How to Hire & Scope a Mobile Contractor: A Founder’s Pack (Rate Card, 1‑Page SOW, Screening Tasks & 2‑Week Onboarding)
Written by AppWispr editorial
Return to blogHOW TO HIRE & SCOPE A MOBILE CONTRACTOR: A FOUNDER’S PACK (RATE CARD, 1‑PAGE SOW, SCREENING TASKS & 2‑WEEK ONBOARDING)
If you’ve lost time to a contractor who didn’t ship, or you’ve been burned by vague scope and surprise invoices, copy this ready-to-run founder pack. Inside: founder-friendly rate bands you can quote in outreach, a single-page SOW you can sign in 10 minutes, five pass/fail screening tasks tailored to mobile work, and a two‑week onboarding checklist that protects your first sprint.
Section 1
1) Rate Card: Transparent hourly bands you can use in outreach
Start every conversation with a clear rate band so you and the candidate are negotiating the same reality. Use bands (not single rates) and call out whether they include QA, minor devops, or design handoffs. The bands below are informed by market listings and recent contractor breakdowns for mobile development.
Quote these starter bands in U.S. dollars when hiring contractors for single-app mobile work (iOS or Android native or React Native). Adjust +15–30% for specialized domains (payments, ML on-device, security audits) or for extremely tight deadlines.
- Junior (0–2 years, can ship features with supervision): $35–60/hr.
- Mid (2–5 years, independent feature owner, API integration, moderate architecture): $65–105/hr.
- Senior (5+ years, owns architecture, mentors, releases to stores): $110–170/hr.
- Expert / Staff (deep platform expertise, CI/CD, performance, team lead): $180+/hr.
Sources used in this section
Section 2
2) One‑Page SOW You Can Copy-Paste (minimal, enforceable)
A one‑page SOW forces discipline: objectives, deliverables, timeline, acceptance, assumptions, payment. Keep legal terms in your master contractor agreement — the SOW should be the operational definition of ‘what success looks like’ for this engagement.
Below is a practical SOW layout founders can paste into email or project tooling. Use explicit acceptance criteria and a short change-request process to prevent scope creep.
- Title / Parties / Effective Date
- Objective (single sentence): e.g., “Deliver v1.0 iOS feature set: onboarding, auth, home feed, and push notifications.”
- Deliverables (itemize): e.g., Feature A — fully implemented, feature B — UI & tests, Feature C — integration to payments sandbox.
- Timeline & Milestones: date-bound milestones (Milestone 1: alpha build — YYYY‑MM‑DD), with 5 business day review windows.
- Acceptance Criteria: specific tests or QA checks + sign-off owner (product email).
- Assumptions & Exclusions: e.g., 'Backend APIs available by milestone date', 'App store review not included'. A short change request flow: 'Request → written estimate → written acceptance'. 30-day termination notice with final invoice for hours worked.
Sources used in this section
Section 3
3) Five Screening Tasks (with clear pass/fail gates)
Run small, time‑boxed tasks before offering paid work. These tasks test real skills without long take‑homes. Each task below includes the goal, time budget, and an objective pass/fail gate—use them as part of your initial contract offer (paid trial or fixed-fee small sprint).
Keep tasks short (1–6 hours). If you choose paid trials, make the pay rate equal to your quoted band and require deliverables to be in a forked repo or a shared test build so you can verify results quickly.
- Task 1 — Repo Sanity & Readme (30–60 min): Give a small starter repo. Gate: candidate adds a clear README with run steps + fixes one obvious failing test or build error.
- Task 2 — UI Bug Fix (1–3 hours): Provide a screenshot and failing behavior in a small branch. Gate: pull request with clear commit, fixed layout across two screen sizes, and one unit/UI test passing.
- Task 3 — API Integration (2–4 hours): Implement a network client to consume a documented JSON endpoint and map to models. Gate: working demo screen showing data, error handling for offline, and short unit tests for parsing.
- Task 4 — Performance Fix (2–4 hours): Given a demo app with a stutter, identify and fix the top cause (e.g., heavy work on main thread). Gate: visible reduction in frame drops or CPU in profile and a short note explaining the fix.
