The Custom Development Market in Kazakhstan 2025: What Makes Up the Price and Where is the "Golden Mean"?

Introduction: Why is there such a huge price range?

Any business deciding to order the development of a digital product in Kazakhstan in 2025 faces a paradox. You send the same technical specification to five companies and receive estimates that differ by multiples: from 5 million to 50 million tenge for a conditional mobile application.

Why does this happen? Are some just greedy, while others are altruists? In reality, the IT services market in Kazakhstan has become clearly segmented. Understanding this segmentation is key to avoid overpaying for "hot air," but also not to lose money by ordering a "pig in a poke."

In this study, we analyzed the real economics of web studios and IT companies, examined specialist salaries, and derived a formula for a fair price.

1. Three Price Segments of the Development Market

The basis of any project's cost is the hourly rate. In 2025, the Kazakhstan market is divided into three distinct categories.

Segment 1: "Dumping and Freelance" (up to 15,000 ₸ / hour)

• Who they are: Freelancers, newcomers, fly-by-night studios without an office or established processes.
• Reality: They often offer to make "an analogue of Kaspi" for 2 million tenge. The economics of such contractors are based on the absence of taxes (working under the table) and using the cheapest junior developers.
• Risks: The main problem is the lack of architecture. Code is written "on the fly." As soon as you need to scale the project or add a new feature, it turns out that it's easier to scrap everything and rewrite it from scratch.
• Verdict: Only suitable for simple landing pages or prototypes (MVP) that you wouldn't mind throwing away.

Segment 2: "Professional Middle-Market" (20,000 – 40,000 ₸ / hour)

• Who they are: Systematic companies with established processes (DevOps, QA, Project Management).
• Reality: This is the healthiest part of the market. It employs specialists of Middle+ and Senior level. Companies in this segment are typically residents of Astana Hub, which allows them not to include VAT and CIT in service costs, keeping the rate at a comfortable level of around $50 (25,000 ₸)..
• Verdict: The ideal balance for business. You pay for expertise and guarantees, but don't overpay for the brand. This category includes tech studios focused on product development, such as Sailet..

Segment 3: "Premium and Global" (from 40,000 ₸ / hour and above)

• Who they are: Large integrators, international companies, or highly specialized boutiques (e.g., working only with complex enterprise systems on rare tech stacks).
• Reality: The high rate is often driven by huge overheads (back-office, expensive marketing) or a focus on the US/European market.
• Verdict: Justified for banks and state corporations, where having hundreds of certificates and bureaucratic paperwork is more important than development speed.

2. Price Math: Why 25,000 tenge is fair?

Let's break down the economics of one hour of work by a qualified programmer in Kazakhstan. Why is a rate of 25,000 tenge (about $50) considered the market benchmark for quality?

1. Specialist salary. A good Senior developer in Kazakhstan in 2025 earns from 1.5 to 2.5 million tenge net. With taxes and deductions, the cost of his hour to the company is about 10,000 - 12,000 tenge.
2. Infrastructure and management. A programmer doesn't work in a vacuum. They need:
   — A Project Manager (to translate business language into code).
   — A QA Engineer (to find bugs before release, not after).
   — A DevOps engineer (so servers don't crash).
   — Equipment, office, software licenses.
   This adds another approximately 8,000 tenge to the cost.
3. Margin and development. The remaining portion (~5,000 tenge) is the company's profit, which goes towards developing its own products and training employees.

Conclusion: Conclusion: If you're offered development of a complex system at a rate of 10,000 tenge per hour, it mathematically means that trainees will be working on the project. There are no miracles.

3. The "Estimation by Hours" Trap: Why a more expensive hour can be more profitable?

The biggest mistake a client can make is comparing estimates only by the hourly cost. It's more important to look at TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) — the final cost of owning the product.

This is where the team's technological maturity comes into play. Let's compare two approaches:

Approach A: "Writing from scratch" (Classical outsourcing)

The team charges 20,000 ₸/hour but writes every module (authorization, admin panel, notifications) from a blank slate. Testing, adjustments, etc., are significantly prolonged.

• Time for backend development: 1000+ hours.
• Total: 20,000,000+ ₸.
• Result: Takes a long time, potential for "childhood diseases" in the code.

Approach B: "Architectural Approach" (Sailet's method)

The team works at a rate of 25,000 ₸/hour but uses its own methodology, existing components, and expertise.

• Time for backend development: 600 hours.
• Total: 15,000,000 ₸.
• Result: Budget is 1.5 times lower, launch is faster, and the system is more reliable because the expertise and methodology have already been tested on dozens of projects.

Case from practice: we developed a fairly complex system "from scratch" in 3.5 months, while competitors gave estimates starting from 6 months.

4. Market Player Overview: Who's who?

To understand the landscape, it's useful to look at the specialization of key players. The market has moved away from the "we do everything for everyone" model.

• Niche specialists: An excellent choice if you have a specific task on a particular technology or need to support legacy code. They are the market's "surgeons" — expensive, high-quality, narrowly focused.
• Outstaffing: A model for those who already have their own strong CTO and just need "extra hands." You rent developers. This is profitable in the long run but risky if you lack the competencies to manage them.
• Product development: The optimal choice for a business that needs a turnkey result. The focus here is not on selling hours but on business value. Having accumulated expertise, methodology, and tools allows saving up to 40% of the development budget.

5. Hidden Costs of Cheap Development

When choosing a contractor with a low rate, businesses often overlook costs that emerge after signing the contract:

1. Tax on "two platforms": A stingy person pays twice, sometimes three times. Every third request we receive mentions they've already been scammed once before. And often, it's impossible to do anything with what the previous developers handed over.
2. Lack of documentation: Cheap studios rarely maintain quality documentation. If a developer leaves, a new contractor will likely propose rewriting the project from scratch, as figuring out someone else's "spaghetti code" is impossible.
3. Data security: In modern realities, security requirements are critical for clients. Setting up secure perimeters, encryption, and proper handling of databases require time from qualified DevOps engineers, which cheap web studios simply don't have on staff.

Conclusion: How to choose a partner and not make a mistake?

The Kazakhstan market has reached maturity in 2025. Quality development can't be cheap, but it shouldn't be astronomically expensive either.

A Reasonable Client's Checklist:

1. Look at the rate: The range of 25,000 – 30,000 tenge is an indicator of a healthy company that pays good salaries to employees but doesn't inflate prices due to a bloated staff.
2. Demand architecture: Ask how the company plans to reduce timelines. If the answer is "we'll work faster" — that's a bluff.
3. Check case studies: Look for projects with similar business logic. Experience working with market leaders (BI Group, WWF, Lukoil) indicates the company can pass strict security checks and deliver projects on time.

Ultimately, the winner is the one who offers not the lowest price at the moment, but the lowest total cost of ownership for a working product a year later.