Toptal Alternative
StepTo is a 15-20 engineer team in Belgrade with a public rate card. Toptal is a screened network of freelancers who set their own rates. Here is when each one is the better buy, sourced to Toptal's own pages.
Reviewed by Igor Gazivoda, Founder & CEO of StepTo · Published · Updated
Which Toptal Alternative Gives You a Real Team?
StepTo is a direct alternative to Toptal for companies that want a dedicated team instead of a marketplace of individual freelancers. StepTo is a Belgrade-based software company that has built dedicated development teams in Serbia (CET) since 2014, growing to a 15-20 person engineering organization, with 3-4 hours of overlap with the US East Coast working day. A 3-developer dedicated team costs a fixed monthly fee from $13.5K/month, onboards in 2-4 weeks, and stays together for the life of the engagement.
Toptal, by contrast, describes itself as the world's largest fully remote company and an exclusive network of freelance developers, designers and other experts, with 35,000+ clients served. It claims to screen the top 3% of applicants and positions itself as a premium source of on-demand technical talent. For short-term, high-skill engagements, it has genuine merit.
But Toptal was built for the gig economy, not for companies that need a stable engineering organization. If your product requires long-term contributors who accumulate institutional knowledge, collaborate daily with your in-house engineers, and stay with you through multiple product cycles, Toptal's freelance marketplace model works against you, not for you. StepTo's dedicated-team model is built for exactly that case: a team engaged exclusively with your company, at a published monthly price, that builds product knowledge over time instead of losing it every time an engagement ends.
This page compares Toptal vs StepTo across the dimensions that actually matter for growing companies: cost, continuity, time to hire, team structure, and timezone alignment.
How Do Toptal and StepTo Compare Side by Side?
How the two models stack up across the metrics that drive real engineering outcomes
| Factor | Toptal | StepTo Dedicated Team |
|---|---|---|
| Vetting Rigor | Accepts fewer than 3% of 200,000+ yearly applicants, after screening that takes 3-8 weeks | Fewer than 8% of applicants join, after an assessment, a code review with senior engineers and your own interview |
| Time to Hire | Toptal advertises hiring in under 48 hours, average time to match under 24 hours | 2-4 weeks from first call to a fully onboarded team |
| Price You Can See in Advance | No client rate card: each freelancer sets their own rate, plus a $79 monthly subscription | Published: $25-85/hr by seniority, and from $13.5K/month for three engineers |
| Team Continuity | Freelancers rotate, no guaranteed long-term commitment | Little turnover: StepTo's average developer tenure is 2.5+ years |
| Timezone | Talent in over 100 countries, mostly the Americas and Europe, so you can hire on your own hours | CET only: a full day with the UK and EU, 3-4 hours with the US East Coast |
| Trial | Up to two weeks; not billed if you are not completely satisfied | Two weeks, paid; a free replacement within the first 30 days if someone is the wrong fit |
| Management Model | You manage each freelancer individually | StepTo team embedded in your workflows, we handle HR/admin |
Toptal's hiring speed ("hire in under 48 hours", "average time to match is under 24 hours"), screening claims (fewer than 3% accepted, 3-8 weeks of screening), trial terms and $79 subscription are quoted from toptal.com, toptal.com/top-3-percent and toptal.com/faq, read on 25 September 2026. Toptal publishes no client rate card. Verify directly with the provider before deciding.
Why Do Companies Look for Toptal Alternatives?
Toptal solves a specific problem well. But growing product companies increasingly find the freelance marketplace model creates new problems as they scale. Here's what StepTo does differently for teams evaluating Toptal.
A Budget You Only See Candidate by Candidate
Toptal does not publish client rates. Talent set their own hourly rate, and clients pay a $79 monthly subscription when they proceed with matching. For one engineer that is fine; for a three-person team it means the monthly total is unknown until every seat is filled.
Source: ToptalFreelance Instability
Toptal is a marketplace of independent contractors. Developers are not committed to your project long-term. Once their engagement ends, institutional knowledge walks out the door. StepTo hires engineers as employees, so that knowledge stays on your product.
Fast to One Contractor, Slower to a Team
Toptal is genuinely fast at the thing it is built for: its own site advertises hiring in under 48 hours and an average time to match under 24 hours. What that speed buys you is one matched contractor. Every additional engineer is another separate match with no shared context, so assembling a group that already works together is a repeated exercise rather than a single one.
Timezone Fragmentation
A team assembled one match at a time from a global network can span many time zones. Collaboration then becomes a scheduling problem, not an engineering problem.