- Task 5 — Release Checklist & Store Prep (1–2 hours): Ask candidate to produce a release checklist tailored to your app (entitlements, privacy, screenshots, versioning). Gate: checklist that maps to your app and identifies at least three platform-specific risks with mitigation steps.
Sources used in this section
Section 4
4) Two‑Week Onboarding Checklist (protect sprint one)
The first two weeks determine whether a contractor will be productive or a drain on your sprint. Use a checklist that forces early visibility, defines communication cadence, and sets immediate deliverables that unblock the team.
Make the contractor’s first sprint about a single small, valuable deliverable and measurable signals: PR velocity, passing CI, and meeting the acceptance criteria in the SOW.
- Before day 1: access provisioned (repo, CI, design system, analytics, API keys in sandbox) and an onboarding doc with architecture overview.
- Day 1: 1:1 with founder/product + tech lead; confirm milestone for sprint 1 and communicate preferred communication channels and response SLAs.
- Days 2–5: environment setup verified — first green build on branch and small bug fix PR merged. Weekly demo scheduled for end of week 1.
- Days 6–10: Feature work with at least one completed, reviewed, merged PR and passing CI. Conduct security/permissions check and QA on device matrix representative of your users.
- Days 11–14: Retrospective and decision gate: continue, extend with adjustments, or terminate. Evaluate against: velocity (1–2 meaningful PRs), code quality (review feedback addressed), and product acceptance.
Section 5
5) Practical Tips to Reduce Risk (contracts, payments, and signals)
A short master contractor agreement should exist, but keep the operational SOW lean. Pay in milestones or weekly invoices with a 7‑day dispute window. Keep holdbacks small (5–10%) and tied to acceptance criteria so incentives align.
Watch for early warning signals: disappearing PRs, refusal to write tests, vague acceptance criteria demands, and unexpected requests for prepayment beyond the agreed small trial. Use the pass/fail screening tasks and the 14‑day gate to make go/no‑go decisions.
- Prefer short paid trials or a 1–2 week contract before committing to longer retainers.
- Require code in your org’s repo or a fork you control so you can continue work if the contractor leaves.
- Keep IP and confidentiality in the master agreement; operational SOWs should not override it.
- Ask for two references who supervised production releases in the last 12 months and verify one via a short call.
FAQ
Common follow-up questions
Should I pay for screening tasks?
Prefer paid short trials for anything longer than an hour. Paying for a 2–8 hour paid trial aligns incentives, speeds hiring, and avoids legal ambiguity about unpaid labor; for 30–60 minute repo sanity tasks, unpaid is acceptable if clearly communicated.
When should I prefer hourly vs fixed-price for a contractor?
Use hourly for open-ended feature work or when scope is likely to change. Use fixed-price per milestone for well-defined deliverables with concrete acceptance criteria in the SOW. Keep milestones short (1–3 weeks) to reduce risk.
How do I avoid scope creep with a contractor?
Put a short change-request flow in the SOW: any out-of-scope work requires a written request, an estimate, and written acceptance. Use explicit acceptance criteria and short milestone windows so changes are surfaced early.
What are minimum acceptance checks for a mobile deliverable?
Deliverables should include a passing CI build, one or more device-tested releases (or TestFlight/beta), unit or UI tests covering critical paths, and a short acceptance checklist signed by the product owner.
Sources
Research used in this article
Each generated article keeps its own linked source list so the underlying reporting is visible and easy to verify.
Referenced source
Mobile Developer Hourly Rates (Is Offshore Really Cheaper?)
https://www.lowcode.agency/blog/mobile-app-developer-hourly-rates
Proposify
Free Statement of Work Template | Proposify
https://www.proposify.com/proposal-templates-new/statement-work-template
Smartsheet
Free Statement of Work Templates - Smartsheet
https://www.smartsheet.com/free-statement-work-templates
ProjectManager
Free Statement of Work Template (ProjectManager.com)
https://www.projectmanager.com/templates/statement-of-work-template
Wikipedia
Statement of Work - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_of_work
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