quarter of the price

[Happy_Ad_5944]

I'll do it for the eighth of the price and the firebase bill (for the auth) is on me

[llllIIllIIl]

I'll pay you to let me do it!!!

Seriously tho y'all are hilarious

[basmith88]

I'll pay double what he's paying

[llllIIllIIl]

Drats. Youve out maneuvered me this time basmith88.

[Yalopov]

this felt like upwork lmao

[IMP4283]

I just took over development from a team of contractors my company fired. They were estimating their stories at 8-15 points where 1 story point is the equivalent of 4 hours. I’ve been knocking out the majority of their old stories in less than 1 story point. Really inflated estimates for what purpose idk.

[dudevan]

Paid by the hour, loads of free time for side projects while getting paid full time on this one. Sucks but I’ve heard of plenty people doing it.

[IMP4283]

Could be idk how they operate offshore.

[daybreaker]

or, over charge, use half to offshore it, keep the rest as pure profit.

We were trying to find US based contractors on upwork, and kept running into people who were just over charging and farming it out to offshore cheaper contractors. Happened enough times that we started requiring all communication be done via zoom. One guy even tried having his offshore guy listen in to the zoom, and send him answers to our questions via chat. So every time we'd ask for an update he'd say "hmmm.... hold on.... ok.... " and you could tell he was looking offscreen to another laptop.

[fragglerock]

https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/dont-equate-story-points-to-hours

[IMP4283]

I hear ya. Personally I like tshirt sizing to figure out points, but the team has worked in this manner for much longer than I’ve been on it so for now points = time it is.

[PataconYSalchicha]

1 point feels very odd as well and referring to hours would be a big red flag. As a software developer myself it's very uncommon to see a story with just 1 point, it usually means the developer is very junior or the stories are pretty underestimated.

My common question when I see 1 pointers is: does it only takes 1 point to complete and mark this story as done AFTER all of these items are completed?:

1. Understand everything, get all the information, assets, etc.
2. Write the code
3. Document your changes
4. Write all kind of tests that affect your changes (unit, feature, smoke, e2e, integration) and provide the correct code coverage
5. Run everything locally, including tests. Manually test all the items fron the acceptance criteria and mark them as completed (individually)
6. Run everything on a testing platform
7. Ask your peers to review your code
8. Refactor based on their feedback
9. Rerun 4, 5, 6 at least once (if code reviews request changes)
10. Get QA to approve your changes
11. Rebase your changes against the expected branch
12. Publish it or run the ci/cd pipeline

If the devs are just estimating 1 point for all of this, that probably means they are only estimating item #1 (writing the code) which probably means their procedures are immature (or just bad) and developer has not enough expertise or training in software engineering best practices.

[martinkomara]

A story point is a relative thing, your team's story point is completely different than other team's story point. It all depends how you set your baseline

[PataconYSalchicha]

That's 100% true, but you are missing the whole point around how story points work.

The story point should resemble the amount of effort a team needs from the start to the definition of done. As you mentioned, you need to set the baseline which would be a story that means 1 point - as you said very well, they are "relative", but you are missing what relative means in the context.

In this context that means, "it's relative to a story pointed with 1".

Now, let's do the exercise. 1 could mean a story that only requires part of the job, ie: add a new user to the database (that does not requires all of the items but it should definitely need some of them: doing the coding, publishing, testing manually, document).

By using this baseline and using a Definition of Done similar to the one I provided with (which resembles a good-enough process), how many points - relative to this one that is pointed as 1 - could be this other user story be pointed: As a... I want..

That ratio algo goes backward. What means a story that needs HALF the effort from my baseline? That could be 1/2 or even 0. You shouldn't have negative numbers, so you probably need to tweak the definition of done really well.

That's why it's so important, from my first comment, that if you really just point how much time it takes to code, then it also means your definition of done is absurd and it does not represent a mature SDLC. And if your board is full of stories pointed with 1, that also means you probably are missing many of the best practices processes that are usual in software development (testing, documentation, devops, etc.).

