HTEC Group Alternative
One discipline done properly: software product engineering from a single Belgrade office, published rates, and no program governance between you and the code.
Reviewed by Igor Gazivoda, Co-founder & CEO · Updated
The HTEC Group Alternative When You Need a Team, Not a Program
StepTo is a direct alternative to HTEC Group for companies whose roadmap is software and only software. We have run dedicated teams from Belgrade (CET) since 2014, with a 15-20 person engineering organization and no other divisions. Three engineers cost a fixed $15K-25K/month, start inside 2-3 weeks, and stay for the long term.
HTEC Group is a serious engineering firm and the comparison is not a criticism. Founded in Belgrade in 2008, it is now a global operation reportedly employing 2,000+ people across 29 locations in 12 countries, headquartered in San Francisco, and it covers software, hardware and product design across Advanced Technologies, Financial Services, MedTech, Automotive, Telco and Enterprise Software. Very few companies anywhere can staff a regulated hardware-and-software program across several markets. HTEC can.
The question is whether that is what you are buying. A firm built to run programs of that kind carries the governance, the vertical practices and the cost base needed to run them. If your next twelve months are a web application, a mobile app, some backend consolidation and an AI feature, most of that capability is capacity you are adjacent to rather than using, and the engagement shape, mobilisation, account management, scoped proposals, is heavier than the work requires.
StepTo is the narrow answer. One discipline, one office, published rates, and the people who write the code in the same conversation as you. For a wider view of the market both companies hire from, see our Serbia Software Development Industry Report 2026.
Below: what each model is actually built to sell, what it costs, and the cases where the larger firm is plainly the right call.
HTEC Group vs StepTo: Program or Team
What each company is built to sell, including the row where the larger firm wins
| Factor | HTEC Group | StepTo |
|---|---|---|
| Disciplines under one roof | Software, hardware and product design, across MedTech, Automotive, Telco and more | Software product engineering only: web, mobile, backend and AI |
| What you are buying | A program: multiple workstreams staffed and governed across markets | A team: one group of engineers on one product |
| Who you talk to about the code | Enterprise engagement model, with account and delivery leadership in between | The co-founder and the senior engineers writing it |
| Organisational footprint | Reportedly 2,000+ employees across 29 locations in 12 countries, HQ in San Francisco | 15-20 engineers in one Belgrade office, where the company has always been |
| How pricing works | Scoped per program; standard rates are not published | Published bands: $25-85/hr by seniority, three engineers from $15K-25K/month |
| Smallest sensible engagement | Structured for larger, multi-year programs | Three to ten engineers, which is the size the whole business is built around |
HTEC Group figures (employee count, locations, headquarters) are drawn from publicly available company information as of 2026, not confirmed directly with HTEC. Verify directly with the provider before deciding.
Why Companies Look for HTEC Group Alternatives
Rarely because the engineering was wrong. Usually because the engagement was shaped for a program and the buyer needed a team.
You Pay for Capability You May Never Use
HTEC covers software, hardware and product design across Advanced Technologies, Financial Services, MedTech, Automotive, Telco and Enterprise Software. Assembling and governing that range is expensive, and the cost structure it produces is sized for buyers who need several of those disciplines at once. A pure software product roadmap uses one slice of it.
Belgrade Is a Hub, Not the Company
HTEC was founded in Belgrade in 2008 and Belgrade remains a major engineering centre, but global headquarters moved to San Francisco as the firm scaled and there are reportedly 29 locations in 12 countries. Serbian engineering is now one part of a distributed organisation rather than the whole of it.
Program Governance Is Not Optional
Firms running multi-market programs need account managers, delivery leads and practice heads, and those roles genuinely earn their place at that scale. On a small engagement the same machinery is overhead: status reporting, internal escalation paths, and more people between you and whoever changed the code.
A Small Engagement Is an Awkward Fit
HTEC does not publish standard rates, and a firm reportedly operating at $400M+ in annual revenue across 12 countries is naturally structured around larger, longer commitments. A three-person team on a mid-sized product is not the shape the commercial model is designed to serve.
Your Roadmap Competes With Regulated Programs
Verticals like MedTech and Automotive carry certification cycles and safety-critical deadlines that cannot slip. Sharing an engineering organisation with that kind of work is fine when your program is comparable in size, and less comfortable when it is not.
Multi-Discipline Range Is Expensive to Maintain, and You Pay for It Either Way
Consider what a firm has to hold in place to offer hardware engineering, product design and software across MedTech, Automotive, Telco and financial services at once. Practice leadership per vertical. Regulatory and certification knowledge that has to stay current. Lab and prototyping capability. Sales and delivery structures that can speak credibly to a car manufacturer and a bank in the same quarter. None of that is waste, and clients who need it could not get their programs built without it.
