What is the cost difference between a cleared FDE firm and an in-house AI team?

The cost difference depends on two numbers you have to collect yourself: your fully burdened monthly cost per cleared engineer and the firm's written quote. The public figures to anchor on are a $135,980 median wage for U.S. software developers in May 2025 and a DCSA-reported average of 80 days for a Top Secret PCL. This article turns those into a break-even calculation for a 12-to-24-month deployment.

What public numbers can you put in the model?

Only a few figures are published by government sources, so use them as inputs and fill the rest from your own payroll data and vendor quotes. The monthly and month-equivalent values below are simple arithmetic on those figures.

The BLS number is a broad civilian wage. It does not include a clearance premium, recruiting costs, payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, secure facilities, program management, compliance, or indirect rates, so each of those becomes its own line in your model. For posted pay on the FDE side, see our page on forward deployed engineer salary ranges.

How much does clearance timing add to an in-house build?

The 80-day Top Secret and 56-day Secret figures come from a DCSA small-business briefing and are averages, not maximums. Investigation complexity, reciprocity, interim eligibility, adjudication, and workload can all move the result, and recruiting time comes on top.

Here is the cost of that wait. If a new hire sits idle for the 80-day TS average, the base wage alone at the BLS median is about $29,800 per engineer (2.6 months at roughly $11,332). Multiply by team size, then add the burden items you carry on every payroll dollar.

Per DCSA guidance, a contractor must have sponsorship from a Government Contracting Agency or a cleared contractor and a legitimate need for classified access. For an initial investigation, your FSO must submit fingerprints electronically within 14 days of the received-status date. A slow FSO adds days to every hire.

What does an in-house team cost beyond salary?

List these as separate lines so nothing hides inside a salary figure:

• Clearance premium on offers, from your own offer data
• Recruiting for cleared candidates
• Payroll taxes and benefits
• Equipment and secure information systems
• Secure facility space and compliance work
• Security personnel time, including the FSO
• Program management and technical supervision
• Downtime while clearances process
• Attrition and replacement, including repeating the clearance wait
• Your indirect rates

Facility clearance is a separate risk. DCSA's guide says a government contracting activity or currently cleared contractor may sponsor an uncleared company for a facility clearance. It names key-management-personnel PCL processing and foreign-ownership, control, or influence mitigation as the two principal sources of delay, and says interims may be granted when possible so work can begin.

That matters on the FDE side too. Ask any firm whether it already holds the facility clearance your contract needs, because a firm without one faces the same 180-day average you would.

How do T&M and firm-fixed-price FDE contracts change the math?

The price basis decides which variable you model. Under time and materials, cost is rate times hours times team size, so your risk is hours. Under firm-fixed-price, cost is the agreed price for defined deliverables, so your risk is a vague scope.

DFARS policy says commercial software should, to the maximum extent practicable, be acquired using firm-fixed-price contracts or firm-fixed-price orders under available pricing schedules. That policy covers Government acquisition of commercial software. Whether it shapes your subcontract with an FDE firm depends on your prime contract and its flow-down clauses.

We have no verified market rate for cleared FDE firms, so get written quotes from at least two. Our guide to FDE pricing models (T&M, fixed, outcome) explains the trade-offs, and the firm profiles list who to ask.

Who owns the IP on custom defense software under DFARS?

It depends on the software and the deal, and the sources do not say an FDE firm automatically keeps ownership. These DFARS points frame the negotiation:

• Commercial software and documentation should generally be acquired under licenses customarily provided to the public, unless those licenses conflict with federal procurement law or fail to meet user needs.
• For commercial software, contractors generally are not required to relinquish or provide the Government rights beyond those mutually agreed.
• Under DFARS Subpart 227.72, the Government's software rights must be identified in a license agreement.
• The contractor or licensor retains rights that are not granted to the Government.

Outcomes turn on whether the software is commercial or noncommercial, who funded its development, which DFARS clauses apply, your data-rights assertions, and the negotiated license. This is general information, not legal advice, so have counsel read the clauses before you sign.

How do you calculate break-even for 12 to 24 months?

Run these steps with your own numbers. Do them once at 12 months and again at 24.

1. Price the in-house team monthly. Add base wage (the BLS median of about $11,332 per month is a placeholder), clearance premium, taxes, benefits, equipment, and your share of supervision. Call the team total C_in.
2. Total the in-house fixed costs. Include cleared recruiting, secure systems, facility and compliance work, and security staff time. Call it F_in.
3. Price the FDE option. For T&M, use quoted rate times hours per month times team size. For firm-fixed-price, divide the price by months. Add travel and your management time. Call it C_fde, with one-time onboarding as F_fde.
4. Find the cost crossover. Break-even month = (F_in minus F_fde) divided by (C_fde minus C_in). It only holds if the FDE option has the higher monthly cost and the lower upfront cost.
5. Compare to your window. If the crossover lands after month 24, the FDE option is cheaper for the whole deployment. If it lands before month 12, in-house wins.
6. Price the delay. Subtract the start dates. The in-house start is recruiting time plus roughly 2.6 months for a TS PCL, or 1.8 for Secret, and longer if a facility clearance is needed. Multiply the months of difference by what a month of the working capability is worth to your program.
7. Add attrition. Each replacement repeats the recruiting and clearance wait.

If step 6 is large, the FDE option can win even when step 4 favors in-house. Do not claim a result until your own quotes are in.

How do you structure the SOW for a cleared FDE team?

Acquisition-planning guidance says a PWS or SOW should identify required license rights and data deliverables and link them to contract data requirements lists. Apply that to your subcontract with these items:

• Required clearance level and facility clearance, stated per role
• Named deliverables, each tied to a data-rights and license term
• Price basis (T&M or firm-fixed-price) and what triggers a change
• Who supplies the secure environment and who supervises access
• Handling of prior commercial software the firm brings to the work

Our page on forward deployed engineer vs software engineer helps you describe the role in the scope.

Which engagement shape fits your gap?

Match the structure to the gap. If you lack senior engineers to connect data and run AI workflows, an embedded team fits. If you have a defined deliverable, project delivery fits. If the gap is architecture and direction, technical leadership fits.

Dplyz offers those three ways to work, placing senior engineers inside a business to connect its data, build products, and run AI agents and workflows in production. It doesn't publish a price list, so you will need a quote, and you should confirm clearance and facility requirements directly before comparing it to anyone. Our selection method shows how we evaluate firms.