Basically that's the price range a senior developer can make on his own remoting on platforms like toptal - there's no buffer there for the agency cut unless they are some partnership or losing money to catch clients.
And best case scenario - they have decent devs available at those prices right now - it's likely they will figure out what I've said and cut out the middle man/work for some US client directly and get a 30% bump for little effort.
Our teammates weren't satisfied with the outsourcing company and didn't like being interleaved between projects (formally or informally). And with negotiating down lower rates, the clients they tended to attract weren't exactly tech companies, which was uninspiring for our latam teammates.
We believe that by providing a platform that lets tech companies provide a premium developer experience, similar to the "Silicon Valley engineering culture", we can provide access to teammates that aren't typically found on Toptal/Turing nor at the typical outsourcing firm.
We work with a few companies, whose names people would recognize, that feel more comfortable using a US business entity that they can sign contracts with to move specialized equipment, like locked down macbooks, installing special software on work equipment, or installing specialized local network equipment, etc..
These companies have physical security requirements that makes it tough for them to directly hire freelancers. Through our platform we bring those kinds of opportunities to our teammates that would be otherwise localized only certain US cities.
It's also common for freelancers to come onto our platform for various reason, 1) they didn't get paid by the customer or the customer withheld payment for onerous project tweaks 2) "contractors" were the first to get fired when times got tough, 3) "contractors" didn't get access to certain dev environments thus limiting their growth, etc.
We understand it's not a solution for everyone, that's why we describe our business model clearly, and people can decide if what Astro brings to the table is worth it!
While the others seem to care about cost-cutting to catering to their customers, you seem to also care about the developers, and this is a breath of fresh air. I hope many of my friends in Colombia will benefit from your initiative.
The idea of extending Silicon Valley level perks is the one that works in the long term. I wish you and the developers all the success.
Coming from eastern europe, such sweatshops usually pay local salaries and attract junior people. If you have experience and ain't afraid of talking to clients... You cut the middleman and work with foreign clients directly.
Both have accounts in the US which you can pay directly if you don't want to deal with wire transfers (though those also are easy). Both handle taxes.