Hire PHP developers · Dedicated, monthly
Hire PHP developers who start in 5 to 10 days.
PHP engineers who build new Laravel or Symfony applications and, just as often, take over older PHP codebases and bring them up to PHP 8 without stopping the business that runs on them. Vetted in five steps, working in your tools and time zone, with a two-week replacement guarantee.
1 senior PHP developer · 160 hours a month
from $4,000/month
All-inclusive, no recruitment fee, two-week replacement guarantee.
Monthly rates
| Level | Experience | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-level | 3 to 5 years | $3,000 to $4,000 |
| Senior | 5 to 8 years | $4,000 to $5,400 |
| Lead | 8+ years | $5,600 to $7,000 |
Full-time, 160 hours a month, equipment and HR included. Hourly equivalents $19 to $44. No recruitment fee.
What our PHP developers bring.
- PHP 8.2 to 8.4
- Laravel, Symfony
- CodeIgniter and legacy custom frameworks
- MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis
- REST APIs, queues and scheduled jobs
- Stripe and payment integrations
- PHPUnit, Pest, PHPStan
- Composer, Docker, CI/CD
- WordPress and WooCommerce integration
When teams hire this role from us.
- Upgrade a PHP 5 or 7 application to PHP 8 with tests around the old behaviour first
- Add an API and a modern front end to a working PHP back office
- Extend a Laravel SaaS with billing, bookings or reporting features
From brief to first commit.
- 01
Brief
Tell us the stack, seniority and start date. 15 minutes on a call or a short form.
- 02
Shortlist in 48 hours
Two or three profiles with CVs, code samples and interview notes.
- 03
Interview
You interview them your way. Technical test optional; we already ran ours.
- 04
Start in 5 to 10 days
Access, onboarding and first stand-up in your hours. Two-week replacement guarantee.
Five steps before you see a profile.
Two-week free replacement if an engineer is not the right fit, and a 30-day notice to scale down.
- 01CV and portfolio screen against the role brief
- 02Technical interview with a senior engineer in the same stack
- 03Live coding or take-home exercise reviewed for quality, not speed
- 04English communication and async-writing check
- 05Reference check and background verification before onboarding
What a PHP developer does on our teams
A PHP developer on our team usually works in one of two situations. In the first they build a new Laravel or Symfony application with tests, queues and a typed API from day one. In the second they take over a PHP codebase that has run a business for years and make it safe to change: they add tests around the critical flows, upgrade PHP and the framework in steps, and replace the parts nobody understands. One example is a Laravel booking and ordering platform for service operators that our team built and extended between 2019 and 2020, with operator subscription plans, bookings with calendar sync, a pricing calculator, Stripe payments for the platform and for operators, teams, multiple languages and PDF and Excel exports, over 79 database migrations.
How we assess PHP developers
- Modern PHP: types, enums, readonly properties, attributes and what changed between PHP 7 and 8
- Frameworks: Laravel or Symfony routing, dependency injection, queues and ORM performance
- Legacy judgement: reading an unfamiliar CodeIgniter or custom-framework codebase and planning a safe upgrade
- Quality: PHPUnit or Pest tests, PHPStan levels and how they keep a refactor from breaking production
- Sample task: add a tested API endpoint and a queued job to a small legacy PHP app, then upgrade it to PHP 8.3, in four hours
| Comparison | Innovation Insight | Freelance marketplace | US in-house hire |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost (senior) | $4,000 to $5,400, all-inclusive | $7,000 to $12,000 plus platform fees | About $16,200 with benefits (BLS median salary) |
| Time to start | 5 to 10 business days | 1 to 3 weeks | 6 to 12 weeks |
| Replacement | Free within two weeks, 30-day notice after | Trial period, then re-match | Notice period and a new recruitment cycle |
| Who manages | You, with our delivery lead on call | You | You |
Rates on this page were reviewed in October 2026. For Laravel-only work see Laravel developers; for a PHP system that needs replacing rather than extending, see legacy software modernization. Supported PHP versions are listed on php.net.
What it's like to work with us.
Unedited, from founders and product leads who trusted us with their roadmap.
Innovation Insight has been a game-changer for our platform. Their expertise in UX/UI design and seamless technical integration helped us enhance user engagement, and their attention to detail ensured a flawless experience. We're beyond satisfied with the outcome and their commitment to our vision.
VonzaSaaS · Creator economyWorking with Innovation Insight felt like a true collaboration. Their team was responsive, creative, and focused on delivering results that matched our brand identity. Thanks to them, we now have a solution that not only meets our needs but exceeds expectations. Highly recommended!
MatterbooksPublishing · MediaInnovation Insight provided us with an innovative and scalable solution that transformed the way we manage our operations. Their approach to problem-solving, combined with their deep understanding of technology, made them an invaluable partner. The results speak for themselves.
SolasEnterprise · OperationsHiring PHP developers, answered.
PHP developer or Laravel developer?
If the application is Laravel, our Laravel developers are the closer match. Hire a PHP developer for Symfony, CodeIgniter, custom frameworks, plain PHP or a mix, which is common in older codebases.
Can you upgrade our old PHP application?
Yes. We add characterisation tests, run static analysis with PHPStan or Rector to find what breaks, upgrade in steps (for example 7.4 to 8.1 to 8.3) and deploy each step separately. See legacy modernization for larger rewrites.
Do you work on WordPress?
We integrate with WordPress and WooCommerce (plugins, custom endpoints, embeds), but we do not build brochure WordPress sites. Our focus is PHP applications and APIs.
Other roles
Prefer a managed project? See our web application development service.