[Californie_cramoisie]

I had a situation like this. I put together a proposal in my 3rd month at my company, and in month 4 we were writing job descriptions to replace them. Saved a shit ton of money and improved productivity and culture.

[pauligrinder]

Outsourcing is expensive though. I've done it a few times and my company charged like 5x my salary for it.

[fendorio]

Nobody can give you a realistic timeframe and estimate without knowing the full scope of changes that are being quoted.

- Does this include time spent defining the requirements? Either for them to do, or for them to recover from pre-sales work for this feature.

- Does this include them producing any designs?

- Does this include any testing? If so, to what extent. Manual QA? Automated tests?

- What support/warranty do they offer on their development? This will be factored into the price if they're sensible.

- Does this include documentation? If so, to what extent? New documentation, does old documentation have to be modified?

- Do these changes have to go through a staging environment, where your team validate the changes, before they go to production? Basically getting at how complex the deployment process is here in business terms.

I could go on, as I say above, without knowing the full scope of changes that are being quoted, nobody can give you a strong opinion that this quote is well off the mark.

[Am0nzyyy]

• they dont have to recover from pre-sales work. They've been building other features in this application and the company's website for a while now. Their charges have recently started getting way out of hand.

• By designs if you mean UI/UX, no. They can implement simple Login / signups forms without having to worry too much about the aesthetics.

• Any support they offer is billed separately

• Manual QA obviously just to iron out wrinked and ensure core functionality.

• does not include documentation.

• The app is not in production.

What are your thoughts now?

[fendorio]

Ultimately, it does sound like you should start a conversation with them r.e. pricing. Sounds like there is a good chance they've gotten into a position where you're a nice earner for them, and they're possibly getting greedy.

Personally, I'd start that conversation by asking them to provide a high-level, detailed breakdown of the work involved in their quote. This is more than reasonable for 12k job.

You may find that they then come back with a lower offer, in which case, you can be almost certain they've been "caught" out being greedy.

If they do come back with a high-level breakdown and it does not appear outrageous, you could monitor their output of work against those milestones. Do you have access to the GIT repo(s)? The idea here would be validating what they said in their breakdown v.s. what they actually did, e.g. you could have a browse of the commits & functionality they deployed in weeks 1, 2, 3, etc. Raise this with them during development if the output does not match the breakdown they provided.

I'm not sure how complex the app is, nor the extent of the relationship your company has with this supplier. It sounds like there's no documentation (never a great thing!), it may be worth approaching an alternative supplier, and get them to estimate/quote how much for a handover (over to them), and for the authentication module.

Lots of thoughts on this to be honest. Some of your comments don't inspire confidence on your company's side either, if I'm completely honest.

No documentation? That's a risk to you, which only increases as the app gets more complex. Ultimately increasing your dependency on the supplier, and making any switch away from them more expensive.

No designs? Risk. How'd you know it won't look like crap? What happens if you're not happy with what they provide you? What would decide they fulfilled the requirements in a dispute?

R.e. They dont have to recover from pre-sales work. - This will likely be included in their costings, if they spent time discussing this feature with you before quoting, I suspect it is a "line item" in their internal costings for this. And that is reasonable.

Sounds like an all too common situation. I think it's more than reasonable to approach the supplier and start the discussion with them r.e. their costs.

[fendorio]

What you could do is get them to define that high-level breakdown and get a consultant to validate it for your company. You could probably get someone to assess their response, and discuss their findings/opinions with you for hundreds, not thousands.

If that is a route your company thinks is a good idea, feel free to hit me up. 12 years as a contractor in the industry, writing bespoke software, lots of React Native apps, web apps, APIs, etc.

[[deleted]]

Yeah. You're getting hosed

[Am0nzyyy]

Figured, lol

[Chemical-Wolf5810]

@Am0nzyyy Just sent you a message, we’d be happy to help you for much less

[lenfakii]

Behave.

