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It seems highly likely that you want to hire PHP developers or a PHP development team, and that’s why you are on this page. Your organization likely has a PHP website development project at hand, where skilled PHP developers are a must.
You are on the right page since I will share all the information that you will need here. I will explain how to hire PHP developers, the costs of hiring, the costs of developing PHP web applications, examples of PHP applications, the top 5 companies from where you can hire PHP coders, and other useful tips and guidelines.
Over decades, PHP has proved its mettle in the web development landscape as well as a server-side scripting language. A 2025 Statista report states PHP was the 11th most-used programming language. If you remove HTML/CSS, SQL, and Bash/Shell from this comparison, then PHP is the 8th most-used language.
Despite apprehensions over the future of the language, PHP remains an important programming language. According to a W3TECH report, a whopping 76.2% of all websites use PHP in one way or another. The fact that most of the popular content management systems are built using PHP contributes to this dominance by no small measure!
As a Techjury report shows, “over 2,000 high-traffic and famous websites use PHP,” such as WhatsApp, Zoom, Wikipedia, etc.
While the above statistics show that PHP is one of the most popular programming languages for web development, your web development project won’t succeed just because you use the PHP programming language. You need proficient PHP developers for a successful PHP application development project. We show here how you can hire top PHP developers.
In this article:
- How Much Does it Cost to Hire PHP Developers?
- How Much Does It Cost to Develop a PHP Web Application in 2025?
- What Kind of PHP Developers Do You Need?
- 5 Steps to Hire PHP Developers
- Top 5 Companies to Hire PHP Programmers in 2025
Latest PHP Trends
According to an O’Reilly report, PHP is here to stay despite apprehensions about its future. The report acknowledges that PHP isn’t one of the most popular programming languages anymore.
However, many organizations invested considerably in PHP, demonstrated by the large percentages of websites running PHP. Therefore, the use of PHP will continue to grow, even if the growth is limited. Individual PHP developers will likely spend more time on application maintenance and enhancement instead of delivering PHP projects to create new web apps.
How Much Does it Cost to Hire PHP Developers?
You will need to look at the cost of hiring PHP developers by geography. Also, you get this cost data as hourly rates even if you plan to hire PHP web developers on a full-time basis. The cost of hiring PHP developers largely varies based on the type of hiring, e.g.:
- Hiring US-based developers from a highly expensive US-based software development agency can cost more.
- You will be paying for value if you hire from other trustworthy and reputed software development companies.
- Hiring in-house employees can cost more, depending on your location.
- If you hire freelancers, you might be able to negotiate a low hourly rate, but we will talk more about the risks later.
PHP developers for hire in The United States
Depending on the hiring options we mentioned above, it can take $55-$300 per hour to hire a mid-level-to-senior PHP developer. Your monthly costs amount to $10,400-$48,000 for a full-time developer.
PHP developers for hire in Western Europe
You can expect to pay $45-$200 per hour for an intermediate-to-experienced PHP developer, depending on the hiring option. This roughly means a cost outlay of $8,000-32,000 per month for full-time developers.
Eastern Europe
The cost of hiring a mid-level-to-senior PHP developer can vary from $35-$150 per hour. When hiring on a full-time basis, the monthly costs translate to $5,600-$24,000.
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Based on your choice of hiring source, an intermediate-to-experienced PHP developer can cost you $10-$65 per hour. You might need to pay $1,600-$10,400 per month for a full-time developer.
Cost of United States’ Mobile App Developers by Region:
Let’s have a look at the latest statistics for 2025!
A new report shows that the estimated average salary for a PHP developer in the United States is $120.000 per year as of April 2025. The cost of hiring a PHP developer depends on several conditions and factors, such as experience level, country location, seniority, average salary, etc. Take a close look at your project requirements, size, and complexity. That will help you determine the kind of PHP developer or whole PHP development team you need.
The following are the costs of hiring an in-house developer by state in the USA. Remember that the costs are lower than those listed above simply because hiring a full-time worker will save you money as you employ them directly.
