Our verdict
StepTo publishes its prices, runs a 15 to 20 person Belgrade engineering team, and centers delivery on production AI (LLM, RAG, agents) plus dedicated teams with a two-week paid trial (homepage; about page). It suits a European or US East Coast scale-up that wants transparent nearshore rates and senior engineers in CET, and it is less suited to a buyer that needs a large parallel program or heavy on-site presence.
The right buyer
- Teams that want published commercial terms. Staff augmentation starts at $4,500 per developer per month, a three-person dedicated team at $13,500 per month, projects from $9,000, and a rate card of $25 to $85 per hour (about page).
- AI product work that must ship. It reports a RAG support system that cut first response time 70% and a fintech payments rebuild that made reconciliation 18 times faster, with reference calls under NDA (homepage).
- Buyers who want CET overlap and English-fluent seniors. The team works Belgrade hours with 3 to 4 hours of US East Coast overlap and a free replacement window in the first 30 days (about page).
Reasons to look elsewhere
- With 15 to 20 engineers it can run only a few concurrent builds.
- Client identities on result stories are withheld, so reference calls under NDA are the practical next step.
StepTo, At A High Level
Igor Gazivoda founded StepTo in Belgrade in 2020 and is its chief executive; he has more than 15 years in software engineering and business development, was formerly CTO at a Series A fintech startup, and holds a master’s in computer science from the University of Belgrade (Igor page; about page).
- Office at Bulevar Vudroa Vilsona 6, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia (homepage).
- 15 to 20 engineers in CET, average developer tenure above 2.5 years; we estimate annual revenue at $1.2 million to $2.0 million (about page).
- Five service lines: AI and high-performance software, custom software, dedicated teams, staff augmentation, and end-to-end outsourcing (homepage).
- AI stack centers on OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, LlamaIndex, PyTorch, and vector databases; last content update noted 16 October 2026 (homepage).
Scores by criterion
We scored StepTo from its homepage, about page, and founder page. Commercial clarity scores highest because rates are published; stability scores lowest because the team is small.
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production track record | 20% | 5.5 | Result metrics published; client identities withheld and case pages are summary-level. |
| Technical depth | 15% | 6.5 | LLM, RAG, agents, custom ML, plus full-stack TypeScript and Python delivery. |
| Industry depth | 10% | 5.5 | Fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, SaaS, logistics, government, and telecom listed. |
| Delivery model and handoff | 15% | 7.0 | Five-stage engagement, two-week paid trial, milestone governance, full IP to client. |
| Commercial clarity | 10% | 8.0 | Published monthly rates, project minimums, and hourly rate card. |
| Platform independence | 10% | 7.0 | Works across OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, GCP, and Azure without a single-cloud lock-in. |
| Stability and scale | 10% | 5.0 | Founded 2020; 15 to 20 engineers. |
| Independent evidence | 10% | 5.5 | Founder bio and self-published delivery metrics; directory badges on site. |
| Overall | 100% | 6.2 | Weighted average |
Where StepTo fits
StepTo is used by EU and US scale-ups that want a small Belgrade team to build AI features or augment engineering at published nearshore rates. On price it sits at the lower end of European AI engineering shops. Competitors on this site include Uptech and DataRoot Labs for compact Eastern European AI teams, and Leanware for nearshore product engineering.
| Need | Fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| LLM or RAG features for a SaaS product | Strong | AI is its headline practice with published RAG results. |
| A dedicated nearshore squad with trial period | Strong | Two-week paid trial and published team pricing. |
| Transparent commercial terms | Strong | Rate card and monthly minimums are on the site. |
| A 50-person enterprise program | Weak | Team of 15 to 20 is too small. |
What clients and leaders say
StepTo’s leaders and clients describe its work in published announcements. One buyer concern is written from public facts about the firm.
“From $4,500 per developer per month. Start in 2-4 weeks, with a two-week paid trial and free replacement within 30 days.”
“Every engagement now includes an AI strategy layer. StepTo helps clients build software that thinks.”
“Igor has 15+ years in software engineering and business development. He specializes in scaling engineering teams, nearshore strategy, and AI-driven product development.”
“The published rates and trial made commercial talks easy, but with only 15 to 20 engineers we booked capacity early and asked for NDA references because client identities on the result stories are hidden.”
Where customer reviews couldn’t be found, our analysts attempted to give a voice to buyer sentiment, drawing on real information from review sites, forums and product documentation. Based on: StepTo’s about page and the results section on its homepage.
Who leads StepTo
Igor Gazivoda founded StepTo in 2020 and is its chief executive (Igor page).