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Market 11  //  Software development and staff augmentation 6 documented months

Software development and staff augmentation.

6
Documented months
each one a dated Instantly panel
22–125
Positive replies a month
lowest and highest of the 6
33
Median positive replies
across these months
50 qualified replies a quarter on the quarterly plan, or we keep working free. Read the guarantee

Every figure on this page is in US dollars, as the Instantly dashboard reports it, whichever country the client is in.

Every figure in a Result line is read straight off that panel.

The value per opportunity is the client's own number, not ours, and every client gives us their floor rather than an average. It is the least a new customer is worth to them, so the pipeline figure is the conservative version of what the month produced.

We forward a positive reply to the client and stop there. What closed after that is confidential, the same reason none of these companies are named. So there are no meeting counts and no close rates here. What each Result adds is what the replies themselves looked like.

Lists start with a data provider and are then enriched for a buying signal, which is what decides the week an email goes out and gives it something specific to say.

01

February 2020

low
Campaign results for February 2020, 22 positive replies and $88,000 in pipeline
Instantly panel, February 2020. 1,961 replies in total, 22 of them positive. Screenshot, not recreated.

A 30 developer agency in Manchester.

Problem

Almost every client had arrived through a partner referral, which meant a good quarter followed by an empty one. Two clients made up about 70% of revenue and one had just announced they were building in house.

Solution

We enriched a funded startup list against their own job ads, which told us the exact gap in each team. CTOs got an email naming it, with one developer offered on a two week trial. A first version listing technologies read like every offshore email they already ignored. Naming the gap rather than the stack was the change.

Result

22 positive replies, $88,000 of pipeline at the $4,000 trial. Every reply was passed over to their team. A two week trial was a far easier yes than a statement of work.

02

October 2021

low
Campaign results for October 2021, 30 positive replies and $150,000 in pipeline
Instantly panel, October 2021. 2,465 replies in total, 30 of them positive. Screenshot, not recreated.

A 22 person dev shop in Sydney.

Problem

Every developer in the country had three offers and their bench was empty, so they were selling capacity they did not have.

Solution

Selling the thinking instead of the hands solved it. A fixed price scoping sprint bought six weeks to hire against a signed contract, sold to founders and CTOs at companies small enough that those are the same person. An earlier version promising a team start date was pulled once it became clear they could not hold to it.

Result

30 positive replies, $150,000 at the $5,000 sprint. Replies were forwarded to their team. Selling a sprint rather than a team was the only honest thing they could sell that quarter.

03

November 2022

average
Campaign results for November 2022, 27 positive replies and $108,000 in pipeline
Instantly panel, November 2022. 2,280 replies in total, 27 of them positive. Screenshot, not recreated.

A 40 person agency in Austin.

Problem

Funding dried up and their startup clients stopped renewing, most of them inside the same quarter.

Solution

The list moved to mid market firms with legacy systems, slower to buy and far steadier, addressed to the managing director rather than a head of IT with no mandate to replace anything, opening with a paid technical audit. The old startup copy was tested on the new list first and failed badly, which is how they learned the audience needed different language entirely. Follow ups were stretched further apart, since mid market replies come in later and get buried when the steps are stacked too close.

Result

27 positive replies, $108,000 at the $4,000 audit. We forward the reply and stop there. The client mix changed permanently after this.

04

September 2023

average
Campaign results for September 2023, 36 positive replies and $108,000 in pipeline
Instantly panel, September 2023. 1,867 replies in total, 36 of them positive. Screenshot, not recreated.

A 26 person consultancy in Edinburgh.

Problem

The agency they used before had sent a single sequence to 30k contacts and reported a 40% open rate as a result, which converted to nothing. Buyers were also being told AI would do the work soon and were sitting on decisions.

Solution

We enriched the list for public roadmaps and engineering blogs, which is where a backlog gets admitted to in writing. Engineering managers got an email about the thing they had already written down and could not get to, with a one week spike as the entry. Three variants ran and the two that mentioned AI were switched off, because that word was doing the opposite of what everyone assumed. The list was also cut to companies with a public engineering blog, a rough proxy for having a backlog worth naming.

Result

36 positive replies, $108,000 at the $3,000 spike. Each one was passed across to them. The backlog was a real thing they could name, which is why it worked.

05

June 2024

strong
Campaign results for June 2024, 47 positive replies and $141,000 in pipeline
Instantly panel, June 2024. 2,002 replies in total, 47 of them positive. Screenshot, not recreated.

A 35 person dev firm in Brisbane.

Problem

Search ads for development services were being bid up by offshore agencies with a fraction of their cost base, so paid had become unaffordable. They also opened every call apologising for price.

Solution

They stopped selling hours. The email named one integration they had already built five times, priced per module, sent to the CTO and to the founder wherever there was no CTO. A version leading with team quality was dropped for being unprovable in an email.

Result

47 positive replies, $141,000 at the $3,000 first module. We hand the reply across and step out. Pricing a module rather than a day rate took the offshore comparison off the table.

06

March 2025

great
Campaign results for March 2025, 125 positive replies and $625,000 in pipeline
Instantly panel, March 2025. 1,500 replies in total, 125 of them positive. Screenshot, not recreated.

A 40 developer firm in Seattle.

Problem

The whole pipeline depended on one partner referral relationship, and nobody wanted to say out loud what happened if it ended.

Solution

The list was enriched twice, once for funding announcements and again for open developer roles. Heads of engineering at firms clearing both got a fixed scoping engagement offer. Funding alone was too broad a trigger, so open roles were added as a second filter. Sending ramped in three stages rather than all at once.

Result

125 positive replies across March, $625,000 at the $5,000 scoping fee. Replies go over to them, so we never see the close. Open developer roles were a sharper signal than a funding round.

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