Zoftaa is a small software studio in Lahore. If you want to hire developers in Pakistan to build a mobile app, a web platform or an AI feature, you hire us as a team, and the engineers on your first call are the ones who write your code. We don't place developers on your payroll or send you CVs.

Pakistan already sells a lot of software and IT work abroad. Its IT exports reached a record $4.6 billion in the fiscal year to June 2026, up 21% from $3.814 billion the year before, according to State Bank of Pakistan data reported by the Express Tribune (checked 1 November 2026).

What you can hire us for

Fixed-scope project build

A defined piece of software, with the scope, milestones, price and dates written down and agreed before we write any code. It suits a first version, an MVP or a clear feature added to something you already run. The plan lists what's in and what's out, so you can compare it with any other quote line by line.

Monthly product retainer

The same engineers work on your product every month. If you searched for a dedicated development team in Pakistan, this is the closest thing we offer: people who already know your code, without you hiring or running payroll. It fits a live product that needs steady work, and some of that work is forced on you. Google Play now only accepts new apps and updates that target Android 16 (API level 36) or higher. The deadline was 31 August 2026, and extensions ran to 1 November 2026 (Play Console Help, checked 1 November 2026). An app nobody has touched in a while can't ship even a small fix until that upgrade is done.

Launch and store setup

Already have an app? We handle signing, store listings, review and release on the App Store and Google Play. Two rules catch new publishers out:

Personal Google Play accounts created after 13 November 2023 must run a closed test with at least 12 testers, opted in for at least 14 days in a row, before applying for production access (Play Console Help, checked 1 November 2026).
With Play App Signing, Google signs the copy your users install with its own key, so that key's fingerprint must be registered with services that check it, such as Google sign-in (Play Console Help, checked 1 November 2026). In our own apps, adding Google's fingerprint to Firebase is a step on the release checklist. Miss it and sign-in works in the builds you install yourself, then fails in the copy people get from Play.

What we build

Mobile apps for Android and iOS. Flutter is our first choice, so one codebase covers both stores, with Swift or Kotlin where a feature needs native code. See mobile app development and Flutter app development.
Websites and web apps on Next.js and React, with the APIs behind them: web development.
Custom software such as booking systems, dashboards and internal tools: custom software development.
AI chatbots and LLM features, such as chatbots that answer from your own documents on your site or WhatsApp, and document data extraction: AI chatbots.
Workflow automation with n8n between the tools you already use: workflow automation.
UI/UX design, done alongside the code so the finished app matches the design.

Some examples of the briefs this covers. They're illustrations, not past projects:

A founder in London has a Figma design and needs Android and iOS apps with sign-in, a subscription and an admin panel, live on both stores.
A restaurant group in Dubai wants a WhatsApp chatbot that answers menu and booking questions and hands the chat to staff when it can't answer.
A logistics company in Lahore tracks orders in spreadsheets and wants one dashboard with separate views for drivers, dispatchers and managers.

If you're looking to hire app developers in Pakistan, mobile is where our own shipped work sits. In our own apps we've built AI features with daily usage limits, subscriptions through RevenueCat, AdMob ads, Firebase sign-in with guest accounts that upgrade to full accounts, and Python backends that call LLMs with retries and fallbacks, then released them on Google Play.

Who it's for

It's for founders and small businesses in the US, the UK, Europe and the Gulf who are weighing up an offshore software development company in Pakistan. You're a good match if you have no developers in house (or a small team that wants a contained piece built alongside it), if a live product needs steady monthly work without hiring, or if a finished app is stuck at store release.

Businesses in Pakistan get the same plan, weekly builds and ownership, with no time zone to work around. We're fully remote, so even in Lahore our meetings are calls.

Three ways to hire developers in Pakistan

"Hiring developers in Pakistan" can mean three different things. The right one depends on who you want managing the work.

Route	Who manages the day-to-day work	Suits you when
Individual developers through a talent platform or an employer of record	You: tasks, code review, releases	You have a technical lead and want people working only on your team, long term
A freelancer	You, with one person to coordinate	The job is small and well defined, and you can review the code yourself
A small studio, like us	We do, against a written plan you approved	You want a working product and don't want to run a development team

How a project runs

Scope call. One call to understand the problem and check that we're the right team for it. Bring whatever you have: a brief, sketches, an app you like or an existing repository.
Written plan. A fixed scope with milestones, price and dates, before any code is written.
Weekly builds. Every week you get a version to open and try (through TestFlight or a Google Play testing track on your phone, or a preview link for web work) and a call to go through it. Wrong turns show up within days, so changes stay small and cheap.
Handover. The code, the accounts and the keys, with clear documentation. After handover the product doesn't depend on us. If you want us to keep working on it, that's the retainer.

What you own

You own the code, the store accounts and the cloud accounts from the first day of the project.

Code: it lives in a repository in your account, and we work in it as invited members.
Store accounts: your app is published under your own developer accounts, and you add us as users. The Apple Developer Program is 99 USD a year. An organisation must be a legal entity with a D-U-N-S Number, and its name is shown as the seller (Apple, checked 1 November 2026). Google Play charges a one-time US$25 fee (Play Console Help, checked 1 November 2026).
Cloud and service accounts: AWS, Firebase, Supabase, Cloudflare, the domain and the OpenAI or Anthropic API keys sit in accounts you control and are billed to you.

Get ownership in writing, from us or anyone else. Under US law, for example, commissioned work is only "work made for hire" if it falls into one of nine listed categories and both sides sign a written agreement saying so, and software isn't named among the nine (US Copyright Office, Circular 30, checked 1 November 2026). A written assignment of ownership is the safer route. This is general information, not legal advice; ask a lawyer in your country about your contract.

