The cost
The money argument, with its method on the page
Two published figures anchor everything below, and both are linked at the foot of the page. Every number we derive from them is labelled an estimate, states its inputs, and compares seat for seat at the same headcount, so a sceptical reader can redo it with a calculator.
01The cost
What the work costs today, and what it costs here.
Two published figures anchor this page, and both are linked below. Every number we derive from them is labelled an estimate and shows its arithmetic, so you can redo it.
| What you are paying for | Cost | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| One developer, at the US median | $135,9801 | The median across every seniority, not a senior rate. One person, one working week. |
| One elite engineer, United States | $654,0002 | Total compensation for a staff engineer at Google. Divided by 12, that is $54,500 a month for one person.Estimate |
| A team of 5, at the US median | $679,9001Estimate | Our arithmetic: 5 times the median wage. Salary only, so the real number is higher. |
| Consultants and contractors | Billed by the hour or by the engagement | We publish no rate here, because we have no source we can date for one. What is certain is that the work stops when the invoice stops, and the context leaves with the people. |
| developerz.ai | $100 / mo flat, one AI dev$500 / AI dev / mo$1,000 / AI dev / mo list price | One published price. The agents run on your own machines, on your own model keys, billed by your provider. Solo is one AI dev on a personal GitHub account. |
A figure with a number beside it cites the source below. A figure we worked out ourselves says so and shows its inputs.
02The arithmetic
Run it over five years, at three team sizes.
Salary against our published list price, seat for seat. Every cell is arithmetic on two figures you can check, and both are listed under the table.
| Team | After 1 year | After 3 years | After 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 engineers | $619,900 | $1,859,700 | $3,099,500 |
| 10 engineers | $1,239,800 | $3,719,400 | $6,199,000 |
| 25 engineers | $3,099,500 | $9,298,500 | $15,497,500 |
How this is worked outEstimate3
- US median pay for a software developer: $135,980 a year.1
- Our published Team list price, in US dollars: $1,000 per AI dev per month, which is $12,000 a year.
- Per seat, per year: $135,980 less $12,000 is $123,980. Multiply that by the team size, then by the number of years.
- Seat for seat: the same number of AI devs as engineers. This is a price comparison at equal headcount, not a claim about how much either one produces.
- Salary only. Employer taxes, benefits, equipment, office, recruiting and management time are not counted, so the real difference is larger than this table shows.
- Model spend is in neither column. You bring your own keys and pay your provider directly.
Why the inputs are the pessimistic ones
Three choices make every figure above smaller than the one we could have published. The arithmetic runs on the median wage across all seniorities, not on the elite total compensation quoted beside it, because a team is not made of staff engineers at one of the best paying employers in the United States. It subtracts our published list price rather than the rate early adopters actually pay, so the gap survives the day that window closes. And it compares seat for seat, the same count of AI devs as engineers, because any other framing would assert a productivity result we have not measured. The next section lists what neither column counts. Employer taxes, benefits, equipment, office, recruiting and management time are all paid on top of a salary, so each one of them makes the real difference larger than the table shows. Model spend is the exception: it sits outside both columns, your own provider bills it to you directly, and we claim no direction for it.
What neither column counts
Employer taxes
Payroll taxes are paid on top of every salary in the table and appear nowhere in it. A published wage is what a developer receives, not what an employer spends.
Benefits and insurance
Health cover, retirement contributions, paid leave and equity all sit outside the wage figure. Each one widens the difference the table already shows.
Equipment and office
Laptops, licences, desks and the space around them are a real annual cost per person, and none of it is in either column.
Recruiting and onboarding
Agency fees, interview time and the months before a new hire is productive are excluded. They are paid once per seat and they are not small.
Management time
The hours senior people spend planning, reviewing and unblocking a team are a cost of that team. We do not attempt to price them, so here they count for nothing.
Model spend, on both sides
Inference runs on your own provider key and your provider bills you directly. That spend is in neither column: we do not resell tokens, so it is not a saving we can claim and not a fee we can charge.
Next
Check the rest of the argument
- Pricing
The published catalog the last row of the table reads from, including what the early adopter rate is and what the list price is.
- Proof
Run records, audit trails and the evidence behind what the agents did, rather than a claim about it.
- How it works
The lifecycle an AI dev runs, from issue to merged pull request, and where your own gates sit inside it.
- Request access
Access is invite only while the fleet grows. Tell us about your repositories and we will come back to you.
Ship more. Maintain less.
We expect software to be written faster than any team can review it. Bring your repos, your boxes and your keys. We bring the org that keeps up.
Sources
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 Open the source
- levels.fyi, Google software engineer salaries, checked September 2026 Open the source
- Estimate computed from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics median annual wage, May 2025