It does, however, set the floor. That range has to be funded by the engagements the firm takes, which is why enterprise suppliers are structured around larger and longer commitments, and why a proposal arrives after a scoping cycle rather than off a price list. Buying three engineers for a web product from an organisation built to deliver certified embedded systems across twelve countries means paying into an apparatus your roadmap will never call on.
The same logic explains the layers. Account managers, delivery leads and practice heads exist because coordinating multi-workstream programs across markets genuinely requires them. On a small engagement the machinery keeps running anyway: status reporting, internal escalation, a translation step between what you asked for and the engineer who will do it. Necessary at one scale, friction at another.
StepTo carries none of that range and therefore none of that overhead. We build software products, so a rate card can sit on a public page, a team can be composed in days rather than mobilised over a quarter, and the person answering your architecture question is the one who will implement the answer. With turnover this low the same named engineers are still on your product two years later, which at 15-20 people you can verify rather than take on trust.
So the honest test is not which company is better. It is whether your next two years need disciplines beyond software. If they do, no amount of focus substitutes for range, and you should talk to a firm that has it. If they do not, you are choosing between paying for range and paying for engineers.
Why StepTo Is the Right HTEC Group Alternative
What a single-discipline supplier can offer that a multi-discipline one structurally cannot
One Discipline, Done Properly
We build software products, web, mobile, backend and AI, and nothing else. No hardware division, no design studio, no regulated-industry practice. A narrower company means the engineers on your product spend their careers on the problem you are paying them to solve.
Published Rates Instead of a Scoping Exercise
Rates are $25-85/hr by seniority and three engineers start at $15K-25K/month. You can size a budget from this page rather than waiting on a proposal cycle, because the engagements we quote are the only kind we do.
Weeks, Not a Procurement Cycle
A pre-vetted Belgrade pool means candidate profiles within days and a contracted, productive team inside three weeks. There is no program mobilisation phase because there is no program, only the team.
Engineers Who Stay for the Long Term
Engineers stay on client engagements an average of 2.5+ years. At 15-20 people that is a claim you can check by name in a year, not an average smoothed across thousands of employees in a dozen countries.
The Whole Company Is in One Timezone
Every engineer works CET/CEST from Belgrade, sharing a full working day with the EU and UK and 3-4 afternoon hours with the US East Coast. Nothing is handed between hubs overnight because there is only one.
No Layer Between You and the Code
You talk to the co-founder and to the senior engineers on your project. There is no account manager translating your request into a ticket, because at this size the translation layer would have nothing to do.
How Do Teams Choose Between StepTo and HTEC Group?
How is StepTo different from HTEC Group?
The difference is range, not just size. HTEC Group is a global engineering firm covering software, hardware and product design across Advanced Technologies, Financial Services, MedTech, Automotive, Telco and Enterprise Software, reportedly 2,000+ employees across 29 locations in 12 countries with headquarters in San Francisco. StepTo does one discipline: software product engineering, from a single Belgrade office, with 15-20 engineers. If your roadmap involves firmware, an embedded device or a regulated hardware-software system, the range genuinely matters. If it is a web, mobile or AI product, you are buying a fraction of what you are being sold.
When should we choose HTEC Group instead?
When the work is a program rather than a team. Anything spanning hardware and software together, anything needing deep regulated-vertical expertise such as MedTech or Automotive, anything that has to be staffed simultaneously across several markets, or anything where your own procurement expects a supplier of that scale, all point clearly to a firm like HTEC. We would rather say that here than have the conversation end awkwardly at the scoping call.
What does StepTo cost compared to HTEC Group?
HTEC does not publish standard rates, which is normal for enterprise engineering firms because programs are scoped and priced individually. StepTo publishes: $25-85/hr by seniority, and $15K-25K/month for a three-engineer team, with delivery management, HR and equipment inside the figure. That is possible only because our engagements are all roughly the same shape. A firm serving twelve countries across six industries cannot put a number on a page, because the answer genuinely depends on the program.
Both companies were founded in Belgrade. Does that make them similar?
It made them similar in 2008. HTEC started in Belgrade and grew into a global operation with its headquarters in San Francisco and engineering distributed across many locations, which is a substantial achievement and changes what the company is. StepTo has stayed in one Belgrade office by choice. So the shared origin tells you both draw on the same regional engineering talent; it does not tell you the engagement feels remotely alike.
What do you lose by choosing a 15-20 person supplier?
Real things, and it is worth being explicit. You lose surge capacity: we cannot put forty engineers on a problem next quarter. You lose adjacent disciplines, hardware, industrial design, regulatory affairs. You lose the procurement comfort of a supplier with offices in your market. What you gain is that a three to ten person engagement is a significant share of what our company does rather than a rounding error, so it gets senior attention by default rather than by escalation.
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