Where costs are supposed to sit, and where hidden charges usually sneak in.
A legitimate offshore staffing monthly fee covers salary, statutory benefits, and a management fee. It should not include vague, undefined "administrative charges." Software, equipment, and company-specific tools are typically billed separately, or provided directly by you, the same way they would be for any in-house hire.
The most common place costs get obscured is inside a vague "administrative fee" or markup that isn't broken out from the base salary. If a provider can't tell you, in plain numbers, what portion of your monthly bill is salary versus their fee, that's worth pushing on before signing anything.
A simple test before you sign: ask the provider to break down your quote into salary, statutory benefits, and management fee as three separate line items. A provider confident in their pricing will do this without hesitation. One that resists is usually hiding the markup.
Most reputable providers invoice clients in USD, removing currency risk from the client side. Ask specifically how currency conversion is handled if the quote is in a local currency, since exchange rate fluctuations can quietly change your effective cost month to month.
We'll walk you through exactly what's salary, what's benefits, and what's our fee, before you commit to anything.