Arc.dev Alternative
We do the sourcing, screening and day-to-day management; you keep the veto. A Belgrade dedicated team with no platform fee and no fee to hire anyone permanently.
Reviewed by Igor Gazivoda, Co-founder & CEO · Updated
The Arc.dev Alternative for Buyers Who Do Not Want to Do the Recruiting
StepTo is a direct alternative to Arc.dev for companies that would rather approve a shortlist than assemble one. We are a Belgrade software company running dedicated teams in Serbia (CET) since 2014, with a 15-20 person engineering organization. Three engineers cost a fixed $15K-25K/month, are working on your product in 2-3 weeks, and tend to stay for the life of the engagement, with nothing layered on top of that figure and no fee if you later want one of them on your own payroll.
Arc.dev is a self-serve marketplace. You browse a large global pool of vetted freelancers, each of whom sets their own rate, and you decide who to engage. That is a deliberate design choice and a real strength: nobody knows your requirements better than you, and you can be comparing candidates within an hour of starting to look.
The question is whether you want that job. Self-serve means your engineering leads spend their week reading profiles, running screens and, afterwards, coordinating three contractors who each answer only for their own tickets. Third-party reviews also report a platform fee of around 20% on top of what developers earn, and a conversion fee of 15-25% of first-year salary if you eventually want to hire one of them outright, a charge that lands precisely when the relationship has gone well.
StepTo moves that work to our side of the table. We source, screen and shortlist; you keep the veto on every individual; a delivery lead is then accountable for whether the group actually ships. The sections below set out that division of labour, what each model costs, and where self-serve is still the better answer.
Arc.dev vs StepTo: Who Does What
Six questions about where the work sits, from picking people to paying for them
| Factor | Arc.dev (marketplace) | StepTo Dedicated Team |
|---|---|---|
| Who picks the developers | You do. Browse profiles, shortlist, and decide, from a large global pool | We shortlist against your spec; you approve every person before they join |
| Who runs the engagement day to day | Your own engineering leads coordinate each independent freelancer | A delivery lead runs the team; your leads stay focused on product |
| What sits on top of engineering time | Reported ~20% platform fee layered on developer payments | Nothing. One monthly figure covers engineering, management, HR, and equipment |
| How the rate is set | Reported ~$40-100/hr, priced individually by each developer | $25-85/hr by seniority; a 3-person team from $15K-25K/month |
| Cost of making it permanent | Reported placement fee of 15-25% of first-year salary | Nothing. Direct-hire support is part of the arrangement |
| Speed to one developer | Fast. Self-serve browsing surfaces available candidates immediately | Slower for a single seat: profiles in 3-5 business days, team live in 2-3 weeks |
Competitor figures (rates, platform fee, placement fee) are drawn from publicly available third-party reviews as of 2026, not confirmed directly with Arc.dev, and may not reflect current terms. Verify directly with the provider before deciding.
Why Companies Look for Arc.dev Alternatives
Self-serve is excellent when you want to hold the wheel. These are the costs that show up when the wheel turns out to be heavier than expected.
You Are the Recruiter
Self-serve browsing puts the sourcing decision in your hands, which is exactly what some buyers want. It also means someone on your side spends real hours reading profiles, running screens, and judging fit, recruiting labour that never appears on the invoice but is paid for in engineering-leadership time.
A Slice of Every Invoice Is Not Engineering
Marketplace models like this are commonly structured with a fee layered on top of what the developer actually earns, reported around 20%. That share buys you access to the catalogue and the payment rails, not additional hours of work on your product.
Succeeding With Someone Triggers a Bill
Marketplaces connecting you with independent freelancers commonly charge a conversion fee, reported at 15-25% of first-year salary, when you want to bring someone on permanently. The better the working relationship goes, the more likely you are to owe it.
Every Seat Is Its Own Negotiation
When developers price themselves, a three-person engagement is three separate rate conversations and three separate renewals. Budgeting a team becomes an exercise in stacking individually negotiated numbers rather than approving one figure.
