Hiring a studio in Pakistan from the Gulf or the UK: what to check

Hiring a studio in Pakistan is safe when you can talk to the people doing the work, the scope and price are in writing, you pay in stages, and you hold the accounts. Without those four, it is risky anywhere. We are a Karachi studio, so we have a side here. The checks below work on us too.

What is the time difference?

Pakistan is on UTC+5 all year. That is one hour ahead of Dubai, two ahead of Riyadh, and four or five ahead of London depending on the season. A Karachi team working a normal day shares the whole Gulf working day and the UK morning.

How much cheaper is it really?

Published 2026 guides put a basic app from a Dubai agency at roughly AED 30,000 to 80,000, and a mid-size one at AED 80,000 to 200,000 (GoodFirms). Senior developers in Pakistan are quoted at about $40 to $60 an hour, against $90 to $180 in Western Europe (Netguru). These figures come from agencies, so treat them as ranges, not facts. The honest summary: the same scope usually costs a half to a third as much.

A lower rate does not help if the team builds the wrong thing. Price the outcome, not the hour.

What goes wrong, and how do I prevent it?

• You never meet the people building it. Ask who will design and who will build, and get them on the first call.
• The work goes quiet. Ask for a working build every week. A build you can open is harder to fake than a status report.
• The scope grows and so does the bill. Get a fixed scope and a fixed price in writing before work starts.
• You pay everything up front. Pay in stages tied to things you can see: prototype, first build, launch.
• You do not own what you paid for. See who owns the code.

What should I ask for before signing?

• Two pieces of past work, and what exactly the studio did on each.
• A clickable prototype before any code. It is the cheapest way to find out whether you understand each other.
• The names of the people on your project.
• Where the code will live, and access to it from week one.
• What happens after launch, and what it costs.

When is a local agency the better choice?

When the work needs someone on site every week, when your buyers or regulators require a local supplier, or when the project is big enough to need a large team in one place. A small remote studio is the wrong tool for those.

If you want to test us against this list, a 15-minute call is free, and our prices are published.