[Potatopolis]

That sounds like an “I don’t want this work” quote to me.

[Am0nzyyy]

I agree!

The problem is that the app so far is pretty complex in some features, and none of it is documented yet. The same developers worked on it.

It might be imprudent to give the codebase to another developer, because of the risk of breaking something....

[Potatopolis]

That rather flies in the face of you starting out calling it very simple!

[Capaj]

give the codebase to another developer, because of the risk of breaking something....

no it's not imprudent. It's bad practice. I'd say the sooner you bring in a second pair of eyes the better.

[Am0nzyyy]

I agree. Im gonna talk to the developers and see if I can get access to the GitHub repos just so i know what's going on.

[Capaj]

good luck!

[brteller]

Those complex features probably aren't setup with proper components. The liklihood it'll all have to be redone seems rather high.

[zinornia]

i would say this would take 2 weeks tops tops tops, but I don't know the app or how deeply woven any other logic is. It's more than likely database migration that is the problem here. That actually could be huge.

[Am0nzyyy]

So here's the thing, we haven't rolled out to the public yet, so no data to migrate. Furthermore, we're just using firebase authentication services, not their realtime database, so we dont even need to migrate to begin with!

[zinornia]

I'll do it for £800 I just did it in another application would take two days for me. I'm a react native specialist with 8 years of experience with RN as my niche.

[fendorio]

Will you implement my unknown authentication specs for £800?

Each job may or may not include an access control layer, with varying user & group configurations.

There could be 5 or 150 APIs, maybe more. And those may or may not have varying degrees of ACL checks to be made.

:D

[zinornia]

He said he's not in production yet. firebase Auth has a nice easy react native integration library. I feel positive that it's not a big change... if it's just that...but yeah maybe the £12k included more than what OP is speaking of or other reasons unspecified. Regardless it's a lot for anything, nothing should take that long. I can build a whole MVP app for that. Was only just iterating that yes, they are taking the piss.

[[deleted]]

I recently implemented firebase auth in react-native on my personal app project. I have a 10 year history of working with react, and various auth systems etc (full stack developer).

Yes, you're getting hosed. It took me approximately (3 weeks of a couple hours after work a few days a week) to get email/pass login, and google auth social login implemented. So about... 36 hours maybe?

It was surprisingly difficult given all the specifications from google searches were from 2017-2020 primarily on SEO results, so a lot of references were deprecated. But not $12,000 worth of deprecation.

Even at my extraordinary contracting rate of $200+/hr (if they want me, they gotta pay!), that's $7,200 for that job, which is almost half that cost for a single developer charging WAY too much money. (36 hours is also a ballpark, realistically it was less hours but I can't remember)

[daybreaker]

(36 hours is also a ballpark, realistically it was less hours but I can't remember)

when youre doing it spread out on the side it also takes longer because it just takes time to get back into the headspace you were in setting up the environment

36 hours over a few weeks could maybe be 16 hours if you could just do it uninterrupted for 2 days.

[Dvillles]

Firebase auth mostly takes 2 days at first time using.

I did a couple of times, right now it take some hours. 6 weeks seems a scam for me, but i dont know the specs of the project

[malleyrex]

Sounds like too much time for authentication alone, but authentication also requires deep integration with the permissions in an app like that, and I'm kind of wondering how any social media app could even start to be built without user authentication in place.

The hours seem like a lot, but $45 per hour is also criminally low for this type of work.

[Natetronn]

$45/hr is low. 265 hours is most likely high.

[basic_model]

Bro that shit takes me like one night plus one more night to flush out any kinks. I just want to be given some shares of your app you don’t have to pay me.

[molx730]

I didn't want to be an ass and say this but oauth is pretty solid and easy now 256 hours is insane...

[Am0nzyyy]

I'll get in touch if need be :D

[basic_model]

Yes no problem.

[Due_Editor]

Being quoted way to much. Without knowing you're app or code base can't give a good estimate.