No Team Culture or Cohesion
A group of vetted individual freelancers is not a team. They do not share processes, communication norms, or mutual accountability. This compounds as projects grow in complexity. StepTo's engineers already work as one team.
Costs That Add Up Seat by Seat
Toptal bills each engagement hourly, part-time or full-time at a weekly price. A team of several contractors is therefore several separate rates and invoices. A StepTo team is one monthly figure, agreed before anyone starts.
Source: ToptalWhat Does a Full-Time Team Cost Either Way?
What each side publishes for a full-time, three-person team
Toptal, three engineers
Each Toptal freelancer sets their own rate, and clients pay a $79 monthly subscription when they proceed with matching. Toptal publishes no client rate card, so the total depends on who you hire and for how many hours.
Monthly
Quoted per candidate
Annual
Not published
StepTo, three salaried engineers
A salaried team rather than booked contractors, so the figure covers HR, career development and equipment, and does not reset when someone finishes an engagement elsewhere.
Monthly
From $13.5K/month
Annual
From $162K/year
StepTo, one engineer
Staff augmentation, the closest like-for-like unit to a single Toptal hire. Hourly rates run $25-85 by seniority, all on the public rate card.
Monthly
From $4,500/month
Annual
From $54,000/year
Why there is no Toptal total here: Toptal publishes no client rate card, and an earlier version of this page used a rate band that Toptal never published. The honest comparison is the quotes Toptal gives you for the people you would hire, against the StepTo figures above, which are on our rate card. Toptal's subscription and trial terms are on its FAQ.
What Separates a Dedicated Team From a Freelance Marketplace?
The fundamental issue with freelance marketplaces, including Toptal, which is arguably the most sophisticated of them, is that they optimize for individual talent availability, not for team performance over time. These are very different things.
When you hire through Toptal, you are hiring independent contractors. Their commitment is to their own practice as much as to your product. When an engagement ends, or when a better opportunity arises, they leave. The knowledge they accumulated about your architecture, your edge cases, your business rules: it leaves with them.
A dedicated team operates differently. The developers are employees of StepTo, with competitive Serbian salaries, career development programs, and a culture oriented around long-term client relationships. They are not juggling five other clients. They are not looking for their next contract. They are embedded in your standup, your sprint reviews, your Slack channels.
After six months, a dedicated team member knows your codebase better than most in-house engineers at a startup. After a year, they are a strategic asset. After two years, they are irreplaceable, and our low attrition means they actually stay that long.
This is the structural advantage that no freelance marketplace, however rigorous its vetting, can replicate. Talent quality is necessary but not sufficient. Team continuity, shared context, and long-term commitment are what separate good engineering organizations from great ones.
Why Is StepTo the Right Toptal Alternative?
Toptal sells access to vetted freelancers. A dedicated team model sells continuity, and here is what that difference buys
Institutional Knowledge Builds Over Time
A dedicated team learns your codebase, your users and your business logic, and keeps that knowledge because the same people stay. A new contractor, however strong, starts that learning from zero.
Fixed Monthly Costs, No Surprises
One predictable invoice per month. No hourly overruns, no rate renegotiations, no billing disputes. Budget with confidence across quarters and annual planning cycles.
2-3 Week Ramp-Up
StepTo's pre-vetted pool of Serbian developers means we can present qualified candidates within days, not months. Full team onboarded and productive within 4 weeks.
Engineers Who Stay for the Long Term
StepTo developers stay with clients an average of 2.5+ years, as salaried employees on one engagement rather than contractors between bookings. Continuity is the product.
EU Timezone Alignment (CET)
Serbian developers work CET/CEST, same timezone as Germany, France, and Scandinavia. 3-4 hour daily overlap with US East Coast. Real-time collaboration, not async delays.
AI in Every Engagement
StepTo describes itself as an AI-first software house: every engagement includes an AI strategy layer, so model choice, evaluation and cost are designed in by the same team that builds the product.
How Do We Hire Employees Instead of Booking Freelancers?
Four steps aimed at people who want to stay on one product for years
Screening People Who Want a Job
Every candidate works through a domain-specific assessment on your stack, and they are applying for permanent employment with us rather than listing themselves for engagements. That changes who shows up: engineers looking for one product to own, not a pipeline of contracts.
Deliverable: Technical scorecard per candidate
Code Review With Our Senior Engineers
Candidates walk through real production code with the people who will be their colleagues, assessing code quality, communication under pressure and whether they can defend a tradeoff and abandon it when the counter-argument is better.
