The True Cost of a 5-Person Development Team in 2026

Salary is just the beginning. When you add recruiting, onboarding, benefits, tools, and management overhead, the real cost is 2-3x what you’d expect.

The Salary Illusion

Five mid-senior developers at €70,000-90,000 each. That’s €350,000-450,000 per year in salaries alone. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Hidden Costs

Recruiting: €5,000-15,000 per hire in agency fees or internal recruiter time. For 5 hires: €25,000-75,000.

Onboarding: 2-4 weeks of reduced productivity per hire. That’s 10-20 person-weeks of suboptimal output.

Benefits: Health insurance, pension, equipment, office space. Add 20-30% on top of base salary.

Tools & Infrastructure: IDE licenses, cloud services, CI/CD, project management. €500-1,000 per developer per month.

Management Overhead: Someone needs to coordinate, run standups, do 1:1s, handle conflicts. That’s a significant time investment.

The Real Number

When you add it all up, a 5-person development team costs €25,000-40,000 per month, or €300,000-480,000 per year. And that’s assuming no turnover.

The Alternative

A Stacked Team delivers comparable output for €10,000-16,000 per month. No recruiting costs. No onboarding period. No benefits overhead. Scale up or down instantly.