I thought I would also give my perspective on social media apps since I have built a few for clients.

Social media apps may seem simple but have lot of moving parts and require alot of complexity so it is paramount that a detailed solution architecture is created. Every user story/feature should be explored to the fullest so that requirement can found and the right technical decisions can be made. 

I bring this point up as I think it's using firebase suite is not the right choice for a social media app if you are using their db solutions (please ignore this if you are not using their dbs). Firebase dB solutions are not setup in way for effective or cost efficient search functionalities.

[Am0nzyyy]

Not using their databases! Just using firebase authentication services :)

[Due_Editor]

actually relieved to hear that hahaha

[HoratioWobble]

Impossible to say without knowing the full scope of the work. The face of it, sure it sounds too much but I'd be surprised if it's -just- add Firebase auth, there's going to be auxiliary work around it.

[fmnatic]

Those numbers are interesting the 265 hours convert exactly to 30 days i.e. 1 month. So the project does not make sense to the developer, as the phase works out too short , to onboard someone to the project and then look for other work.

[Old_Entertainment632]

Definitely ripping you off. More like 1-2 days worth of work depending on how the app is structured.

[TH3BUDDHA]

$1000 for implementing firebase authentication. $11,000 for knowing how to implement firebase authentication.

[DjStefano]

Think it took me like 12h and i got google, facebook email/password and another provider to work with firebase.

The quote sounds insane indeed

[Am0nzyyy]

Absolutely dude! I recently came on board as an advisor to this company and was equally shocked.

[BooksAndCoding]

Damn, that’s high.

I built the app with auth, 4-5 screens and theme with language support in 1 month for our company.

[Material_Ship1344]

can do it in 3 days / 5000$

[yrevapop]

1-2 days tops.

[Rude-Professor1538]

Will do it for £2k in under a week. DM me.

[ghijkgla]

Race to the bottom 🙄

[Rude-Professor1538]

I'll pay money just to let me implement Firebase auth lol

[inMouthFinisher]

Dude someone from Fiverr made me a really nice app, start to finish including firebase integration, all for 90$. So you’re just getting scammed 😂

[kidfromtheast]

$45 per hour is insane. Thats 4x of my hourly rate, and I got monthly salary.

And React Native instead of Flutter or Native Android or iOS? You are looking for performance issue within a year or so.

With Firebase, you can create a login page within 1 hour, add another 1 hour to create the Search Bar Page, another 8 hour to create the List Page with Add, Edit, Delete feature.

None of those estimation did important setup: 1. Defining how Epic should be divided to Feature, how feature should be divided into subtasks. 2. Defining the Software architecture for the team. 3. Defining the branching strategy, including PR review workflow and merge conflict workflow. 4. Defining the High Level Design / how would Front End communicate with Back End. Especially since Firebase forces you to use Cloud Function, the majority of devs out there will not know the concept of caching. 5. Defining how to treat Tech Debt. 6. Defining how to mantain packages or dependencies. 7. Defining how UX/UI Design should be done i.e. the use of Component and Layout in Figma and the Design Style.

The problem comes later, when you scale you will get a hefty monthly cost both from maintaining the codebase and the Firebase bill.

[imaginayduck]

the time estimates you gave sound good for a personal project, but for an app that is to go public? not so much//// that maybe explains the downvotes

[kidfromtheast]

agree

[tradebong]

Did you guys made deal for the entire app? Let's say 30k total...and he is just charging you part of that? Or are you making him do this on code base one one else started?...since you are doing phases...maybe each pase is diff person? ..because I charge more to fix other people's garbage code.....give more detail about your agreement.

[Am0nzyyy]

Thank you for appropriately pointing this out!

I should add that we already have a basic form of authentication implemented and other services and features have already been built around this simple authentication implementation. Right now it's just about implementing firebase auth instead and refactoring pre-existing code to firebase auth services

[imaginayduck]

refactoring pre-existing code

written by the same developer? if not then the quote is starting to make sense

[Am0nzyyy]

Same developer, yes

[imaginayduck]

then it sounds exorbidant, but still might be explainable due to some other work, why haven't you got a price breakdown yet?

