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OUR STORY

We Built an $8M+ Annual Business With 45+ Offshore Team Members

My name is Harris Goonetilleke and I am the co-founder of Royal Vending, an Australian-based vending machine supplier with more than 50 team members, including 45+ offshore employees.

We currently serve the Australian and New Zealand markets and are now expanding into the UK and Europe.

But when we first started the business, my business partner and I were doing everything ourselves.

As any business owner does in the beginning.

Sales. Order preparation. Fulfilment. Transport. Liaising with customers about deliveries. Setting up machines. Technical support. Marketing. Administration. And the list went on.

Eventually, we got burnt out. There were simply too many moving parts and only so many hours in the day.

But we had another problem.

Hiring Locally Didn't Make Financial Sense

For our business, hiring staff locally at Australian wage rates wasn't financially feasible for many of the roles we needed. The additional labour costs would have made our products more expensive and pushed out the return on investment for our customers.

So we were left with two choices:

Keep doing everything ourselves and accept that our workload was capped by our own capacity.

Or:

Find another way to build the team we needed without destroying the economics of the business.

That's how we got into offshore recruitment.

We Started Breaking Down Everything We Were Doing

We began breaking apart all the different tasks and responsibilities we were wearing as business owners: cold calling, sales, account management, customer service, transport, technical support, administration, bookkeeping, digital marketing, automation, social media and management.

We started finding offshore team members who could take responsibility for different parts of the business. And it didn't stop with basic administration. Our offshore team eventually became involved across call centre operations, technical support, account management, sales, bookkeeping, executive assistance, transport management, administration, marketing and more.

But hiring people was only the beginning. We had to figure out how to actually make an offshore team work.

The Transformation

When we first started, Royal Vending was doing approximately $500,000 per year.

Today, the business generates close to $8 million annually across Australia and New Zealand, with a team of more than 50 people and 45+ offshore team members.

The biggest transformation wasn't simply the revenue. It was our capacity. Our team now handles most of the day-to-day operations, which lets us focus on new markets, strategy and growth rather than being trapped in every operational task.

It has also given us something just as important: more flexibility and more time with our families.

Then We Started Seeing the Same Problem Everywhere

Over the years, friends, family members and other business owners told me about the same problems we'd experienced. They were doing everything themselves. They were burnt out. Hiring locally was too expensive. They didn't know where to find good offshore employees, how to vet them, or how to manage them, and they were worried about hiring the wrong person.

They were stuck in an endless cycle:

More work leads to more pressure, more hours and more burnout, but no financially viable way to add capacity.

We had already experienced that ourselves. That's how Scalehorse was born.

Why We Created This Guide

This guide is everything we wish we had when we first started exploring offshore hiring: what roles can be hired offshore, what offshore employees actually cost, the problems you will encounter, the legal and compliance basics, and how to actually manage a team once you've hired one.

We're not going to pretend offshore hiring is a magic solution. It isn't. But when done properly, it's one of the most powerful ways for a growing business to create additional capacity.

WHO SCALEHORSE IS

Built by Operators, Not Just Recruiters

ScaleHorse was founded by the same team that built Royal Vending from roughly $500,000 per year to close to $8 million annually, with more than 50 team members — 45+ of them offshore.

We didn't start as recruiters. We started as business owners who had a capacity problem and figured out how to solve it. Every system, checklist and lesson in this playbook came from running a real business with a real offshore team.

That's why this isn't generic advice. We've lived the same decisions you're weighing now.

What Makes ScaleHorse Different

Most outsourcing agencies put the employee on their own payroll and charge you a margin every month. The employee works for them, not for you, and the costs keep adding up.

ScaleHorse is built around a different model:

• You hire direct. Your offshore employee works for your business, not for us.
• You pay their wage directly. There is no ongoing agency markup on top of their monthly salary.
• You pay for placement, not a lifetime margin. Our fee is a one-off $4,800 AUD. A $500 deposit starts the search, and the remaining $4,300 is only payable once you're happy with the hire.
• We do the heavy lifting. We source from 200-300 applicants, run interviews, reference checks and personality testing, and present you with a shortlist of the top 3 candidates.
• You're covered by a guarantee. If the hire doesn't work out within the first 6 months, we replace them at no additional cost.
• We stay with you after placement. We provide the tools and resources to manage your offshore employee effectively from day one, so you're not left figuring it out alone.

We built ScaleHorse because we couldn't find a service that worked the way we wished it had when we started. This is the model we wanted back then.

