How to hire a FiveM developer

"I need a drug system" cannot be quoted. It could be two days or two months. Describe what a player does, minute by minute, and the technical questions answer themselves.

• State your framework, your inventory and your target system. These change the effort more than the feature does.
• Say what it must integrate with. "Works with our existing banking" is a real requirement.
• Include your artifact version and roughly how many resources you run.
• Say whether you want configurable or hard-coded. Configurability is real work.

You do not need to be technical to run this screen. You need to be able to tell a real answer from a generic one.

1. 1"How do you stop a player from calling a server event with a fake amount?" — A good answer talks about validating types and ranges, reading prices from server-side config, checking distance server-side and rate limiting. A weak answer talks about anti-cheat.
2. 2"How would you find out why our server ms is high?" — A good answer names resmon, bisecting resources, the oxmysql slow-query log and per-frame loops. A weak answer says "upgrade the host".
3. 3"What happens to a per-frame client loop when we hit 100 players?" — A good answer explains that client loops cost each client individually, and that the server-side equivalent scales with player count. A weak answer is confident and vague.

Hourly rates in 2026 run roughly €10–20 for beginners, €25–45 for competent developers and €45–90 for senior full-stack work. If a quote is a quarter of everyone else's, you are not saving money — you are pre-paying for a rewrite.

Settle this before money changes hands, in writing, in whatever channel you both use. It is the single most common source of disputes in this industry.

• Exclusive ownership: you paid for it, only you have it, the developer cannot resell it. Costs the most.
• Non-exclusive: you get the code, the developer may reuse or resell it. Cheaper, and completely reasonable for generic features.
• Escrow-protected: you get a locked resource you cannot read or modify. Fine for an off-the-shelf product, a bad idea for bespoke work you commissioned.
• Source access: make it explicit that you receive readable source, not a compiled or obfuscated bundle.

1. 1Split the work into milestones with a demonstrable result each: "core loop working on a test server", "UI complete", "integrated and live".
2. 2Pay a deposit of 25–50%, then per milestone. Never 100% up front, and do not expect a developer to work entirely on spec either.
3. 3Define what "done" means for each milestone before starting. A demo on a test server is a good definition.
4. 4Agree a bug-fix window — two to four weeks after delivery is standard for defects in the delivered scope.
5. 5Distinguish bugs from new requests. A bug is free; a change of mind is a new quote. Both parties need to accept this up front.

• Refuses to show any code or explain their approach.
• Quotes a large custom system instantly, without asking a single question about your stack.
• Wants the full amount up front, or asks for your server and database credentials before any agreement.
• Delivers obfuscated files for work you commissioned.
• Cannot name their framework version, their inventory or their target system.
• Their portfolio is a folder of leaked resources with the branding changed.
• Communicates only in voice and refuses to put scope in writing.

1. 1Give them a test server. Development on live is how live servers break.
2. 2Batch feedback. Twenty messages across a day costs more than one clear list.
3. 3Decide who signs off. A committee of five staff members changing requirements weekly is why projects die.
4. 4Ask for a handover document, however short. Which files, which config values, what to check if it breaks.
5. 5Keep the relationship. Someone who already knows your codebase is worth far more per hour than a stranger.