Outsourcing to the Philippines: what it costs and how it works
What outsourcing to the Philippines means, what it costs, and where it usually goes wrong — set out plainly, role by role.
What outsourcing to the Philippines actually means
Outsourcing to the Philippines means hiring someone based in the Philippines to do a specific job for your business, rather than leaving the role unfilled or hiring locally at a higher cost. On its own, that's simple. What gets confusing is that four different arrangements all get called outsourcing, and they carry different cost and compliance implications.
The four worth telling apart:
You engage someone self-employed, usually through a platform like Upwork or Fiverr, or directly. No employer relationship either side — you pay for delivered work, and they handle their own tax and business registration.
You register as an employer in the Philippines and handle payroll, tax and statutory contributions yourself, the same as hiring locally. Full control, and the compliance responsibility sits with you.
You buy capacity from a call-centre-style provider, usually for high-volume, script-based work. The seat is theirs, and the person filling it can rotate without much notice.
A provider is the local employer of record, covering payroll, statutory compliance, equipment and local HR, while the working relationship stays direct between you and the person doing the job. This is Puka's model.
What contractor of record covers
Contractor of record means Puka employs the person locally in the Philippines, covering payroll, statutory compliance, equipment and local HR. The commercial relationship sits with Puka's Australian entity, so you're contracting with an Australian business even though the person doing the work is based in the Philippines.
The practical effect: you don't need a Philippine entity to hire someone based there. That's the assumption that stops most businesses from looking into this at all, and it isn't necessary under a contractor-of-record model.
What it costs
Puka charges in two parts: a flat fee to run the search, and a monthly retainer for as long as the person stays. Nothing is charged when someone is placed.
$500, flat and non-refundable, buys a shortlist of three or four screened candidates within three weeks. It's the same fee for every role, so nobody has to negotiate a discount before there's anything to evaluate.
After that, the retainer runs monthly for as long as the person stays, with no minimum term: $750 for specialist roles, $550 for support roles. There's no separate fee for the placement itself.
The person is paid at the rate they actually earn. Puka doesn't mark up the salary — it's disclosed as its own line, not folded into the retainer.
Talent from $1,500 a month, plus a $750 retainer — published from $2,250 a month, plus the $500 search fee.
Talent from $1,000 a month, plus a $750 retainer — published from $1,750 a month, plus the $500 search fee.
Talent from $600 a month, plus a $550 retainer — published from $1,150 a month, plus the $500 search fee.
Where outsourcing usually goes wrong
Outsourcing works when a specific set of risks gets managed. Four come up most often:
The hard part was never finding someone in the Philippines to do the work. It's finding the right person — most of what goes wrong later traces back to who got hired, not where they're based.
A hire who leaves after a few months usually means paying to search again. There's no fee for placement here, so there's nothing sunk if it doesn't work out, and no cost to replace someone at any point.
Some providers put a rotating account manager between the client and the person doing the job. Here, the founders run the hiring directly — Patrick in the Philippines where it happens, Shria in Australia where the client is — with a named manager on the account once someone starts.
Hiring someone in the Philippines directly means registering as a local employer and handling statutory contributions yourself. Contractor of record moves that to Puka: payroll, statutory compliance, equipment and local HR.
Roles we place
Puka places three kinds of roles for Australian businesses, each screened for the specific work rather than treated as general capacity:
Loan processing and broker support, screened against the lenders and systems your practice runs on. From $2,250 a month.
Sub-account setup, workflow builds, funnels, integrations and the maintenance nobody notices until it breaks. From $1,750 a month.
Executive assistants, bookkeeping and tax support, and recruitment support. From $1,150 a month.
FAQ
Hiring someone based in the Philippines to do a specific job for your business. It covers a few different arrangements — direct hire, a BPO seat, or a contractor-of-record placement — that carry different cost and compliance implications.
No. Under a contractor-of-record model, Puka is the local employer of record — payroll, statutory compliance, equipment and local HR are handled without you setting up your own entity in the Philippines.
A BPO seat buys capacity from a call-centre-style provider, usually for high-volume, script-based work, and the person on the seat can rotate without much notice. A contractor of record employs one specific person on your behalf, with the working relationship staying direct.
$500 flat to start the search, then a monthly retainer for as long as the person stays: published from $2,250 a month for mortgage and loan processors, $1,750 for GHL and automation specialists, and $1,150 for support roles. Nothing is charged when someone is placed.
No. There's no minimum term — the $500 search fee does the job a minimum term usually does.
Yes. Puka is contractor of record in the Philippines, covering payroll and statutory compliance there, and the commercial relationship sits with Puka's Australian entity.