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PART 1: IS OFFSHORE HIRING RIGHT FOR YOU?

Offshore hiring isn't about saving on wages. It's about solving the capacity problems every growing business hits — the same ones we faced before our first offshore hire.

See if any of this sounds familiar:

• You're capped by your own output. There's only so much one person, or one small team, can get through in a day, and it's limiting how fast the business can grow.
• You're turning away work or opportunities because you don't have the capacity to take them on.
• Hiring locally doesn't make economic sense. The wage cost for the role doesn't stack up against what it would actually add to the business.
• You're struggling to find the right local talent at all, not just affordable talent. The skills you need aren't always available in your local market.
• You're spending your time on low-value tasks instead of the work that actually grows the business, sales, strategy, new markets, the things only you can do.
• You're burnt out, doing too much yourself for too long, with no clear way to change that without blowing out the wage bill.
• The role can genuinely be done remotely. It doesn't require someone physically on-site.
• You want to increase output while staying price-competitive, not add headcount at a cost that makes your product or service more expensive than it needs to be.
• You're dealing with high turnover locally and want someone who genuinely values the role and the pay, and brings a strong work ethic, rather than treating the job as a stopgap.

The real question underneath all of this:

Could additional capacity allow your business to grow faster or give you back valuable time?

If two or three of these sound like where you're at, offshore hiring is worth genuinely considering, not as a shortcut, but as a way to solve a problem that local hiring alone often can't.

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PART 2: WHAT CAN YOU HIRE OFFSHORE?

One of the biggest misconceptions is that offshore employees are only suitable for basic administrative work. That's not what we've seen.

If a role can genuinely be done remotely, it can generally be hired offshore, and that covers far more than admin and customer support.

Technology

Software developers, web developers, IT support, technical support, QA and testing, DevOps.

Professional & Degree-Qualified Roles

Accountants and bookkeepers, lawyers and paralegals, architects, draftspeople, engineers, property managers, credit analysts, mortgage broking assistants and loan processors.

Trades-Adjacent & Technical Support

Quantity surveyors, CAD drafters, estimators, project coordinators for construction and trades businesses.

Sales & Customer-Facing

Cold calling, appointment setting, sales representatives, sales development reps, customer service, call centre, customer success.

Finance & Admin

Bookkeeping, accounts payable/receivable, finance administration, virtual assistants, executive assistance, data entry, document processing.

Operations

Operations support, transport coordination, scheduling, procurement, project coordination, property management.

Marketing

Social media, content creation, graphic design, email marketing, digital marketing, marketing administration.

This list keeps growing. Across industries, we've found university-qualified and experienced professionals in almost every field willing to work full-time for a business overseas, not just entry-level support roles.

Hybrid roles

You're also not limited to hiring for one function at a time. A single offshore employee can often cover a combination of responsibilities, for example, bookkeeping and executive assistance, or customer service and social media, tailored to what your business actually needs rather than forcing you into a rigid, single-purpose job description.

The right question isn't "Can this job be done offshore?" It's:

"Which parts of this job actually require someone physically here, and which parts can be systemised and delegated?"

For most roles, in most industries, the honest answer is: less than people assume.

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PART 3: WHAT DOES OFFSHORE HIRING ACTUALLY COST?

This is usually the first question business owners ask. There are two separate numbers here, and it's worth being clear about both: what your employee earns, and what you pay us.

What your offshore employee earns

The rule of thumb: offshore hiring typically costs around 70–80% less than hiring the equivalent role locally.

Our average base cost across generalist roles (tech support, transport managers, appointment setters, bookkeeping) sits at around $1,000 per month. From there, it moves with experience and specialisation:

• $1,000/month for general and generalist roles, with a strong pool of experienced candidates at this level
• $1,500/month for more specialised roles
• $2,000/month for senior specialists

For sales roles, we typically set the base around the same starting point and add commission on top, so the person is properly incentivised and rewarded for performance.

We also work around specific budgets: part-time, a defined budget cap, or particular requirements. There's flexibility across different markets rather than one rigid price list. Hiring under $1,000/month is possible, but quality typically drops off below that point. At $1,000/month and above, we have a strong pool of well-vetted candidates to select from.

Because you hire direct, this is paid straight to your employee, with no ongoing markup running through us.

What you pay Scalehorse

We recruit like other outsourcing agencies, but you hire direct. That means once your employee is placed, you pay them directly and there's no ongoing agency fee sitting on top of their wage every month.

