Where your outsourcing dollar actually goes
Every offshore staffing invoice hides one number: the gap between what you pay and what your specialist earns. We assembled it from public data — providers’ own published prices and their employees’ own public salary reports — and we disclose our side of the same math.
The spread
When you pay an offshore staffing provider $1,500 a month for a dedicated professional, three parties split it: the specialist’s salary, the provider’s real operating costs, and the provider’s margin. Only the first two create value for you. The third is invisible — and in this industry, it is often the largest slice.
You can’t see any provider’s internal books — including ours. What you can see is the arithmetic every provider leaves in public: their published prices on one website, and their employees’ self-reported salaries on another. This report simply puts those two public numbers side by side.
Published price vs public salary, provider by provider
| Provider | Published client price | Public employee-salary signal | Implied gross spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Provider ALarge NCR-based dedicated-employee firmpublished pricing ↗ · salary reports ↗ | $1,095–1,995/mo per dedicated employee (its own pricing page), prepaid, plus a 15-day notice-period deposit | 1,236 self-reported salaries on Glassdoor — average Web Developer ₹5,10,000/yr ≈ $445/mo at ₹95.5/$ | ≈ 2.5–4.5× the average developer salary |
| Provider BUS-marketed virtual-assistant provider, India talentpublished pricing ↗ · salary reports ↗ | $1,999–2,999/mo per assistant (its own pricing page; 4 or 8 hrs/day) | Indeed India average for the assistant role: ₹6,18,570/yr ≈ $540/mo | ≈ 3.7–5.5× the average assistant salary |
| Provider CUS real-estate VA provider, Philippines talentpublished pricing ↗ · its own careers page ↗ | From $1,988/mo full-time (its own pricing page; specialized tier from $2,500/mo) | Its own careers site tells applicants they "earn from $600–$800, depending on position" | ≈ 2.5–3.3× — both numbers from its own websites |
| Zedtreeodisclosed — the only named provider herepublished rate card ↗ | $6–10/hr all-inclusive full-time ($1,056–1,760/mo) — published for 50+ roles, at or below the bottom of every range above | Specialists are paid competitively for global-client work; remote-first, so no office or night-commute apparatus to fund | Structurally thin — the price is the receipt |
Providers are linked, not named — every figure traces to the linked public page (provider pricing pages and Glassdoor / Indeed aggregates), fetched 17 Jul 2026. Salary aggregates are self-reported by employees and shown as directional signals, not audited payroll; conversions use ₹95.5/$. Spot something outdated? Tell usand we’ll correct it.
What the spread legitimately pays for
The gap is not pure profit, and this report doesn’t claim it is. Traditional offshore providers carry real costs your invoice funds:
- —Offices — floors of seats in Noida, Gurugram, Manila.
- —Management layers — team leads, account managers, floor supervisors.
- —Sales and marketing — the ads and SDRs that found you.
- —Recruitment engines — screening tens of thousands of applicants for “top 1%” claims.
- —Night-shift infrastructure — legally mandated cabs, security, facilities.
The question this report puts to buyers isn’t “is the spread evil?” — it’s “how much of it buys outcomes for you?” An office your specialist commutes to at midnight doesn’t make your books close faster. A thinner model — remote-first, founder-run, published rates — simply has less to fund between your fee and your specialist’s paycheck.
Who captures the currency gap?
A US dollar trades at roughly ₹95 but buys inside India what about ₹22 buys — a ≈4× purchasing-power gap. That gap is the entire economic engine of offshore staffing, and it doesn’t disappear: someone captures it. In a fat-spread model, the provider captures most of it. In a thin-spread model, it’s split between your savings and your specialist’s salary — which is exactly why the same seat can cost 40–60% less and retain its specialist. The full economics →
Where the numbers behind this report live
- The Offshore Staffing Rate Index (2026) →Our published bill rate for every role, beside the BLS median for the nearest US occupation. Downloadable CSV.
- Why remote staff can cost $5–10/hour →The FX and cost-of-living economics behind India-based rates, with sources.
- The currency gap →Why businesses overpay for talent they could hire better — the operator's view.
- Remote salary comparison tool →US vs India loaded cost, role by role, from public salary aggregates.
- Outsource to India — how the model works →Vetting, compliance, coverage hours and what the rate includes.
