[iforgotmypass]

Not sure where did you get this number. $45/hr was the standard expected rate for software development houses and agencies 7 years ago in Eastern Europe. So now it probably is around $70-80/hr. For $30/hr you could get a talented junior freelancing, if you're lucky. But that comes at the cost of quality and efficiency, which offsets the savings from the seemingly lower rate considerably.

[dns_snek]

OP is seemingly open to the idea of hiring individual freelancers. If they can skip the middleman (agency), that rate effectively doubles (From what I've seen, the developers working for the agency get paid around half of what the client pays).