Does he not know the average salaries of developers in your area? Any recruiter will corroborate that.<p>Or does he think you should hire developers from lower cost of living areas?<p>Or is he surprised that labor is a high percentage of total expenses? In that case, you need only explain why the other expenses are so cheap (hosting, etc. isn&#x27;t expensive with a small customer base).<p>canteburry may also have a point, a lot of people don&#x27;t hire at level. Or they hire hard core computer scientists when application developers would be better.