Our fee for sourcing, vetting and placing the right candidate is a one-off $4,800 AUD, split into two parts:

• A $500 deposit to start the process. We begin sourcing and vetting candidates for your role.
• The remaining $4,300 is only payable once you're happy with the hire.

We also provide you with the tools to manage the employee effectively once they're hired, so you're not left figuring out remote management on your own.

What's actually behind that fee

That $500 deposit doesn't just get you a resume or two. It starts a full recruitment process: we source and screen a pool of 200-300 applicants for your role, run them through interviews, reference checks and personality testing, and present you with a shortlist of the top 3 candidates to interview yourself and choose from.

If none of the three are the right fit, we don't stop there and we don't ask for more money. We keep going, sourcing and shortlisting again, until you're genuinely happy with someone. The remaining $4,300 only becomes payable once that happens.

You don't pay full price unless you're happy

Most of our fee isn't due until you've actually found the right person and you're happy to move forward. If the candidates we bring you aren't right, you're not out $4,800 for a bad match, you're only ever out the $500 deposit that got the search started, and we keep working the process until you are happy.

Backed by a 6-month replacement guarantee

If your offshore hire doesn't work out within the first 6 months, we replace them at no additional cost. You're not stuck covering a gap or paying to re-recruit from scratch.

A worked example: admin, AU vs. offshore

Numbers make this easier to picture than percentages. Take a full-time admin hire.

Hiring locally in Australia: the average admin assistant salary is around $66,500 per year, before adding compulsory superannuation (11.5%) and other on-costs like leave, equipment and any recruitment fees. All-in, most businesses are looking at $75,000-$85,000+ per year for the role. Even at the lower end of the market, entry-level admin salaries start around $58,000, which still lands at roughly $65,000-$70,000 once super and on-costs are added.

Hiring offshore through Scalehorse: at our generalist rate of $1,000/month, that's $12,000 per year paid directly to your employee. Add our one-off placement fee of $4,800 (most of which isn't due until you're happy with the hire), and your total first-year cost is around $16,800, then $12,000/year from year two onward, with no ongoing agency markup.

That's a saving of roughly $58,000-$68,000 in year one alone, and $63,000-$73,000+ every year after that, for a role doing the same day-to-day work.

(These figures are indicative and will vary by experience level, exact role and market conditions, get an exact number for your role via the button below.)

Want a rate for your specific role?

Every role is different. The fastest way to get an accurate number is to ask directly.

Want to know exactly what your first hire would cost? Skip the guesswork. Book a call with Harris and we'll give you a real number, not a rate card. Book a call →

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PART 4: WHERE SHOULD YOU HIRE FROM?

Different countries have different specialties. The Philippines, India, South Africa, South America and Eastern Europe each have their own strengths depending on the role, the skill set required, time zone overlap and budget.

South America is worth particular attention for teams wanting more real-time overlap with AU mornings or with US/UK operations, and has a growing pool of strong technical and finance talent. Eastern Europe is a common choice specifically for software development and technical roles, with deep engineering talent and strong English proficiency, though time zone overlap with Australia is limited.

There isn't one country that's automatically right for every position. Rather than trying to work this out alone, this is exactly the kind of question Scalehorse exists to answer. We help match the right role to the right talent market at the best price, based on what you actually need.

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PART 5: LEGAL, COMPLIANCE & TAX: WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO KNOW

This is the part most guides skip, and the part that worries AU business owners most.

The short version: it's legal, it's straightforward, and thousands of Australian businesses already do it.

Someone working for you from the Philippines, India or South America isn't physically performing work in Australia, so the Fair Work Act's minimum wage, award and employment obligations generally don't apply the way they would for a local hire.

You hire them directly. They work for you, not for us. For the contract and payment side, established providers handle compliant agreements, onboarding and payments, so it's not something you need to figure out yourself. As part of our service, we point you in the right direction on this. As for tax, payments to an offshore contractor are generally a standard business expense, though it's worth a quick check with your accountant for your specific structure.

The mistake isn't offshore hiring itself. It's doing it on a handshake with no proper agreement in place. Get that sorted once, and it stops being something you need to worry about.

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PART 6: THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION

Some business owners hesitate because they assume offshore hiring means underpaying someone in a cheaper country.

It's the opposite.

The rates we pay offshore employees are typically higher than what they'd earn locally, often around 1.5x the local market rate, and for some roles, significantly more.