Stack and tools

We pick tools by what the product needs and what your team can maintain after handover:

Area	Tools	When we use them
Mobile	Flutter	Our default for Android and iOS from one codebase
Mobile, native	Swift, Kotlin	Features that need the platform directly, or a native app you already have
Mobile, existing apps	React Native	When your app is already written in it
Web	React, Next.js	Websites, web apps and dashboards
Backend	Node.js, Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL	APIs, business logic and data
Managed backend	Firebase, Supabase	Sign-in, databases and storage without running your own servers
Hosting	AWS, Cloudflare, Docker	Deployment, caching and containers
AI	OpenAI and Claude APIs	Chatbots, document extraction and LLM features in apps
Automation	n8n	Workflows between the tools you already use

This website is the simple end of that range: Next.js exported as static files and served from Cloudflare Pages, with no server to look after.

Timelines

Your dates go in the written plan after the scope call. We don't publish typical ranges for our own work yet, because a range given without your scope gets read as a promise. What moves the dates most:

the number of user roles (customer, staff, admin) and what each can do;
payments, refunds and subscriptions;
offline use;
integrations with other systems;
an admin panel and reporting;
store review and release.

Part of the timeline is set by the app stores. A new personal Google Play account needs at least 14 days of closed testing, and Google says the production access review "usually takes seven days or less" (Play Console Help). Apple says it reviews "at least 50% of submissions in less than 24 hours and 90% in less than 48 hours" (Apple, checked 1 November 2026). If you're enrolling with Apple as an organisation, get your D-U-N-S Number early.

If a plan's dates are further out than you can wait, the usual fix is a smaller first version: see MVP development.

Working with us from abroad

Pakistan Standard Time is UTC+5 all year, with no daylight saving (Wikipedia), so the gap to you only changes when your own clocks do. Our hours are Monday to Friday, 10am to 7pm PKT:

Where you are	Your offset	Our hours in your time	Overlap with a 9am to 5pm day
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat	UTC+4 all year	9am to 6pm	8 hours, the whole day
Riyadh, Doha, Kuwait City	UTC+3 all year	8am to 5pm	8 hours, the whole day
Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam (summer)	UTC+2	7am to 4pm	7 hours
Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam (winter)	UTC+1	6am to 3pm	6 hours
London (summer)	UTC+1	6am to 3pm	6 hours
London (winter)	UTC+0	5am to 2pm	5 hours
New York (summer)	UTC-4	1am to 10am	1 hour
New York (winter)	UTC-5	midnight to 9am	none
Los Angeles (summer, winter)	UTC-7, UTC-8	10pm to 7am, or 9pm to 6am, starting the evening before	none

US buyers get calls in their own morning. We take US calls from 6pm to 10pm PKT (13:00 to 17:00 UTC), Monday to Friday. In New York that's 8am to 12pm in winter (EST) and 9am to 1pm in summer (EDT), the start of your working day. In Los Angeles it's earlier: 5am to 9am in winter (PST) and 6am to 10am in summer (PDT). You talk to the engineers who write your code, and urgent messages get a reply in that window too.

The Gulf gets a full shared day. The UAE and Oman stay on UTC+4 (Wikipedia) and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait on UTC+3 (Wikipedia) all year. Saudi Arabia's working week runs Sunday to Thursday (Gulf News), so there we share Monday to Thursday.
The UK and Europe get most of a day, with our afternoon in your morning. Both change clocks on the last Sundays of March and October (GOV.UK, EU Directive 2000/84/EC).
The US has little or no overlap with our regular hours, so live calls and urgent replies go through the evening window above, alongside the weekly build. US clocks change on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November (NIST), and the gap to us moves by an hour on those dates. Feedback sent in your afternoon reaches us before our next day starts.

Between the weekly calls you can reach us by email and WhatsApp during our hours. An engineer replies to email and the contact form, usually within one business day.

When we're not the right fit

You want developers chosen from CVs who join your team and take tasks from your own lead. A talent platform or an employer of record does that.
You need a large team quickly. We stay small on purpose and take on a limited number of projects at a time.
You need live overlap with the whole US working day, every day. A team in your own time zone will suit you better.
Your project needs a supplier that holds formal security or compliance certifications. We don't hold any.
You need people on site, or coding to start tomorrow without a written plan. Our fixed price and dates come from that plan.

Frequently asked questions

Can I hire one developer from you full-time?

No, we don't place individual developers. The closest option is the monthly retainer: the same engineers on your product every month, with us managing the work against a plan you've agreed.

How much does it cost to hire developers in Pakistan?

We don't publish our own rates yet. A project build gets a fixed price in the written plan, after the scope call. For market context, Accelerance's survey of 60 software development partners puts senior developers in Asia at $31 to $41 an hour, and names Pakistan among the region's large talent pools (Accelerance, published 24 November 2025, checked 1 November 2026). The total depends more on how many hours the scope needs, and who manages them, than on the rate.

Can you take over an app or codebase we already have?

Often, yes. We'd ask to read the code before writing the plan, because the dates depend on what's already there. If the app is finished and only needs to reach the stores, that's the launch and store setup engagement.

Is there a contract?

Yes. As our terms say, any project or retainer runs under a separate written agreement that sets out its scope, price and terms. Sending an enquiry doesn't commit you to anything.

What happens after I get in touch?

An engineer replies, usually within one business day, and suggests a time for the scope call. If we're a fit, the written plan follows. If we're not, we'll say so.

To start, send us a few lines about what you want to build, or message us on WhatsApp at +92 308 6475141 during our hours.

Hire a small software team in Lahore, Pakistan