QA rate is an intricate question. It depends on numerous factors, including the certification of a QA specialist, the volume of work, the market this QA is in, and the project’s deadline. A QA’s location plays a huge role in their salaries. Hiring in the US or EU, if you want to have this person in-house, can be expensive. However, hiring in Eastern Europe is generally more cost-effective.
Today, qualified specialists are in high demand and are highly valued within the team, making it a challenge to hire them for a short period. You may need 20-50 specialists, and hiring such a large number of people in a short time can lead to failure. In this case, QA outsourcing agencies can be considered.
In this article, we will discuss in-house and outsourced QA specialists, as well as QA’s hourly rate.
| Country | Manual QA (hourly) | Automation QA (hourly) | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $36.1 | $50.5 | indeed.com, ziprecruiter.com |
| Canada | $35.9 | — | ziprecruiter.com |
| Ukraine | $17.7 – 23.9 | $21.4 – 29.0 | jobicy.com |
| Mexico | $15.4 – 20.8 | — | jobicy.com |
| Brazil | $14.6 – 19.7 | — | jobicy.com |
| India | ₹104 – ₹950 (≈ $1.3 – 11.4) | — | payscale.com |
| Australia | $45 – 46 | — | — |
Hiring QA on Upwork & Toptal (2025)
| Role | 25th %ile | Median | 75th %ile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual QA | $12 | $15 | $20 |
| QA Engineer | $20 | $35 | $60 |
Outsourcing vs. In-house Testing
Outsourced QA solutions are often more cost-effective than employing in-house QA engineers. Nonetheless, not everyone knows exactly how cheap it may be and why. Imagine you have numerous code files that you need to test. The estimated time for testing is 100 hours, and the number of QA specialists you plan to associate with this procedure is 3 engineers. Take the typical per-hour rates of the in-house staff member and those of an engineer from Eastern Europe. Consider tax obligations, perks, and right here’s what you get:
Cost comparison of in-house QA and outsourced QA
| Criteria | In-house QA | Outsourced QA |
| Number of programmers | 3 | 3 |
| Man-hours needed | 100 | 100 |
| Middle QA hourly rate | $30 | $10 |
| Taxes, bonuses, training | +30% to the salary | – |
| Estimated testing cost | $12k minimum | $3k |
The distinction in expenses is not just impressive, however, it makes clear why big companies often tend to outsource huge amounts of data for Quality Assurance. Now, let’s continue with some more numbers.
QA Tester Hourly Rate in 2025: Country-by-Country
Top-notch QA specialists are considered to be quite expensive. In fact, Glassdoor claims that the average Quality Assurance Manager earns $ 70,000-$100,000 yearly, while QA specialists at businesses such as IBM, Amazon, and Sapient earn even more. Naturally, they do, in Silicon Valley. What about other cities and countries? To dig deeper into the subject, we evaluated QA wages of the major technology centers around the globe.
USA
At American Express and Apple, the annual wage for a Quality Assurance engineer is approximately $ 100,000, which translates to $ 48 per hour. Statistics show various other firms pay staff members with the very same degree of competence a bit less. Nonetheless, QA services in the USA are still considered among the most expensive worldwide, alongside those in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Let’s see how the experience aspect affects your expenses on QA salaries:
- Junior QA engineers (from 0 to 5 years of experience) earn 8% less than the nationwide average base salary in the USA
- Middle QA specialists (from 5 to 10 years) gain 9% higher
- Senior QA specialists (from 10 to 20 years) earn 14% more
- Late-career (more than 20 years) QA specialist income is 24% greater
It’s rather expected that 44% of testers have 1-4 years of work experience in QA engineering, while 24% have 5 to 9 years. This means firms need to pay a greater wage to that 24% of highly experienced testers.
Source: salaryexpert.com
United Kingdom
Talking about the UK, below is exactly how the experience influences QA testing expenses:
- Junior QA engineers (from 0 to 5 years of experience) gain 7% less than the average base salary in the UK
- Middle QA engineers (from 5 to 10 years) make 7% higher
- Senior QA engineers (from 10 to 20 years) gain 10% greater
- Late-career QA specialists (more than 20 years) make 15% more
The pattern nearly repeats the USA numbers: 45% of QA testers have 1-4 years of experience in testing, while 25% have 5-9 years of experience
Amazon’s Quality Assurance specialists earn an average of $ 96,000 a year, which is approximately £ 70,000. This number varies from the UK’s national average QA salary, suggesting that the occupational path can be different for each specialist independently. It likewise means that the QA task price estimate will entirely depend on the work experience of your employees. Here is the average QA engineer’s salary in the UK:
Source: salaryexpert.com
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe, with its largest technology centers such as Poland and Ukraine, is well-known for a rare combination: top quality and affordable prices. Numerous sectors outsource software testing, successfully satisfying their organization’s needs.
The fact that nearly 79% of QA engineers have between 1 and 4 years of experience in software testing demonstrates the growing appeal of this career among young people in Eastern Europe. Additionally, 21% have from 5 to 9 years of work experience which is a variety of competent engineers. As you can see in the table above, the middle QA specialist earns about $10 per hour, which gives you a pretty vivid picture of your potential savings.
For instance, technology jobs in Ukraine are as popular amongst women as they are amongst men. Actually, Quality Assurance employs a significantly higher proportion of women. To add more information, we found that 86% of women and 14% of men are employed as QA engineers. Getting rid of an obsolete stereotype that women do not work or succeed in IT, Eastern European firms are globally known for the excellent quality in QA.
Now, let’s examine the average salary of a QA engineer in Ukraine.
Source: salaryexpert.com
As we can see, the average annual salary of a tester in Ukraine is around $15k and the average hourly rate is $7.36.
India
Approximately 70% of QA engineers in India have 1 to 4 years of work experience, while 21% have 5 to 9 years. An interesting observation is that almost 5% of all QA specialists in Asia have less than 1 year of work experience. A fairly large variety of individuals has 1-4 years of experience in software testing, which implies this specialization is rather brand-new to India and is just starting to get popular.
India shocks with an immense difference in wages depending upon the number of years of testing experience individuals get:
- Junior (from 0 to 5 years of experience) QA tester price is 10% less than the national average tester salary
- Middle QA experts (from 5 to 10 years) earn 51% greater
- Senior QA professionals (from 10 to 20 years) earn 123% higher
Source: salaryexpert.com
The annual salary of an average Indian QA specialist is approximately $ 11,000, which translates to $5.29 per hour.
To sum up
Whether you decide to hire an in-house QA engineer or outsource, you should always explore the foreign market before choosing the company or a person to work with.
So now, if you need to test your software application, you will know how much it costs and what the rates of QA depend on, so you can make an informed decision on where to hire a QA tester.