California (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco): $124,800 to $284,000 per year
Colorado (Denver, Colorado Springs, Greenwood Village): $111,000 – $124,000 per year
Illinois (Chicago, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield): $106,228 – $123,440 per year
Maryland (Fort Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis): $90,001 – $115,000 per year
Massachusetts (Boston, Worcester, Springfield): $112,500 – $113,875 per year
New York (Albany, New York, Brooklyn): $112,500 – $166,400 per year
Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas): $93,917 – $121,811 per year
A suggestion: Hire from a US-based company if you are located in the US. You can then enforce the contractual and legal terms and conditions effectively. Your project manager benefits, too, due to better cultural alignment.
How Much Does It Cost to Develop a PHP Web Application in 2025?
The cost to develop a PHP web application depends on the project’s complexity. For example, are you trying to create a simple website or a prototype of a website to understand the level of interest of users? Alternatively, will you develop a medium-complexity website or a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) of a website? Or do you plan to develop a complex or enterprise-scale website?
1. A simple PHP development project
A simple PHP development project might involve developing a simple website with standard and limited features. Developing a prototype of a website is also a simple project. You might need to spend between $5,000 to $50,000 on such a project. The project might need 1-3 PHP coders and 1 week to a month.
2. A medium-complexity PHP web development project
A medium-complexity PHP web development project can include developing a website with a few standard and customized requirements. You can also consider developing an MVP website as a medium-complexity project. Your costs might range from $50,000 to $250,000. The project might need 1.5 to 6 months, and you might need 2-6 PHP web developers.
3. A complex PHP web development project
Developing a complex and enterprise-scale website can take more than $250,000. Such projects might involve multiple customized requirements. There might be stringent non-functional requirements like scalability, performance, security, etc. You might need more than 6 skilled PHP developers, and the project can take more than 6 months.
Defining the Features of Your PHP Web App
While we talked about simple, medium, and complex PHP web development projects, what exactly separates them? The simple answer is “the set of features” or, even more simply, the “requirements.”
Let’s assume your PHP website development project involves creating a website to serve content relevant to your users. You plan to offer a localized service that involves face-to-face contact and POS transactions. Your website will inform customers about discount offers and collect email addresses for future marketing purposes. This fits the bill of a simple project.
Take another example, where you plan to launch an eCommerce store. You will need to offer all features of an eCommerce website, e.g., user account management, order management, payment integration, etc. We consider this a medium-complexity project.
Now, imagine that you will build an enterprise-scale website with many different product offerings, service offerings, online transactions, etc. Your website will have highly demanding non-functional requirements like performance, scalability, etc. You can categorize this project as complex. To take another example, projects to develop new content management systems are complex.
You can also review the following projects to understand this categorization:
- Island Bargains: Island Bargains offers shipping, warehousing, logistics, air freight, and ocean freight services in the Caribbean islands. The website of the company had an old PHP code base, and the development of it was done by the earlier team without using the right PHP frameworks. There were performance issues. This project involved resolving all of these issues and modernizing the website. Furthermore, entire project management was required.
- Whitehawk: An Australia-based cybersecurity company needed a complete redesign and refactoring of their PHP website. Furthermore, new features were needed. The project involved redesigning the website, modifying the user flow, and introducing new features like product recommendations.
- Dentamatch: Dentamatch is a platform to match temporary dental professionals with dental practices based on their availability and skill sets. The company had an incomplete web development and mobile development project. The project involved refactoring the web app, refactoring the back end, implementing the MVP architectural pattern correctly, and developing a RESTful API. The addition of new features like live chat, admin panel, payment integration, etc. followed.
What Kind of PHP Developers Do You Need?
The following are the 3 types of PHP developers that you can hire:
1. Junior PHP Programmers
A junior PHP developer should have the following skills:
- Programmers need sufficient knowledge of the PHP programming language.
- They need a good understanding of other programming languages used for web development, e.g., JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
- PHP programmers should know various PHP frameworks like Laravel, CakePHP, Symfony, CodeIgniter, etc.
- PHP developers should know about SQL and NoSQL databases. For example, they should know about MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc.
- Developers need a good understanding of Unix, Linux, and various web browsers.
- PHP developers specialize in back-end web development. Therefore, they should have extensive web development experience. For example, they should know how to generate dynamic web content.
- PHP programmers need a good understanding of server-side scripting.
- Junior PHP developers should know about testing tools, furthermore, they should know about version-control tools.
- PHP web developers need familiarity with the leading cloud providers. We will shortly talk about this in more detail.
- Developers need good communication skills and the ability to work in a team environment.