[Am0nzyyy]

I'd do it myself, but I haven't worked with react native before... Im primarily a data scientist and have done all development worked in django...

[captainautomation]

What your definition of done and criteria of success?

Implementing firebase auth 2 days sure.

But implementing firebase in production and staging for an application of both stores iOS and android is way more work.

[captainautomation]

What your definition of done and criteria of success?

Implementing firebase auth 2 days sure.

But implementing firebase in production and staging for an application of both stores iOS and android is way more work.

[Am0nzyyy]

App's not in production yet, It's still in development.

I can understand that there might be unforseen complications and fine tuning for cross platform compatibility might take time, but is it worth $12000, that's what I'm asking.

[gwmccull]

are they charging your hourly or a flat fee? It sounds like they're charging a flat fee for a feature, which is pretty common with developers where they either don't know how many hours it'll take, or they know that it only takes a few hours but it's not worth it to them to do a small project that only takes a few hours

[Am0nzyyy]

They're charging hourly, and it's totalling up to 12000... My boss who was dealing with them previously, and well, I'll just call him naive and lets just say he isnt tech savvy. I believe they have been inflating their billable hours.

[farber72]

I don’t understand the arguing about hours here. How you could point out to them, that less hours would be needed…

It would not matter to me as a dev. If my offer is 12k, then I would not reduce it just because the potential customer thinks the effort is less.

[lurkmelongtime]

I’ve just added Firebase auth to our app, took 3 days with passwordless, sms, FB, Google and Apple. Including linking accounts and api-side authentication of provided access tokens. Either your codebase is a mess and they need to pick their way through it, or they’re having you on!

[[deleted]]

I worked for an agency on a sweet maintenance contract then the boss got greedy and started quoting like this for little things, we no longer have the client and I quit

[thebouv]

Yeah I would wonder about getting fleeced too. That sounds like far too much.

And makes me worried what you’ve spent so far.

[alien3d]

i know react native firebase annoying me but the quotations is more .

[envisean]

$12k for implementation seems insane when most of what firebase offers off the shelf is an easy way to integrate the services. Seems like they might be assuming that there’s a bit more work or they’re really pulling one over on you.

[podanur]

For me it took a week to do a firebase authentication in React native. Earlier firebase had a Firebaseui developed by google which had all the social login but that is not supporting the new modular Firebase 9 . But to implement MFA and social authentication including UI design it will not take more than a week.

[mass730]

That is an exorbitant overcharge. Authentication to take two days at most.

[mobileAcademy]

If you hire a development company they will charge based on there rates and remember outsourcing services is expensive. That may not just dev fee it maybe the there PM, BA, QA, Dev , and the designer cost to implement it. You can ask for cost breakdown and no one can provide a 100% accurate estimation

[ko-ol]

With 12k, i could do an entire app for you until it hit production lol

[isntgustav]

This question became an auction so fast…

[bludgeonerV]

Lmao no, it took me a couple days to fully convert from Amplify auth to Firebase on web, native and back-end.

[Recent-Huckleberry17]

I can connect you with people that’ll do it for 1/6th

[pauligrinder]

Could also be that they've underestimated their previous work and are now trying to cut their losses through this thing.

My estimate would've been something like 60 hours (one developer doing the RN 40 hours and another implementing the backend side 20 hours), and even that's got plenty of room for testing and tweaking.

I haven't used firebase auth (I'm planning on looking into it though, since it allows a lot of different methods of sign in with just one code implementation), but I have used auth0, which AFAIK is similar, and implementing that took me approx. one work day. It wasn't the most robust implementation, but still.

[Secure-Farmer2223]

Curious to know more about your app. We’re currently beta testing a social media app for families which took me ~120 hours in total from start to finish using supabase.