Nobody Is Accountable for the Group
Each freelancer answers for their own tickets. No one on the supplier side is answerable for whether the three of them ship a coherent release, so the integration, sequencing, and quality bar all fall to your internal leads.
Availability Decides the Timezone
A large global pool is a genuine sourcing strength, but who is free this month determines where your developers sit. Working hours become an outcome of availability rather than something you specified at the start.
What Three Engineers Cost Each Way
Full-time equivalents, with the fees each model adds on top of engineering time
Self-serve marketplace (3 developers @ ~$70/hr avg, plus ~20% platform fee)
Illustrative only: publicly reported rate ranges and fee structure at 160 hrs per developer per month. It does not price the recruiting hours your own leads spend selecting the three people, nor the reported conversion fee if one of them later becomes an employee.
Monthly
~$40,320/month
Annual
~$483,840/year
StepTo dedicated team (3 devs)
One figure, agreed before work starts. Selection, delivery management, HR, career development and equipment are inside it, not billed alongside it.
Monthly
$15K-25K/month
Annual
$180K-300K/year
Difference
The gap widens further if you count the internal time spent sourcing and coordinating three independent contractors, and the reported fee to make any of them permanent.
Monthly
$15K-25K+/month
Annual
$184K-304K+/year
Read this before quoting the numbers: the marketplace column comes from third-party review sites as of 2026, not from the provider, and self-set rates vary enormously by seniority and stack, so a more junior mix would land well below it. We have shown a like-for-like senior comparison because that is what most teams actually buy. StepTo's figure is what appears on the invoice, with management and overhead inside it.
The Part of Self-Serve That Never Reaches the Invoice
Every hiring model puts the same jobs somewhere: finding people, judging them, contracting them, then keeping them pointed in one direction. Self-serve marketplaces give you the first three and price them attractively, because you supply the labour for all of them. Nothing is hidden about this; it is the entire proposition. The question worth answering before you commit is simply whether your engineering leadership has those hours to spend.
The sourcing cost is the visible half. Reading profiles, running screens, checking references and comparing three plausible candidates for one seat is a week of somebody senior, and you repeat it per role. The less visible half arrives afterwards. Independent contractors are accountable for their own scope and nothing beyond it, so when three of them need to land one release together, the sequencing, the interface decisions and the quality bar are yours to enforce, every sprint, indefinitely.
There is also a structural oddity worth naming. Marketplace economics tie revenue to access, so the fee schedule tends to charge you when things go well: a share of every payment while the arrangement lasts, and a reported 15-25% of first-year salary if you decide someone should join you permanently. Your interests and the platform's genuinely diverge at exactly the moment you have found somebody good.
StepTo takes the other side of each of those. We absorb the sourcing and screening and hand you a shortlist with the veto attached. A delivery lead, not your engineering manager, owns whether the group ships coherently. Our engineers are employees who already share standards before they meet you, and because turnover is low they are still there two years later. Because we sell capacity rather than introductions, nothing in the arrangement charges you for a relationship working out.
For one well-defined role that a capable manager wants to fill this week, self-serve is still the faster and probably the cheaper answer, and we would say so. The calculation flips when the engagement is a group rather than a seat, and when the scarcest resource in your company is the attention of the people who would otherwise be doing the recruiting.
Why StepTo Is the Right Arc.dev Alternative
What changes when the sourcing, screening and coordination move to the supplier's side
Sourcing Is Our Job, Not a Line on Your Calendar
The work of finding, screening and comparing engineers moves off your side of the table entirely. You review a shortlist and interview finalists; you do not read the catalogue.
One Number, Not Three Negotiations
A three-person team is one agreed monthly figure rather than three individually priced seats to stack, renew and renegotiate. Management, HR and equipment are inside that number, not layered on top of it.
Someone Owns the Release
A delivery lead is accountable for whether the group ships coherently, sequencing the work, holding the quality bar, and escalating early. That role simply does not exist when you assemble independent contractors yourself.
A Team That Stays Together
Engineers stay on client engagements an average of 2.5+ years, so the context they built in month three is still on the project in year two rather than expiring with an engagement.
