Techie finds out he is paid one-tenth of what he is billed to the client. Now, thinks about freelancing or asking for a salary hike

A young technology worker recently had a disheartening revelation about his earnings. While he had always assumed that his employer retained a reasonable margin from client billing, he discovered that the reality was far worse than he imagined.

Techie Receives A Rude Shock

Posting his experience on the subreddit Indian Workplace, he shared that he had been working as a full-stack developer with around four years of professional exposure for a US-based company. By chance, the client had mistakenly forwarded him an invoice that revealed how much his services were being billed at. The document showed that his time was charged at fifty dollars an hour, totaling nearly $9,650 for 193 hours in a month. The invoice also listed the rates of other colleagues, including his manager.

A Huge Paying Gap!

However, what left him shaken was the vast gap between this billed figure and what he personally earned. His actual pay amounted to barely five dollars per hour—less than a quarter of what the client was charged. While he understood that organizations factor in costs for operations, management, and profit, the staggering difference made him question his own career trajectory. He wondered whether he should attempt a tough negotiation with his current employer or instead explore freelancing opportunities that would allow him to retain more of the value his work generated.

Netizens React

Other users on the forum responded with blunt clarity. Many explained that this was the standard offshore outsourcing model, where companies exploit labor arbitrage to secure enormous margins. Some pointed out that markups of 400 percent were routine and had been embedded in the Indian IT industry since the 1980s.

"Nothing you can do. Sorry. This has been the Indian IT model since the 1980s… pointed out one Reddit user.

A few users warned him against using the accidental invoice as leverage in discussions with human resources. They cautioned that employers could view such knowledge as confidential and retaliate by placing him under performance scrutiny or even terminating him, especially in the backdrop of widespread layoffs.

Several commenters, however, encouraged him to seriously consider independent freelancing. They noted that as long as he remained tied to a service-oriented consulting firm, the discrepancy between what clients pay and what employees take home would remain substantial. Freelancing, they suggested, might offer him a more direct way of capturing the true worth of his skills.