Updated 22 September 2026
Two layers that must stay separate
Your cost floor always runs from the numbers you typed. The displayed band is a regional overlay when country and profession match. Mixing them — “the band is low so I will ignore rent” — is how people miss the month with a chart that looked official.
Qufy uses one source per country for developer pay: egytech.fyi for Egypt and the SearchGulfTalent guide for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It compares that with US BLS developer pay and scales every other profession by the same ratios, with a freelance load; those bands are labelled a Qufy estimate. International / U.S. uses BLS pay as it is. Every input is on /sources so you can cite it instead of improvising.
“A band is a check so you can defend a fee — not a quote someone else must pay.”
Employee pay is not a freelance invoice
Surveys are monthly employee packages. Benefits, equipment, and unused vacation sit inside that package. You buy those yourself. Qufy divides by 40 × 4.33 hours, then multiplies by 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.8 depending on the series so the band is not an employee wage pretending to be an invoice. That is a planning factor. It is not a statute. It is not a promise the top of the band will clear.
How to use a band in a conversation without lying
“Public figures for similar roles, converted to a freelance hour, sit around this range. My floor is this. The brief you sent sits here because of scope.” That is enough. Do not invent percentiles. Do not screenshot a private salary tool and crop the date. If the client wants cheaper, the honest lever is fewer pages, fewer rounds, later delivery — not a secret discount that becomes the new baseline.
What we will not do on this page
We will not publish fake “average Egyptian designer USD/hour” tables with no vintage. We will not pretend a band is live market-clearing data. Snapshots can be stale; the sources page should say when a series was pulled. If a source disappears, the overlay should fail closed — floor only — rather than keep a dead number looking fresh.
The country ratio, in one paragraph, without pretending it is magic
When a country has no local figure for a profession, a US occupation wage is not copied as dollars onto a Cairo invoice. It is scaled by how local developer pay compares with US developer pay, so the band sits nearer local pay. That is still a model, and the band says so (“Qufy estimate”). Models are wrong in useful ways. Your floor from rent and hours is the number you must not betray. The band is the sentence you add after: “public figures, scaled, sit around here.”
Cite the method in a proposal without sounding like a blog
One short paragraph is enough: “Rate is based on a cost floor (take-home, billable hours, buffer) and checked against published regional figures converted to a freelance hour. Sources are listed at qufy /sources.” Then stop. A three-page methodology annex makes you look like you are hiding the fee. If they want cheaper, cut scope on the next line.
What to take away
- Your cost floor always runs. The band is an overlay when country and profession match a cited source.
- Employee monthly packages are divided by 40 × 4.33 hours, then multiplied by 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.8 so the band covers benefits you now buy yourself.
- That load is a planning factor, not a law and not a guarantee a client will pay the top of the band.
Questions people ask
Why does my band say “unknown”?
The overlay only appears when we have a source for that country and profession pair. You still get a floor from your own costs. Use that. Do not invent a band from memory to look scientific.
Are these Upwork or Glassdoor averages?
No. We do not scrape or invent those. Every band names its source on /sources: US BLS occupation pay, and for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE one local source for developer pay (egytech.fyi for Egypt, the SearchGulfTalent guide for the Gulf). Other professions in those countries are scaled from that source and labelled a Qufy estimate — not a US dollar pasted onto Cairo.
Can I show this page to a client who says I am expensive?
You can show the method. Do not pretend the band is a legal tariff. The professional move is: here is my floor, here is a public band for similar work, here is the scope. If they still want a lower number, cut scope — do not cut the floor in silence.