Deliverable: Code quality rating and communication assessment
You Interview, Once, Not Per Engagement
A 60-90 minute technical interview with each finalist and the decision is yours. Because these engineers stay on your product rather than rotating between clients, this is a hiring conversation you have once rather than repeating every time availability changes.
Deliverable: Your go/no-go on every individual
Two Weeks, Then Years
The first two weeks run as a structured trial, and within the first 30 days we replace the engineer at our cost if the fit is wrong. After that the intent is duration: our average tenure on a client engagement is 2.5+ years, and engineers rarely rotate off mid-engagement.
Deliverable: Free replacement, then long-term continuity
What Do Companies Ask When Comparing StepTo and Toptal?
Is StepTo a legitimate Toptal alternative for enterprise companies?
Yes. StepTo works with companies from startups to enterprises. The key difference from Toptal is the engagement model: rather than a marketplace of independent contractors, StepTo builds you a dedicated, long-term team that integrates with your organization. Enterprise clients particularly benefit from the institutional knowledge that accumulates in a dedicated team over time, something that freelance marketplaces cannot replicate. Our compliance frameworks, NDA handling, and IP assignment processes are designed to meet enterprise legal and security requirements.
How does StepTo's vetting compare to Toptal's top 3% claim?
Toptal says that of the more than 200,000 people who apply to join its network each year, it accepts fewer than 3%, and that its screening takes 3-8 weeks. By that measure Toptal is the more selective of the two: fewer than 8% of StepTo applicants join. StepTo screens for something different, long-term team fit rather than individual excellence alone. Candidates take a technical assessment on your stack, walk through real production code with senior engineers, and are interviewed by you before anyone joins, and communication and collaboration count as much as code. Our consistently low turnover reflects that approach.
What is the real cost difference between Toptal and StepTo?
Toptal does not publish client rates. Its FAQ describes a $79 monthly subscription for clients who proceed with matching, and its talent pages say freelancers choose their own rate, so the cost of a three-person team is only known once all three are matched. StepTo publishes its numbers: $25-85/hr by seniority, from $13,500/month for a three-engineer team including management, HR and equipment, and from $4,500/month for a single engineer. Compare the StepTo figure with the quotes you actually receive for the seniority mix you need.
How quickly can I get started, and is StepTo faster than Toptal?
No, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. Toptal advertises hiring in under 48 hours and an average time to match of under 24 hours, and on speed to a first contracted engineer StepTo does not beat that. The 3-8 week screening figure Toptal publishes describes how long an applicant waits to be admitted to its network, not how long a client waits for candidates. StepTo measures something different: time to a fully onboarded team. We present qualified candidate profiles within 3-5 business days of your requirements call, you interview in week two, and the team is under contract and onboarding in week three, so 2-4 weeks from first conversation to a group that is contracted, briefed, and working on your codebase together. If you need one engineer on a task this week, Toptal is the faster route. If you need three engineers who will still be on your product in two years, the extra fortnight is what buys that.
When is Toptal the better choice than StepTo?
Toptal is the better choice in the situations this page has already described, and two more: it starts engagements with a trial of up to two weeks that is not billed if you are not completely satisfied, and its talent sits mostly in the Americas and Europe, so a US team can hire on its own hours rather than across a six-hour gap. First, speed: Toptal advertises hiring in under 48 hours and matching in under 24, so for work that has to start immediately it wins outright. Second, genuinely short or one-off engagements, where a specialist is needed for a few weeks and the institutional knowledge a dedicated team accumulates would never pay for itself. Third, narrow specialisms: Toptal draws on a global pool and screens for the top 3% of applicants, so for a rare skill that a 15-20 person company in Belgrade may simply not have on staff, a global marketplace is more likely to find it than we are. StepTo is the better fit when the work is continuous rather than task-shaped, when you want the same engineers for years rather than the best available engineer this week, and when you want one fixed monthly invoice instead of hourly billing you have to reconcile.
What happens if I need to scale the team up or down?
Scaling a dedicated team is straightforward. Adding developers takes 2-4 weeks as we source from our existing vetted pool. Reducing team size requires a 30-day notice period. This flexibility is often cited as a key reason companies prefer dedicated teams over in-house hiring (which involves months-long processes and legal complexity). Toptal offers similar flexibility in theory, but each addition means onboarding a new independent contractor who has no context on your product. With StepTo, team additions are introduced to an existing group that already understands your codebase, processes, and culture, dramatically shortening the ramp-up time for each new addition.
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