Every score on this site is a real screening record · see one
Flat-fee overseas hiring
Hire overseas talent on the honest numbers — not a sales call
Agencies charge 25–35% of salary and make you book a call to hear it. We publish every number — real fees, real salaries — and run flat-fee searches with screening you can actually audit: structured interviews, graded work samples, scores.
- Free to start — no card
- Pay only to meet your finalists
- Free re-run if none clear your bar
See a search run — start to shortlist
Describe the role, we screen every applicant on graded work, and you get three finalists documented in full. Here's the whole thing — the actual interface, in about ten seconds.
Step 1 — describe the role once
Not just the Philippines — five talent markets
Pick for cost, for real US-timezone overlap, or for a native-English voice. We source across all five and screen them exactly the same way.
Philippines
Evening / async shift · UTC+8
The deepest, most affordable pool — support, admin, bookkeeping. English is an official language.
Hiring guide →Colombia
Full US-hours overlap
Bogotá runs US Central time all year — live collaboration with no antisocial hours.
Hiring guide →Mexico
Your timezone, next door
Same or near-same hours as most of the US, and close enough for the occasional visit.
Hiring guide →South Africa
US-morning overlap · UTC+2
Native English with a neutral accent — the pick for phone, voice, and executive support.
Hiring guide →Argentina
US-afternoon overlap · UTC−3
Deep senior technical and creative talent — developers, designers, and marketers.
Hiring guide →One brief in. Three finalists out.
Describe the role once
A structured brief — must-haves, band, timezone. No discovery call, no back-and-forth. Slot confirmed within 24 hours.
We screen with evidence
Sourcing across the major PH + LatAm pools, structured interviews, and a graded work sample for every finalist — all documented, all auditable.
You hire directly
A shortlist of 3 with scores and full answers, typically in 2–3 weeks. You employ your hire at their local salary — no markup, ever.
The fee everyone else buries: 25–35% of salary
On a $1,500/month hire, the standard agency fee runs $4,500 to $6,300 — and you learn that on a call, after the pitch. With us it's a single flat fee, and you don't pay a cent to find out who's good: run the whole search, read all three finalists in full, and decide.
| Provider | Fee on a $1,500/mo hire | Model |
|---|---|---|
| Typical agency (25–35%) | $4,500–$6,300 | Percentage of first-year salary |
| HireLATAM | $3,500 | Flat fee |
| Rolemote | Free to start | One flat fee, due only when you meet them |
What you'd pay — and save
Pick a role and a country. Every number is our own sourced data — no marketing math.
Salary bands are our sourced editorial figures × a stated country factor; the agency finding fee is 25–35% of the first-year offshore salary. See the sources →
Get a free hiring brief for an executive assistant →A score you can open
Not a resume and a gut call. Every finalist is a full record — the graded work sample, the scenario answer, the tailored interview — so you judge the person, not our word for it.
Graded work sample
- Tone warm and specific — not a template
- Refund handled with ownership, not policy
- Escalation path is clear and correct
Scenario answer
“I'd acknowledge the second breakage first and own it, then make the refund right before it's asked for twice…”
Round-2 interview
Three questions written from her own answers — graded 84/100. Every score opens into a record exactly like this.
Don't take "rigorous vetting" on faith — run it yourself
The exact rubric that screens our candidates is live on this site. Answer a real scenario question, get the real score and screening notes — same calibration, same penalize-vague instructions, nothing staged.
Before you read any further
We have no track record. If that's what you're buying, buy theirs.
No completed placements, no client logos, no case studies — and we are not going to manufacture any. Several agencies in this market have years of proof, and our comparison pages name them, including where they beat us outright. What we have instead is that nothing is asked of you until you have seen the work: run the whole search, read all three finalists and their graded samples in full, and only then decide whether any of it was worth paying for.
See where competitors beat us →What you'd actually be paying for →
The research is free. All of it.
We publish the numbers whether or not you ever hire through us — sourced, dated, and labeled.
The fees
What recruiting agencies actually charge
25–35% of first-year salary at the big names, $3,500 flat at the discounter — every fee we could verify, side by side.
See the fee table →
The salaries
What overseas talent actually costs per month
Real advertised placement ranges by role — from $600/mo data entry to $4,200/mo senior developers.
See salary ranges →
The agencies
The offshore staffing agencies, compared honestly
Somewhere, Genius, Near, HireLATAM, Paired, Oceans, Wing — who each one is actually for, with the watch-outs.
Compare agencies →
The DIY route
Hire a Filipino VA yourself, step by step
The job-board route costs $69–99/month instead of thousands — if you're willing to do your own screening.
Read the guide →
The decision
Agency or DIY? A five-minute decision guide
The honest trade-off is your money vs. your hours vs. your risk tolerance. A simple framework for picking.
Make the call →
The fine print
Contractor compliance, in plain English
What misclassification means, why the Philippines takes it seriously, and when an employer-of-record makes sense.
Know the risks →Hiring for a specific role? Start here.
What each role really costs, what we test for, and how exposed it is to automation — written per role, with the numbers sourced.
$800–1,400/mo
Executive assistant
The least automatable role we place — trust, context and follow-through.
Read →
$1,000–1,800/mo
Operations manager
Owns processes, vendors and reporting — worth more as AI absorbs execution.
Read →
$800–1,500/mo
Bookkeeper
Screened on a real discrepancy hunt and a month-end close checklist.
Read →
$700–1,100/mo
Customer support
Graded on a genuinely nasty refund scenario and real saved replies.
Read →
One flat fee
Why flat fee
Percentage fees triple when the salary does. Ours doesn't move — and you start free.
Read →
Honest comparison
vs Somewhere.com
Where they're genuinely stronger, and where we're different.
Read →Looking for work, not hiring?
Join the roster: apply once, free, and be considered for every role we're hired to fill. Scored in minutes, answer either way, and finalists are paid for their work sample.
Common questions
How much does it cost to hire overseas talent?
Two very different price tags. The talent itself: advertised full-time salaries run roughly $600–$4,200/month depending on role and country. Getting them hired: either a recruiting agency fee (typically 25–35% of first-year salary, so $2,400–$6,000+ per hire), our single flat-fee done-for-you search (free to start — you see your finalists before any fee is due), or a DIY job-board subscription at $69–99/month where you do the screening yourself.
Is hiring overseas talent legit?
Yes — it's a mature, decade-plus-old market. US companies commonly hire full-time remote staff in the Philippines, Latin America, and South Africa either as direct contractors or through employer-of-record services. The savings versus equivalent US salaries are commonly 60–80%. The main things to get right are fair pay for the local market, a clear contractor agreement, and honest classification.
What makes Rolemote's search different from an agency?
Three things: a single flat fee instead of a percentage of salary — and you start free, seeing your finalists in full before anything is due; documented screening — you see every finalist's structured answers, graded work sample, and score, not just a resume; and a fully async process — there is no sales call anywhere. You employ your hire directly at their local salary, with no markup ever.
Where do these numbers come from?
Every figure on this site is pulled from the named company's own published pages or a cited third-party source, with the date we checked it. When a number is an estimate or secondhand, we label it that way instead of presenting it as fact.