2. Mid-level PHP Developers
Intermediate PHP developers need all of the skills that their junior colleagues have. However, mid-level developers need to demonstrate a deeper level of skills. In addition, intermediate-level developers need the following skills:
- Mid-level developers ought to have sound knowledge of SQL.
- They should have an in-depth understanding of different types of APIs, e.g., REST vs GraphQL.
- Intermediate PHP developers need API development skills.
- They need good knowledge of PHP extensions.
- Mid-level PHP developers should have the hands-on knowledge to implement different non-functional requirements (NFRs), such as scalability, performance, security, maintainability, and testability.
- Intermediate-level developers should understand testing and DevOps very well.
- They need good problem-solving skills.
3. Experienced PHP Developers
Advanced-level PHP developers should have all of the skills of intermediate developers at an advanced level. Additionally, experienced PHP developers need the following skills:
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- They must have a thorough understanding of software architecture, including prominent architecture patterns like MVC.
- Experienced developers should have sound knowledge of application security.
- They must be very familiar with the essential cloud services provided by the leading cloud providers.
- Advanced-level developers need extensive experience developing custom web applications and stabilizing them post-deployment.
- Expert PHP programmers should have performance-tuning expertise.
- They need robust knowledge of best software development practices and should understand project management sufficiently.
- Experienced PHP developers ought to demonstrate leadership skills.
A note about the prominent back-end server providers
We alluded to the important back-end server providers above, which PHP developers should know about. These providers are as follows:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Backend Service Provider: AWS (Amazon Web Services) is one of the leading cloud services providers, and you can get all the necessary infrastructure and cloud services for back-end development here. You can get server infrastructure, storage, databases, AI/ML services, DevOps services, and much more. AWS EC2, AWS S3, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS RDS, and AWS ML services are a few examples of what AWS offers.
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – – Backend Service Provider: Google Cloud Platform provides all the back-end infrastructure and services required for PHP web development. You can get the required cloud infrastructural resources like servers and computing power. GCP offers storage services, and you can get cloud database services. You can also get API integration services, information security solutions, AI services, and several other relevant tools. Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Databases, and Google Cloud Source Repositories are just a few examples.
- Microsoft Azure – Backend Service Provider: Microsoft Azure is yet another cloud service provider with considerable cloud capabilities. You can get all the cloud infrastructure and cloud services needed for back-end web development on Azure. That includes server infrastructure, storage, SQL databases, NoSQL databases, Kubernetes, AI/ML, and more. A few of the prominent Azure products and services are Azure App Service, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure OpenAI service.
5 Steps to Hire PHP Developers
Now that you understand the different levels of PHP developers, you are likely ready to start the hiring process. Take the following steps:
Step 1: Decide on the web application development project requirements and identify the kind of PHP developers you need (Crucial step)
Utilize the guidelines and examples of projects we talked about to determine the complexity of your project. Based on this information, create a hiring requirement. You should state clearly the number of developers needed by their experience level.
Step 2: Choose a suitable platform to hire PHP developers (a step with far-reaching consequences)
At the outset, we make an assumption that you are planning to hire remote PHP developers and not developers who will work from your office. You have 2 choices to hire remote PHP developers, namely:
Hire PHP Developers from a Trustworthy and Reputed Software Development Company or Hire Them from a Freelance Platform.
Between these 2 options, hiring remote PHP developers from a well-known and reliable software development company is the best one. This option mitigates key risks for you, and the reasons are as follows:
What are the advantages of outsourcing dedicated PHP developers from reputable software development companies?
- Prominent and trustworthy software development companies manage a large community of proficient PHP developers. These developers have the required technical skills. They also have the required experience which is relevant to your project.
- These companies follow extensive vetting processes. Therefore, hiring a PHP developer from them reduces the time and effort needed for vetting.
- A typical reputed software development company can offer both individual PHP developers as well as cohesive PHP development teams. This flexibility helps clients.
- Such software development companies provide complimentary project management support by assigning a dedicated technical account manager to the client.
- Good software development companies use robust project management tools, which can help clients.
- Reliable software development companies provide complimentary quality assurance services before you implement releases.
- You can get a risk-free trial period of one week. In case you get a developer who doesn’t fit your project, you get a replacement developer without any additional charges.
- Prominent and dependable software development companies sign clearly written and effectively structured legal agreements with clients. You can rest assured that your legitimate interests and intellectual property rights are protected.
