Managed testing services: we run the testing, you get the result
Managed testing means you hand over the testing function and we return a result you can ship on. Not a pile of CVs. Not five contractors you have to manage. We plan the testing, staff it from our 50+ engineers, do it, report it, and answer for it.
If you want to understand the model before buying anything, start at QA outsourcing.
// what we run
- The test plan
- The work
- The reporting
- The staffing
What managed means, precisely
The word gets used loosely, so here is the line we draw. In a managed engagement we own four things:
- The test plan. What gets tested, at what depth, and what we are deliberately not testing.
- The work. Manual and automated, written and run by our engineers.
- The reporting. What we found, what it means for the release, and what is still open.
- The staffing. If someone leaves or goes on holiday, that is our problem to solve, not yours.
What you keep is the decision to ship. We do not sign off your release. We tell you what is in it and you decide.
The difference from staff augmentation matters. With augmentation you get people and you manage them, so their output is your management problem. With managed testing you get an outcome and a person accountable for it. Augmentation is cheaper per hour and more expensive in your own time.
Who this is for
Companies that ship regularly and do not want to build a QA department. That usually means one of these.
You have no QA function and the developers are testing their own work. You had a QA team and it left. Your product has grown past what one or two testers can cover. Or you have a compliance deadline and need testing that somebody independent will put their name to.
It is a bad fit if your release cadence is unpredictable and low, say a handful of releases a year. You will pay for capacity you do not use, and per-release testing will serve you better. We will say so on the first call.
How an engagement runs
Two weeks, free if you are not happy with what we deliver. We embed, read the product, write the first tests, and file real bugs. At the end you decide whether to continue. We invoice from week three. This exists because QA quality is impossible to judge from a proposal, and we would rather be judged on bugs we actually found in your product.
After that, a typical month looks like: a maintained regression suite, exploratory testing on what changed, automation built where it pays for itself, and a written report you can forward to your board without editing.
The same engineers stay on your product. An engineer six months into your codebase catches things a new one never will, so we staff for retention rather than rotating a bench.
What it costs
$25 to $45 an hour depending on seniority, engagement length and mix of work. Longer commitments move down that range.
Five tools we built ourselves are included at no licence cost: BugBoard for test management and AI test generation, Flows for automation that repairs its own selectors, Auditi for GDPR, WCAG and FDA auditing, BetterFlow for hour-by-hour transparency, and our AI Security Toolkit. We build them because we use them daily, and we do not charge you separately for our own tooling.
BetterFlow is worth calling out on a managed contract specifically. It shows you what the hours you are buying went into, which is the question every managed services buyer eventually asks and most suppliers answer with a slide.
Why trust us with the whole function
We are independent QA. We are not the team that built your software, so we have no development work on your product to protect by under-reporting defects.
- Four ISO certificates. ISO 9001:2015 (quality management), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (information security), ISO 14001:2015 (environmental), ISO 13485:2016 (medical devices). ISO 13485 is the medical device quality standard, and we hold it alongside 9001, 14001 and 27001. It is the one medical device manufacturers look for when they qualify a testing supplier.
- A NATO procurement agreement. The NATO NCIA Basic Ordering Agreement (NCAGE 1JGAL), reference NCIA/BOA/42405442. It is a signed ordering agreement, the thing NATO actually issues to suppliers. Any NATO body, and the government agencies of NATO member nations, can order from us under terms that are already signed, so a project starts without a contract negotiation.
- Avetta Consortium member since February 2025, the supply chain prequalification network large buyers use to pre-screen contractors. We are an Avetta member, so supply-chain teams that screen contractors through Avetta can onboard us directly.
- 4.9 on Clutch across 65+ reviews. It is the one item on this list written by clients rather than by an auditor or a procurement office.
- Specialists on tap. A performance engineer or a security tester can join your account for a week without you hiring anyone, because they are already on other accounts of ours.
Our ISO 27001 covers how we handle your data, credentials and test environments, and our ISO 9001 quality system governs how every engagement runs. We send the certificates with their scope statement, so your procurement team reads it first-hand.
What we will tell you that a sales call will not
Sometimes what the first two weeks turn up is that your QA is fine and your problem is requirements. Sometimes it is that you need two engineers, not the eight you were planning. Sometimes it is that the suite should be deleted rather than fixed.
Any of those answers costs us the larger contract, and being willing to give them is the only reason our reporting is worth reading. If the honest finding is that you need less than you came to buy, that is the finding you get.
Common questions
How much do managed testing services cost?
$25 to $45 an hour, depending on seniority, engagement length and the mix of work. Our five QA tools are included at no licence cost, and a team is usually testing about two weeks after the first call.
What is the difference between managed testing and QA outsourcing?
Managed testing is one way to outsource QA. We own the test plan, the work, the reporting and the staffing, and one person answers for the result. In staff augmentation you get engineers and manage them yourself. QA outsourcing compares the models.
Talk to us
Tell us what you ship and how often. We will tell you whether managed testing fits, what it would cost, and whether you would be better served by outsourcing part of it or by hiring.
Two weeks, free if you are not happy with what we deliver. We invoice from week three.
Need help with software testing?
BetterQA provides independent QA services across manual testing, automation, security audits, and performance testing. ISO 27001, 9001, 14001 and 13485 certified.