Roughly $14,400 to $24,000 a year, all in, is what this market publishes for one full-time hire, and that is the plain answer to how much does offshore staffing cost in Australia. Team Up Now publishes a flat A$300 per employee per month fee, and an all-in cost of A$1,200 to A$2,000 a month including salary and statutory contributions. Virtual Coworker publishes all-inclusive hourly rates from A$8.
I lead with that because in 27 days a different number changes, and founders are treating it as the win of the quarter.
Outstaffer sells into this, so read our own published rates as a disclosure of interest rather than a pitch.
What the Reserve Bank actually decided
On 31 March 2026 the Reserve Bank published its conclusions on merchant card payment costs. Two things land on 1 October 2026. Surcharging ends on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa debit, prepaid and credit cards, and the caps on domestic interchange fees drop.
The credit cap is worth reading twice. It falls from 0.8 per cent of transaction value to 0.3 per cent. Debit and prepaid go from 10 cents to 8 cents. Foreign card caps wait until 1 April 2027.
The Bank's framing is that "small businesses should benefit the most because they tend to pay fees closer to the existing caps".
Good news, then. Also smaller than it feels.
How much does offshore staffing cost in Australia?
Between $1,200 and $2,000 a month per person, on the figures anyone states in public. Cloudstaff puts office-based roles at USD $1,200 to $1,800 all inclusive. My Cloud Assistant publishes A$1,950 for 180 hours.
Why is the range so wide?
Because Beepo, MicroSourcing, Hammerjack, Staff Domain and CXC Global publish no price at all. Two substitute a "save up to 70 per cent" claim, which is a direction, not a number.
Is there a recruiting fee for offshore staffing?
Sometimes, and it moves the first-year total more than the monthly rate does. Team Up Now publishes an optional A$2,000 per placement. Remote Staff publishes AUD $8,000 plus GST. Outstaffer publishes no onboarding or setup fee on Employer of Record, and no lock-in.
The arithmetic, which is where this gets uncomfortable
The interchange cut first. On every $1 million of consumer credit card turnover, a cap falling from 0.8 to 0.3 per cent is worth $5,000 a year, and only if your acquirer passes all of it through.
Now one role. On 24x7 Direct's published homepage comparison, their remote staff cost $12 an hour against $30 an hour for local staff. That $18 gap across a 38-hour week is $35,568 a year on a single desk.
You would need about $7.1 million a year in consumer credit card turnover for the interchange win to match one restructured role.
That is the post in one line. One number arrives by regulation, in basis points, whether you act or not. The other is percentage points of payroll and requires you to do something.
The honest case against me
For the 16 per cent of Australian businesses that do surcharge, 1 October is no win. They lose the ability to pass card costs on, and must absorb them or reprice. Repricing a service business is hard.
The deeper counter is better. Card fees are passive and certain. Restructuring a role is active, carries execution risk, and hands you a classification problem if you get the relationship wrong. A $5,000 saving you cannot fumble beats a $35,000 saving you can. Get advice on your own arrangement first.
I still think the second number wins, because you can do both and only one compounds.
Related reading
- The hidden cost of getting your first offshore hire wrong
- What roles can be filled through offshore staffing
What I would do before 1 October
Ask your acquirer in writing what your effective rate will be on 2 October. Most will not volunteer it. Then price one role on published figures, and check the person you already pay overseas is classified correctly, which five questions settle in about a minute. The difference between an EOR and a PEO matters here too.
If the role stacks up, sign up and run it and you will have a real cost instead of a range.
The question I would like answered: does anyone know their effective card rate to two decimals, and their fully loaded cost per seat to the same precision?
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