If you are pricing a game and looking at studios in Pakistan, you will see everything from $10 an hour to $99 an hour for what sounds like the same work. This guide explains the spread: what agencies charge, what small studios charge, what developers here earn, and what our own prices are.
Every figure below links to where it comes from. Rates were checked on 2 October 2026.
The short answer
| Who you hire | Hourly rate | Smallest project |
|---|---|---|
| Established agencies on Clutch | $25 – $99 | $5,000 – $25,000+ |
| Mid-size studio (example: Ropstam Game Studio) | $25 – $49 | $1,000+ |
| Small indie studio (Leekon Studio) | From $10 | $750 |
The first row comes from Clutch’s list of Unity developers in Pakistan, where the ten listed companies show rate bands of $25–$49 or $50–$99 and minimum project sizes of $5,000+, $10,000+ or $25,000+. The second is Ropstam Game Studio’s Clutch profile. The third is our own price list on the services page.
What agencies charge
The companies on Clutch are mostly large software houses that also build games. Their prices include account managers, sales teams and office space in Karachi or Lahore. You pay for process and for the comfort of a company with reviews.
That is a fair trade for a large project. For a first prototype it often is not, because a $5,000 or $10,000 minimum can be more than the prototype needs.
What small studios charge
Most game studios in Pakistan are small. In Tenjin’s 2025 survey of 50 Pakistani mobile studios, 40% had ten people or fewer. Small teams have low overheads, so they can price below the agency bands.
Our prices at Leekon Studio, as an example of that end of the market:
| What you need | Our price | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Playable prototype | $750 – $2,500 | 2 – 4 weeks |
| Hyper-casual game | $2,500 – $8,000 | 1 – 3 months |
| Casual game | $8,000 – $30,000 | 3 – 8 months |
| Mid-core game | From $30,000 | 9 – 18 months |
| Extra developers on your game | From $10 / hour | Month to month |
These are ranges, not quotes. The number for your game depends on scope.
Why it costs less here
Salaries. Paylab’s salary survey puts the middle 80% of game developers in Pakistan between PKR 47,912 and PKR 175,439 a month before tax. Paylab notes the figure rests on fewer than 20 responses, so treat it as a rough guide. Either way it is a fraction of what the same role earns in North America or Western Europe, and salary is most of what a studio’s rate pays for.
Overheads. A team of five working from one office, or from home, has little to add on top of salaries.
One engine. Most studios here build in Unity, which ships Android, iOS, PC and Web builds from one project. You are not paying for two native apps.
What moves the price
The same things that move it anywhere. Our guide to how much a mobile game costs to make covers each in detail:
- Scope. Levels, features and content cost more than the size of the idea.
- Art style. Low-poly or flat 2D is quick to produce. Hand-painted or fully animated 3D is not.
- Online features. Accounts, leaderboards and multiplayer add servers, testing and time.
- Monetisation. Ads are quick to add. A full in-game store is a project of its own.
Costs that are not in the quote
- Store accounts. Apple’s developer programme is $99 a year. Google Play charges $25 once.
- Platform commission. Apple and Google keep a share of in-app purchase revenue.
- Marketing. For most mobile games this matches or exceeds the build cost.
- Running costs. Servers, analytics and updates after launch.
These cost the same whether your studio is in Islamabad or Berlin. Only the build is cheaper.
How to hire without getting burned
A low rate is only a saving if the work gets finished once.
- Ask for something playable. A build you can hold tells you more than a slide deck.
- Start with a prototype. A fixed-price prototype is a small bet. If the team is not right, you find out for hundreds of dollars, not thousands.
- Pay per milestone. Tie each payment to a build you can play.
- Check the time zone. Pakistan is UTC+5. Our working day overlaps with European mornings; for the US east coast, the overlap is our evening and your morning.
- Get it in writing. Scope, price, who owns the code and art, and what happens if the project stops.
Where we fit
We are a small indie studio. We cannot staff a 30-person production, and we do not have a wall of Clutch reviews yet. What we offer is a low price, one team that does the design and the code, and a prototype-first way of working. Our case study on the services page shows how we run a project.
If that suits your game, read more about our game studio in Islamabad, Pakistan, or tell us about the game and we will reply with a budget band within two working days. For the wider picture, see our guide to game development in Pakistan.