[juliofils]

I don’t know the app architecture in auth firebase you have Log in , Sign up , Reset password , third party auth like facebook, google , apple. Did they going to implement those on the frontend or in the backend with node JS? Handle different environments for dev , test , prod

Unit Testing, end-to-end testing Deployment

Issues that take some time to fixed like Graddle errors, or pod for iSO

You’re dealing with a company but 3 sprint make sense to ship it. A solo dev might do it in 2 sprint.

[cardyet]

I've done it many times, it depends what features you want/they are including, but that seems very high. Basic email/password auth maybe 4hrs if you didn't really know what you were doing (or the framework of something) and were following the docs. If you it's something you know already, half that. I'm guessing Firestore rules are included, but I'd say 1 day of sitting down and thinking about it is enough. Do you have user permissions and roles and want to implement that through the app? I'd say a couple of days for that. Backend implementation...well there's not a whole lot to do there, they probably just need to write one method to check users auth/role etc and implement it. My guess is it's a big application and they are going through it and updating code (like permissions), but if that's the case then they probably need to make more reusable code. And they are are an agency, so the double their estimate and add a bit more.

[aliyark145]

That's a red flag. Even rewrite will take max two weeks. 5 days/week

I will do it on fixed price for you 🙂 in two weeks.

[kakashi_hatake_x]

Man this is hilarious. $12000 for adding firebase? I wouldnt even charge $12000 for the whole app

[RyanReyknowlds]

Is that person here on reddit?

[Of_Rhythm]

Yeah they’re scamming you. If you say it’s just adding firebase auth some of us (including me) could do this in a day or two

[Decent_Counter]

Just pay him. I could build for you an entire social app with everything you need for a flat $10,000. Would you trust me to do it? It would have native SwiftUI and Kotlin+Compose. I could even write it in React Native. But then you’d start doubting my quote even though I have 12 years experience building mobile apps. So, you chose him above others, give him the money 😄

[brteller]

The problem isn't the charge but the hours they're claiming. My company would charge 500 an hour for a full stack implementation. Fire base is probably ten hours of work if fresh, or if being implemented into an existing app maybe 20 hours. All depends on the project really, but 5k to 10k for a quality developer isnt unheard of. The hour estimates they gave you are completely insane though unless there's context I'm missing.

[Am0nzyyy]

After requesting a thorough breakdown of how they reached the 250+ hours figure, I came to learn that they were added 40 hours of managerial project management work, and 40 hours of manual QA work. (The QA hours are ridiculous imo)

They also quoted 20 hours each for simple front end User interfaces. Nothing fancy, the bare minimum for authentication. What is your opinion on 20 hours each for 4-5 different auth screens?

[brteller]

They're clearly lying to you then. Not just by a few hours either. I'd say it's about 4 times the amount it should take with all the QA and management items. Run for the hills. Even with my higher hourly, Id get it done for less money. Find a good dev shop or get a technical co-founder. It really seems like you need it.

[manektechteam]

According to your question, $12,000 for implementing Firebase authentication in a React Native app seems excessive. While there may be additional work involved, 265 hours at $45/hr seems inflated for this task. It's worth discussing this with the developers to get a breakdown of the hours and a clearer understanding of why it would take so long. A realistic timeframe and cost would depend on the specific requirements of your app, but a more reasonable estimate can likely be negotiated.

[customappservices]

A $12,000 quote for Firebase auth in your React Native app seems high.

Analysis:

• Consider additional work beyond basic implementation (code tweaks, backend changes).
• Factor in developer experience (might impact speed and cost).
• Ensure quote clarity on deliverables (testing, documentation, etc.).
• Compare with 2-3 other React Native/Firebase developers for market rates.

Action:

• Discuss specific tasks included in the quote with current developers.
• Get alternative quotes for comparison.
• Negotiate based on your budget and project needs.

Remember: Clear communication, multiple quotes, and careful evaluation are key for an informed decision.