If you’ve ever looked into hiring outside help for your small business, you’ve probably run into two extremes: rock-bottom hourly rates on freelance marketplaces that make you nervous about quality, or full-service agencies whose pricing pages don’t show a number at all. Neither one actually answers the question most small business owners are asking: what does this really cost, month to month, compared to hiring locally?
The local hire, honestly priced
A full-time customer support or admin hire in the US typically runs $18–$25/hour once you account for wages alone — and that’s before payroll taxes, benefits, paid time off, equipment, training time, and the cost of replacing them if it doesn’t work out. All in, most small businesses are looking at $2,800–$4,000/month for one full-time role, plus the weeks it takes to find, interview, and onboard someone.
The managed outsourcing option
OverseasVA staff start at $7/hour. For a full-time role, that works out to roughly $1,200/month — for the same coverage, the same responsibilities, and a team member who’s been screened for English fluency, tested on the specific skills the role needs, and locally managed in the Philippines rather than left to work unsupervised.
That’s not a cheaper, lower-quality version of the local hire. It’s the same job, done by someone whose cost of living allows the same work to be priced very differently — with a company standing behind the hire so you’re not managing them entirely on your own.
What that gap actually buys you
The savings matter, but most clients tell us the bigger relief is what happens to their own time. Instead of personally training a new hire, checking their work, and hoping it sticks, you have one point of contact who’s already handling the day-to-day management — and a replacement process if a placement genuinely isn’t working out.
Where the marketplace model falls short
Freelance marketplaces can get you a similarly low hourly rate, but you’re the one vetting, training, managing performance, and handling it if someone disappears mid-project. That’s a full-time management job on top of running your business. The management is the part you’re actually paying for when you work with a company instead of an individual freelancer — it just doesn’t show up as a separate line item.
The honest math
| Local full-time hire | Marketplace freelancer | OverseasVA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly cost | $18–25/hr | $5–15/hr (varies widely) | From $7/hr |
| Monthly cost (full-time) | $2,800–4,000+ | Varies, unpredictable | ~$1,200 |
| Vetting & training | You do it | You do it | Done for you |
| Ongoing management | You do it | You do it | Shared with you |
| Replacement if it doesn’t work | You start over | You start over | Handled for you |
If you’re trying to figure out whether outsourcing makes sense for your business, the real question isn’t “how cheap can I go” — it’s “what am I actually buying, and who’s managing it.” That’s the conversation we have on every free call, with real numbers for your specific situation, not a generic quote.
Book a Free Call and we’ll walk through what this would actually look like for your business.
