Cost comparison
A full team of experts, for less than one salary.
Hiring an engineer in the U.S. costs about $16,188 a month with benefits — and around 6 weeks before they start. A Fastautonomi team of engineers, a reviewer, product, content and operations specialists starts today, from $49 a month. Here’s the math, with sources.
Build your comparison
Pick the roles you’d otherwise hire. We’ll show what they cost — and the plan that gives you the same roles as AI teammates.
Who would you hire?
Set the headcount you’d need for the work on your plate (0–5 of each).
Software engineer
$16,188 / month with benefits
QA engineer
$12,417 / month with benefits
DevOps engineer
$11,801 / month with benefits
Product / project manager
$12,181 / month with benefits
Marketing manager
$19,856 / month with benefits
Content writer
$9,156 / month with benefits
Editor
$9,276 / month with benefits
SEO / marketing specialist
$9,376 / month with benefits
Operations / executive assistant
$9,118 / month with benefits
Hiring 6 people
$75,506 / month
+ $32,850 to recruit · ~6 weeks per role to fill
The same roles as AI teammates
$199 / month · Growth
Includes 15,000 credits of work · ready in two minutes
Difference: $903,684 a year.
It pays for itself if the AI team takes on just 0.3% of this work.
Choose GrowthAI teammates take on well-defined work and you review what they deliver. They aren’t a one-for-one replacement for experienced people — use this to weigh the value of the work you hand them.
Hiring vs your Fastautonomi team
| Topic | Hiring people | Fastautonomi |
|---|---|---|
| Time to start | ~6 weeks per role to fill, then onboarding | About two minutes — pick roles, point at your board |
| Cost to add a role | ~$5,475 to recruit, plus salary | Included in your plan, up to its headcount per role |
| Monthly cost | $16,188 for one engineer, with benefits | From $49 for the team; credits cover the work |
| A typical coding task | $93 / hour of an engineer’s time | ≈ $1.59 of credits · ~3 minutes |
| Scaling up for a launch | Hire, or ask the team for overtime | Raise headcount per role (up to 5) — they work in parallel |
| Scaling back down | Notice periods and severance | Lower headcount or change plan any time |
| Expertise on day one | Depends on who you find | Each role ships with built-in skills: WCAG, OWASP, ISTQB, E-E-A-T… |
| Review and quality | Code review takes your senior people’s time | An independent AI Reviewer runs your tests on every pull request |
One task, two ways
An engineer fixes a bug
$186
if it takes two hours at $93 / hour with benefits
Then a colleague reviews it, and it waits in line behind everything else they own.
Your AI Software Engineer fixes it
≈ $1.59
≈ 120 credits on the Growth plan · typically a few minutes
It arrives as a pull request the Reviewer has already tested. You read it and merge.
An example, not a promise: tasks vary, and some take the AI team several attempts or need a person. Two hours is an assumption — use your own.
What we count
- Salaries: U.S. median annual pay for each occupation (BLS, May 2025)
- Benefits and payroll costs: wages are 70% of employer compensation costs (BLS ECEC), so we divide salary by 0.70
- Recruiting: SHRM’s 2025 average cost per non-executive hire ($5,475) and its ~6-week median time to fill
- Fastautonomi: the list price of the smallest plan that can field the same roles
What we leave out
- Office space, equipment, software seats, management time and turnover — they’d make hiring look more expensive
- Top-up credits if your team does more work than the plan includes ($10 per 1,000 credits)
- Your time reviewing and merging what the AI team delivers — you stay in charge of the result
- Salaries outside the U.S., which can be much lower or higher
| Role | BLS occupation | Median / year | With benefits / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software engineer | Software developers | $135,980 | $16,188 |
| QA engineer | Software quality assurance analysts and testers | $104,300 | $12,417 |
| DevOps engineer | Network and computer systems administrators | $99,130 | $11,801 |
| Product / project manager | Project management specialists | $102,320 | $12,181 |
| Marketing manager | Marketing managers | $166,790 | $19,856 |
| Content writer | Writers and authors | $76,910 | $9,156 |
| Editor | Editors | $77,920 | $9,276 |
| SEO / marketing specialist | Market research analysts | $78,760 | $9,376 |
| Operations / executive assistant | Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants | $76,590 | $9,118 |
Fair questions
Is this saying an AI team replaces my people?
No. AI teammates are excellent at well-defined work — a bug, a feature with clear acceptance criteria, an article from a brief, a weekly report — and every result comes to you to review. Experienced people still set direction and make the calls. The comparison shows what the same roles cost to staff, so you can judge what it’s worth to hand part of that work to an AI team.
Why compare against full-time hires, not freelancers?
Because that’s the decision most growing businesses face: hire the next person, or not. Freelancers and agencies usually cost more per hour than an employee and still take time to brief. The calculator uses public, conservative numbers — U.S. medians, not Silicon Valley salaries.
What does “pays for itself” mean?
It’s the plan’s price as a share of what the same people would cost. If the AI team takes on that share of the work — often well under 1% — the plan has paid for itself. Everything beyond that is capacity you didn’t have to hire.
What happens if we do a lot of work in a month?
Each plan includes credits; a typical coding task uses about 120. If you need more, add a top-up ($10 per 1,000 credits) or move up a plan. You can set a monthly budget and work stops before it’s crossed — no surprise bills.
Put the team to work on one real task — free.
500 credits, no card. See the result before you spend anything.