The 2nd option is to hire freelancers. Numerous freelance platforms have emerged in the last few years. These platforms have many freelancers from around the world on their network. Conceivably, some of these freelancers might have a low hourly rate, which might seem like a cost advantage.
While hiring freelancers can be okay in the case of very simple projects, there are high-severity risks, too, which are as follows:
What are the risks of hiring freelance PHP developers?
- You can’t get a dedicated PHP developer if you hire freelancers. Freelancers very often handle multiple projects simultaneously.
- You need to manage the entire workload of shortlisting, interviewing, and verifying references. This can be hard since there are often fake freelance developers. You remain completely responsible for any risk mitigation, too.
- Freelancers routinely leave projects if they get more lucrative opportunities. Therefore, you might have to often look for replacement developers.
- Like the app idea, your intellectual properties might not remain safe with a freelancer. Freelancers might sell your project idea. Alternatively, they might develop that app themselves. Either way, you lose out!
Step 3: Review and shortlist candidates for interview. Subsequently, interview PHP programmers (the main step while hiring PHP developers)
If you have decided to hire dedicated PHP developers from a renowned software development company, then this step will take less time than hiring freelancers. However, we recommend you follow all of the steps here.
First, you need to create a job post. You will be able to do this quickly when working with a software development company since they have a smooth process, and their account managers work with you.
However, if you plan to hire PHP web developers from a freelance platform, then you should budget for more time. We also suggest that you use a PHP developer job description template to create the job post. That will help you get relevant applications.
Your screening process involves the following steps:
1st round of interview (assessing technical skills)
You should ask technical know-how questions to candidates at this stage. Your objective is to eliminate all candidates other than skilled PHP developers. Ask questions relevant to their experience level, e.g.:
- Junior PHP developers;
- Intermediate PHP developers;
- Expert PHP developers.
You should ask questions covering all key aspects of hands-on PHP programming. Avoid purely theoretical questions. You can use our PHP interview questions.
Utilize this phase also to discuss the terms and conditions of the project after you have found a candidate suitable for the next round.
2nd round of interviews (Assessing technical proficiency)
In this round, you assess whether the developers can write high-quality PHP code that meets business requirements, performance, coding standards, etc. You need to plan ahead for this round since you need to provide well-planned assessments.
In case you aren’t a PHP expert, you should get help from experienced PHP web developers. The assignment should be complex enough. The following are examples of what you might want to assess:
- Does the candidate have knowledge of web application architecture?
- Do the PHP developers understand the best practices of object-oriented programming?
- Which data security best practices should the developers focus on while building web apps vs cross-platform mobile apps?
- What usability measures should candidates implement in an app involving dynamic web page content?
3rd or final assessment round (Evaluating relevant experience)
You should qualitatively assess the experience of candidates in this round. That can be hard for freelancers; however, it’s an essential round. Assess the complexity level of their past projects. Evaluate their problem-solving skills by checking the kind of problems they have resolved.
Ask questions that cover a range of functionalities, e.g., payment gateway integration, user authentication, order management, reporting, etc. You can also cite the business requirements of your project and ask for solutions from candidates.
A key point to remember when interviewing PHP coders
You need to assess the genuineness of candidates. Therefore, you should set up a live video conference with the recording feature of the software turned on.
On a shared screen, candidates should be able to show their code, websites created earlier, design parameters used in past projects, test cases from earlier projects, etc. PHP programmers refusing to do this might not be reliable.
Step 4: Check references carefully before you hire a PHP developer
You have conducted comprehensive interviews and identified the right PHP developers. You can’t immediately go ahead and hire PHP web developers yet, though. First, check references and analyze the review comments received by developers from their earlier clients.
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You must carry out the reference verification with extra caution when hiring freelance PHP developers. Depends only on verified reviews and references.
Step 5: Enable PHP web developers to become productive quickly
We assume that you have found good PHP developers by now. Therefore, you need to get them to become productive quickly. Even the best PHP developers work effectively on a new project only when the onboarding process is effective. You should cove the following aspects while onboarding developers:
- Your project manager must provide a thorough explanation of the requirements and technical solutions. New developers should receive the required documents, e.g., functional requirements, non-functional requirements, architecture diagrams, etc.
- The PM should provide the required access to developers.
