Hiring freelancers is attractive: lower rate, quick start, less process. For a landing page, that can be fine. For a product that holds customer data, payments, or AI workflows, the risk profile changes.
Red flags
- No automated tests and no CI pipeline.
- Code lives only on their laptop or a personal account.
- No written ownership of source code and credentials.
- Bus factor of one: if they disappear, nobody can continue.
- “It works on my machine” with no staging environment.
Non-negotiables in the contract
- Repository under your organization from day one.
- Documented handover of domains, cloud, and API keys.
- Definition of done that includes tests for critical flows.
- Weekly demos with working software, not just status emails.
Cheap development is expensive when you cannot maintain what you bought.
ConaiSoft builds with architecture standards, automated testing, documentation, and full repository handover — so your team is never trapped.