Same role, two very different cost bases and timelines.
Hiring in-house gives you maximum control and a person in your own time zone, at local salary plus on-costs, typically after two to four months of recruiting. Offshore managed staffing fills the same role from Asia in two to four weeks at a lower all-in monthly cost, with employment handled by the partner. You still direct the work in both models.
A partner recruits in-market, employs the person locally and manages payroll, benefits and HR. The employee works your hours, in your tools, under your direction, and you pay one monthly fee. You get access to talent pools in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and India without opening an entity.
You recruit, employ and pay the person directly in your own country. You carry salary, superannuation or pension, insurance, payroll tax, recruitment fees, equipment and workspace, plus the internal time to run the process. In exchange you get full time-zone alignment and complete control of the employment relationship.
| Dimension | Offshore managed staffing | In-house local hire |
|---|---|---|
| Time to hire | Two to four weeks from brief to offer. | Two to four months is typical for skilled roles. |
| All-in monthly cost | One fee covering salary, statutory costs, HR and management. | Salary plus on-costs, recruitment fees, equipment, workspace and overhead. |
| Recruitment cost | Included in the monthly fee. | Agency fees commonly 15–25% of first-year salary. |
| Talent pool | Large markets across Asia with deep skill availability. | Limited to your local market and visa constraints. |
| Time zone | Aligned to your hours by design, with agreed overlap. | Fully aligned by default. |
| Control of the work | Yours. | Yours. |
| Employment compliance | The partner's responsibility. | Yours. |
| Scaling down | Notice period; no redundancy exposure for you. | Redundancy process, cost and legal exposure. |
| Best fit | Roles you need filled quickly and sustainably at lower cost. | Roles requiring physical presence, local licensing or on-site client contact. |
Both models are legitimate. The right answer depends on the role, not on which provider you are talking to.
The saving varies by role, seniority and market, and it is best measured on total cost rather than salary. Compare your fully loaded local cost — salary, statutory on-costs, recruitment fees, equipment, workspace and management overhead — against the single monthly offshore fee, because that fee already includes recruitment, employment and HR.
Yes, when it is set as a hiring constraint before recruitment starts. Most engagements are built around four to six hours of live overlap; roles that need full coverage are staffed on your shift from the outset. Committing to hours up front matters far more than negotiating them after someone is hired.
Quality tracks the hiring process, not the location. The failure mode in offshore hiring is weak screening and no management layer, not the talent pool. Structured vetting, real reference checks and ongoing performance support close the gap; large engineering and support markets across Asia are deep in senior talent.
Not with managed staffing or an employer of record — the partner is the legal employer in that country, so no entity, local payroll registration or in-country director is required. You would only need your own entity if you wanted to employ people directly in that market long term.
They are provisioned like any other employee: your identity provider, your device policy, your repositories, your chat and project tools. They attend the same standups and reviews, appear on the org chart under their own names, and report to the same managers as their local counterparts.
You give the notice set out in the agreement, and the staffing partner manages the employment side, including any local statutory obligations to the employee. Because you are not the legal employer, you avoid running a redundancy process and carrying the associated cost and legal exposure yourself.
Tell us the role and the hours you need covered. You get a shortlist of named candidates with vetting records and an all-in monthly cost, so you can compare the models on your own numbers.