- Compare hiring models →Dedicated remote staff vs freelancers, agencies, VA marketplaces and outsourcing vendors.
Our side of the math, in public
Rates published for 50+ roles. Vetting methodology published. A 5-day trial so the claim gets tested on your work, not our words. That’s what “the price is the receipt” means.
Where the spread comes from, in US terms
The spread is only meaningful against a real comparison. Below, the US side is the Bureau of Labor Statistics median for the nearest occupation (May 2025 OEWS), loaded 1.3× for employer cost — every figure links back to bls.gov so the baseline is checkable, not asserted.
| Role | US occupation (BLS median) | Loaded US cost/yr | Zedtreeo/yr | Saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full-Stack Developers | Software Developers SOC 15-1252 · $135,980 | $176,774 | $19,008 | 89% |
| WordPress Developers | Web Developers SOC 15-1254 · $92,650 | $120,445 | $14,784 | 88% |
| Accountants | Accountants and Auditors SOC 13-2011 · $83,680 | $108,784 | $14,784 | 86% |
| Digital Marketers | Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists SOC 13-1161 · $78,760 | $102,388 | $14,784 | 86% |
| Executive Assistants | Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants SOC 43-6011 · $76,590 | $99,567 | $12,672 | 87% |
Figures are computed from the same dataset and the same 1.3× load the full Rate Index uses — an extract, not a separate calculation. Across all 45 roles with a BLS match the range is 79–94% and the median is 91%, so the rows above are representative rather than the flattering end.
Read this as a gross rate comparison. It sets our published starting rate against the loaded cost of the nearest US occupation, at 176 hours a month. It does not include what you still spend — onboarding, management time, tooling — which is why the savings we quote in ordinary copy are the more conservative 70–85%. Your actual rate depends on the brief.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the spread in offshore staffing?
- The gap between what a client pays and what the specialist earns. When you pay a provider $1,500 a month for a dedicated professional, three parties split it: the specialist’s salary, the provider’s real operating costs, and the provider’s margin. Only the first two create value for you. The third is invisible, and in this industry it is often the largest slice.
- How can anyone calculate a provider’s spread without seeing their books?
- You cannot see any provider’s internal books, including ours. What is public is the arithmetic every provider leaves in the open: their published prices on one website, and their employees’ self-reported salaries on another. This report puts those two public numbers side by side. It is a gross implied spread, not an audited margin.
- How large is the spread at other providers?
- On the public math, roughly 2.5 to 5.5 times the average local salary for the role. One large NCR-based firm publishes $1,095–1,995 per month against 1,236 self-reported Glassdoor salaries averaging ₹5,10,000/yr, about $445/month — some 2.5 to 4.5 times. A US-marketed virtual-assistant provider publishes $1,999–2,999 per month against an Indeed India average of ₹6,18,570/yr, about $540/month — some 3.7 to 5.5 times.
- What exchange rate are these figures converted at?
- ₹95.5 to the dollar. Salary figures are annual and self-reported to Glassdoor or Indeed; prices are taken from each provider’s own published pricing page. Both sides of every comparison are linked so the arithmetic can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- Does Zedtreeo disclose its own spread?
- Yes — that is the point of publishing this. We put our own side of the same math on the page rather than only measuring competitors, and our starting rate is published rather than quoted behind a form.
- How is the savings percentage calculated?
- By setting our published starting rate against the loaded cost of the nearest US occupation at 176 hours a month, using BLS medians and the same 1.3× load the full Rate Index uses. Across all 45 roles with a BLS match the range is 79 to 94 percent and the median is 91 percent, so the rows shown are representative rather than the flattering end.
- Why do you quote 70–85% elsewhere if the table shows 85–89%?
- Because the table is a gross rate comparison. It does not include what you still spend after hiring — onboarding, management time, tooling — so the savings quoted in ordinary copy are deliberately the more conservative 70 to 85 percent. Your actual rate depends on the brief.
- Which US occupations are used as the comparison?
- The nearest BLS occupation to each role, named explicitly so the match can be disputed: Software Developers (SOC 15-1252, $135,980) for full-stack developers, Web Developers (15-1254, $92,650), Accountants and Auditors (13-2011, $83,680), Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists (13-1161, $78,760), and Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants (43-6011, $76,590).