- New developers need an overview of the software development and project management processes in your organization, which the PM needs to provide.
- Your organization might use specific project management tools and task tracking tools, and the new developers need to be onboarded there.
- The PM should ensure that a communication process with the new developers is established, which might require using tools like Slack.
- You should set up a process so that new PHP developers can share their code with you. They might need to use GitHub or other tools for this.
Top 5 Companies to Hire PHP Programmers in 2025
You now have a fair understanding of the hiring process, therefore, we will now talk about the top 5 companies from where you can hire PHP developers.
1. DevTeam.Space
Headquartered in the US, DevTeam.Space is a software company that offers dedicated PHP developers. DevTeam.Space has a community of 1,200+ developers and 60+ application development teams.
This community of developers has developers from the US, Canada, and Europe. DevTeam.Space manages this community proactively, and the company manages it well. The AI-powered Agile process of DevTeam.Space backs all developers.
DevTeam.Space has a software development approach that has proven its mettle. The company utilizes a client-focused development methodology, and it uses relevant tools to gain productivity. DevTeam.Space focuses on innovation to continuously improve the effectiveness of developers and teams.
The company counts leading companies like NEC, Airbus, and Disney among its customers and supports many startups. DevTeam.Space boasts an enviable track record of 99% project success. The expertise and experience of DevTeam.Space developers have consistently helped clients succeed.
While DevTeam.Space should be your 1st choice for hiring skilled PHP developers, and you can hire freelancers in some cases. If you have a very straightforward project with an estimate of less than $5,000, and you can spend the time required to interview freelancers, and you can afford a failed project, then you can consider freelance PHP developers.
2. Upwork
Upwork is a freelance platform headquartered in the US. You can find PHP developers on this platform; however, Upwork is a general freelance platform that covers many skills, e.g., project management, graphic design, accounting, etc.
You need to create an account and post your job by following the relevant processes. Upwork has many freelancers on its network, therefore, your job posting can have a wide reach.
You might find a good freelance PHP developer on this platform. However, you need to manage the entire workload of reviewing resumes, interviewing, checking background, and managing the work of freelancers.
3. Toptal
While Toptal is a freelance platform with its headquarters in the US, the main focus area of this platform is software development. Toptal does cover a few more skills. However, the majority of the freelancers on its network are software developers.
The company makes a notable claim that it allows only the top 3% of software developers to join its network. Therefore, you can expect to hire PHP programmers of good quality from Toptal. While that’s certainly an advantage, you still need to contend with all the other risks of hiring freelancers.
4. Fiverr
Headquartered in Israel, Fiverr is a freelance network very similar to Upwork. It covers many skills, and you can hire freelance PHP developers here. You need to take the entire responsibility of posting a job, going through resumes, and interviewing candidates. Needless to say, you need to mitigate all of the risks concerning freelance platforms.
5. Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com is a very large freelance network based out of Australia. It’s a general freelance platform like Upwork or Fiverr. The large network of freelancers on this platform means that your job post is visible to many freelancers. However, you own all the responsibilities of hiring and risk mitigation.
Conclusion
You now have a thorough idea of how to hire PHP developers. However, do you want to hire the top PHP developers or the best PHP development teams? Without a second thought, DevTeam.Space should be your first stop!
Whether individual best PHP developers or a team, we at DevTeam.Space can get them started on your project within 72 hours of receiving a request from you. Our speed is exactly what you need for scaling up your software development efforts.
We offer fair and transparent pricing for the exceptional value we provide. When hiring from us, you get a risk-free trial period. In the unlikely event that a developer is unsuitable for your project, we reassign the developer with zero additional cost to you. However, given our extensive vetting processes and successful track record of delivering 300+ projects with a 99% project success rate, such an event is unlikely indeed!
We assign a complementary tech account manager whenever you hire a PHP developer or a PHP development team from us. Our account managers assist you with project management, aided by their considerable experience with different types of projects and industry verticals.
To top it all, you get a complementary QA from us. Our QA specialist tests your PHP applications thoroughly to find defects before a new release. This assurance proves valuable, especially when you have a strategic, high-visibility, and complex project with a stringent deadline.
Interested to know more about our dedicated PHP programmers and PHP development teams? Fill out the DevTeam.Space PHP developer hiring form. A dedicated account manager will set up a discovery call with you and provide you with more information.