Working Hours Are Specified, Not Inherited
Everyone sits in Belgrade on CET/CEST, the same working day as Germany, France and Scandinavia, with 3-4 hours of afternoon overlap with the US East Coast. Timezone is a decision here, not a by-product of who happened to be free.
Nothing Charges You for Succeeding
If the relationship works well enough that you want someone permanently, that conversation costs nothing. There is no conversion fee and no off-platform penalty, because we are not selling access to people.
The Selection Work We Do Instead of You
Four steps, three of them on our time, with the final decision still yours
We Read the Profiles, Not You
You give us the stack, the seniority band, and what the first quarter looks like. We do the sourcing pass and the domain-specific technical assessment, so nobody on your side spends an afternoon comparing developer profiles.
Deliverable: A shortlist with a technical scorecard, not a catalogue to browse
Senior Engineers Do the Screening
Candidates walk through real production code with our senior engineers, who assess code quality, communication under pressure, and whether they can explain a tradeoff rather than just name one.
Deliverable: Code quality rating and communication assessment
You Keep the Veto
Handing over the sourcing work should not mean handing over the decision. You run a 60-90 minute technical interview and make the final call, and no engineer joins your team without your explicit yes.
Deliverable: Your go/no-go on every individual
Two-Week Trial, Replacement on Us
The first two weeks are a structured trial. If the fit is wrong for any reason, we replace the engineer at our cost, and the selection work of finding the replacement is ours as well.
Deliverable: Free replacement, and we absorb the re-search
What Do Buyers Ask When Comparing StepTo and Arc.dev?
How is StepTo different from Arc.dev?
The clearest difference is who does the work of building the team. Arc.dev is a self-serve marketplace: you browse a large global pool of vetted freelancers, each of whom prices themselves, and you select, contract and manage them. Third-party reviews report a platform fee of around 20% on top of developer payments and a separate conversion fee of 15-25% of first-year salary if you later hire someone permanently. StepTo does the selecting instead of you, assigns a delivery lead who is accountable for the group, and charges one monthly figure with nothing layered on top and no fee to make anyone permanent.
When is a self-serve marketplace the better choice?
When the selection work is genuinely something you want to keep. If you have a strong engineering manager who enjoys reading profiles and running their own screens, if you need one well-scoped role rather than a group, and if you want to see and compare candidates the same afternoon you start looking, a self-serve marketplace is hard to beat on speed. StepTo is the better fit when that recruiting and coordination time is the scarcest thing you have, when the engagement is three to ten people rather than one, and when you want a single accountable owner on the supplier side.
What does StepTo cost compared to Arc.dev?
Third-party review sites report Arc.dev developer rates of roughly $40-100/hr set individually by each developer, plus a platform fee of approximately 20% (figures publicly reported as of 2026, not confirmed with the provider, and possibly out of date). Three developers at a mid-range blended rate plus that fee runs past $40,000/month. StepTo is $15,000-25,000/month for three engineers, agreed before work starts, with selection, delivery management, HR and equipment inside that figure. The honest caveat: the marketplace number would be lower with more junior developers or part-time hours, so compare against the seniority mix you actually need.
What happens if we want to hire one of your engineers permanently?
We talk about it, and it costs nothing. Marketplaces charge a conversion fee because the product they sell is access to people, so a permanent hire ends the revenue, reported at 15-25% of first-year salary in Arc.dev's case. StepTo sells long-term engineering capacity rather than introductions, so there is no fee structure that penalises a relationship going well, and no contractual barrier to moving someone in-house.
How much of our own time does each model actually consume?
Self-serve sourcing spends your time twice: once picking the people, and then continuously coordinating them, because independent contractors answer for their own tickets rather than for the release. With StepTo, the first cost is a requirements call and a round of final interviews, and the ongoing cost is the same as managing any internal team, because a delivery lead handles sequencing, performance and escalation. Candidate profiles arrive 3-5 business days after that first call, interviews run in week two, and the team is contracted and onboarding in week three.
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Hand Us the Recruiting, Keep the Veto
Tell us the stack, the seniority mix and what the first quarter needs to produce. You get a costed team composition and a start date back, and you approve every individual. No commitment to have the conversation.
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