How Can You Estimate Your Outsourcing Costs?
Outsourcing is a big unknown for many businesses, and many don’t know where to start. First, there is no single source of truth. Some sources might indicate that you can find outsourced talent for $3/hour, but would it be good? How can your business estimate its costs while being sure that the quality of the outsourcing will be worth the price?
Outsourcing companies can help your business find great talent and reduce your risks, but how much do they charge as a premium? Most outsourcing companies do not share their pricing until you are already deep into their sales pipelines, making the opportunity cost of investigating outsourcing quite high.
In short, how can you as a business:
1. Estimate how much outsourcing will cost you.
2. Know that these costs will reflect good talent.
3. Understand and trust the information source.
In this article, we’ll explore the factors that can affect outsourcing costs and provide you with some free tools and resources to help your business be sure of the three points above to provide a good estimate of costs for various outsourced roles.
Questions to determine your outsourcing costs
To calculate outsourcing costs, small business owners need to consider several factors. Here are the steps to follow:
- What skills need to be outsourced? Start by identifying the tasks that are suitable for outsourcing. This could include customer service, data entry, accounting, or software development. This is the most important factor to consider when outsourcing as developer skills are more expensive than non-technical skillsets.
- How complex is the task? Once you’ve identified the tasks to be outsourced, determine their complexity. Simple tasks like data entry or web research are relatively easy to outsource and are cheaper. More complex tasks like software development or legal services require specialized expertise and are more expensive to outsource.
- What region will my talent(s) need to be in? Some companies need teams that are knowledgeable of markets like the USA and have great English-speaking abilities. Others focus more on technical skills like programming and social media marketing. Determining this will shift where the outsourced talent will come from, and that will impact your cost.
Free tools to estimate your outsourcing cost
If you want a more accurate estimate, some outsourcing cost estimation tools do exist.
Global Hola Outsourcing Cost Calculator
- https://globalhola.com/free-outsourcing-cost-estimator/
- Benefits: No requirement to input your contact details (no sales pitch), and you can build an entire planned outsourced team to estimate the costs, talent by talent.
- Negatives: The cost estimator does not provide hourly rates, only monthly outsourcing rates based on full-time work.
Zendesk Outsourcing Cost Estimate Tables
- https://www.zenbusiness.com/determine-outsourcing-cost/
- Benefits: Provides a good overview of how much you could save with outsourcing.
- Negatives: Doesn’t allow you to build a team or understand how much each outsourced talent will cost.
CloudTask Call Center Outsourcing Tables
- https://cloudtask.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-outsource-a-call-center
- Benefits: Provides an overview of how much outsourced call centers would be in different global markets.
- Negatives: Only shows information for call centers and not other types of talents.
Basis 365 Accounting Outsourcing Cost Estimates
- https://www.basis365.com/cost-to-outsource-accounting-and-bookkeeping
- Benefits: Good information on accounting costs for outsourcing.
- Negatives: Only provides accounting and bookkeeping estimates.
To get your free outsourcing cost estimate, visit these free tools and resources to get started.
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Can I get some personalized help to estimate my outsourcing costs?
If you want to talk about how to start your journey toward hiring some help, Global Hola can help. At Global Hola, we help small businesses and solo entrepreneurs find their perfect virtual assistant to grow their businesses and reduce their stress.
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