Question 1

What Does Your Game Development Budget Buy From an Outsourcing Studio?

Accepted Answer

A game development budget buys a different shape of engagement at every band, not just more of the same work. A few hundred dollars buys a single paid test; tens of thousands buys a prototype or one finished asset package; low hundreds of thousands buys a live, monetized mobile title with real liveops; upward of that buys a complex free-to-play game with its own economy. As of 17 October 2026, 195 of the 533 studios listed here are teams of 1 to 50 people, the scale most of these budgets actually fit. Match the band to the studio size and contract shape before you ask anyone for a quote.

Studios listed here that take this work include Revolution Software, Sickhead Games, Digital Arrow and Fox3D Consulting.

Question 2

What does a $500-2,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

Accepted Answer

At this budget you are buying a single paid test, not a deliverable game: one asset, one short milestone, or a few days of a developer's time, priced to check quality, communication and turnaround before a larger commitment. Our cost guide prices this test at $500-2,000 regardless of discipline. It fits a solo developer or a two-to-three person team, engaged as a single fixed-price deliverable rather than a retainer. Ask for the exact scope in writing, the number of revision rounds included, and whether the person doing the test would be the one on the real job.

Question 3

What does a $20,000-60,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

Accepted Answer

This band buys a hyper-casual or prototype build: one core loop, minimal art, and no economy or liveops systems, per the mobile outsourcing guide's own project bands. It fits a solo developer or a small two-to-five person indie team, engaged as a single fixed-price build rather than an ongoing retainer. Ask the studio for a named deliverable list rather than a lump sum, whether it has shipped a hyper-casual title before, and what happens to the price if the loop needs a redesign after early playtesting.

Question 4

What does a $40,000-150,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

Accepted Answer

This band buys a casual title with light monetization: polished art, ads or simple in-app purchases, and basic analytics, per the mobile outsourcing guide's project bands, and it lines up with the small-casual-game total the cost guide prices the same way. It fits a small studio of roughly five to fifteen people, engaged on fixed-price milestones across build phases rather than one lump sum. Ask for a milestone breakdown by discipline, whether ad-network and analytics integration is included, and who owns bug fixes after launch.

Question 5

What does a $150,000-500,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

Accepted Answer

This band buys a mid-complexity free-to-play title with real liveops systems: an economy, remote configuration, A/B testing and an event system, per the mobile outsourcing guide's project bands. It fits a funded small-to-midsize studio, and the engagement shape shifts from a single build toward capacity rental: our cost guide prices two mid-level engineers embedded for three months at $57,600-115,200 before overhead, the order of magnitude a live build in this band draws on. Ask whether build and liveops staffing are priced separately, and whether the named team carries over after launch.

Question 6

What does a $500,000+ budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

Accepted Answer

Above $500,000 you are buying a complex free-to-play or 3D title: a deep economy, a live content pipeline and a high art bar, per the mobile outsourcing guide's top project band. At this scale most buyers split the work across several specialist studios — art, engineering, QA — rather than handing the whole budget to one vendor, which is also why the indie-scale studios on this list are usually engaged a discipline at a time rather than as a single full-cycle contract. Ask each vendor for its slice of the total and how the pieces hand off to each other.

What Does Your Game Development Budget Buy From an Outsourcing Studio?

What does a $500-2,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

What does a $20,000-60,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

What does a $40,000-150,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

What does a $150,000-500,000 budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

What does a $500,000+ budget buy from an outsourcing studio?

Studios of 1 to 50 people in this directory

Where to go next

Other questions buyers ask

Ready to shortlist studios?