This is absolute truth, it’s very likely you will be called back if the vendor they chose starts cutting corners. You might even have more work to clean up the mess they leave behind.
There's a skill that good programmers have of understanding at a visceral level what the customer is asking for and delivering that and more. But a good programmer often does this "effortlessly" which leads a company to believe that all programmers are like this, so you should just find the cheapest one. They're not all the same and companies that have made this mistake quickly learn to cherish their good programmers (whether employees or contractors).