That means the business gets a properly incentivised, motivated, full-time team member, and the employee gets access to a better opportunity than what's available to them in their own local job market.

This is a win-win, not businesses taking advantage of a wage gap. The saving for an Australian business comes from the cost-of-living difference between countries, not from underpaying the person doing the work.

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PART 7: HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR FIRST OFFSHORE ROLE

Don't start by asking "What employee can I hire?" Start by asking:

"What problem am I trying to solve?"

Look at your own workload:

• What do you repeatedly do? Identify tasks that happen every day or every week.
• What doesn't require the owner? Which responsibilities could someone else perform with the right training?
• What's consuming your time? What tasks are preventing you from focusing on growth?
• What's measurable? Roles with clear outputs are often easier to delegate: calls completed, appointments booked, customers followed up, documents processed, tickets resolved, invoices processed, leads contacted.

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PART 8: HOW TO BUILD THE ROLE

Once you've identified the problem, define the role.

• Responsibilities. What will this person actually be responsible for?
• Daily Activities. What should they be doing every day?
• KPIs. How will you know they're performing?
• Tools. What systems will they use?
• Training. What do they need to learn?
• Reporting. How will you know what's being completed?
• Management. Who is responsible for managing them?

The clearer the role, the easier it becomes to find the right candidate.

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PART 9: HOW TO FIND AND VET THE RIGHT PERSON

The biggest risk isn't offshore hiring. It's hiring the wrong person. A CV isn't enough, which is why this is exactly what we screen for before a candidate ever reaches your shortlist:

• Experience. Have they actually performed similar work?
• Education & Qualifications. For roles that need them, degrees, licences, certifications, do they genuinely hold what the role requires?
• Communication. Can they communicate clearly?
• Skills. Can they demonstrate the skills required?
• Reliability. Does their employment history support their claims?
• References. Can previous employers validate their experience?
• Cultural Fit. Will they work effectively with your team?
• Testing. Can they demonstrate their ability rather than simply tell you about it?
• Personality Fit. We use personality testing to help match candidates to the specific demands of the role, not just their skills on paper.

This is exactly what happens behind the scenes when you hire through Scalehorse (see Part 3 and Part 12), every candidate on your shortlist has already been through this, so you're choosing between three properly vetted people, not gambling on a resume and a single interview.

Doing all of this properly yourself, sourcing hundreds of applicants, screening, testing, checking references, takes real time, time most business owners don't have to spare. That's exactly why we run this process for you: not just to find a good candidate, but to give you back the hours it would otherwise take, so you can stay focused on running the business.

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PART 10: HOW TO MANAGE AN OFFSHORE TEAM REMOTELY

This is where most of our early mistakes happened, and where most businesses new to offshore hiring get stuck.

1. Monitoring work

How do you know what someone is actually doing when you can't see them? We needed a reliable way to track clock-in and clock-out times and monitor activity throughout the day, not to micromanage, but to have visibility that the work is genuinely happening during paid hours.

2. Calls

For any customer-facing or sales role, call quality and volume matter:

• Call monitoring, knowing calls are actually being made and how they're going
• Call recordings, for reviewing calls for quality, training and dispute resolution
• Local phone numbers and SMS, giving offshore team members a local AU number for calls and texts, so customers experience a normal local interaction

3. Communication

We started with WhatsApp. It worked while the team was small, but broke down as we scaled. Messages got buried and information got lost. We moved to proper communication and project software built for managing larger, structured teams.

4. Payments

Paying one offshore employee through a standard bank transfer is manageable. Paying a growing team that way isn't. FX rates and per-transfer fees eat into cost savings fast. We had to find a way to pay staff at scale without losing money to exchange rates and transfer costs every payment cycle.

5. Compliance & setup speed

Getting the contractor or employee arrangement set up properly shouldn't hold up the hire. We help get this sorted quickly and without red tape, often within the same day, so you're not left waiting on paperwork once you've found the right person.

Each of these is solvable, and it's exactly what we hand you the tools for once you hire through Scalehorse.

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PART 11: BUILDING AN OFFSHORE CULTURE

Your offshore employees shouldn't feel like an outsourced resource sitting on the other side of the world. They should feel like members of your team.

Think about: regular communication, team meetings, recognition, celebrating wins, team activities, company values, career progression, manager relationships, including offshore employees in company updates, and creating opportunities for connection.

Culture needs to be intentional when your team isn't physically together.

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PART 12: SCALEHORSE

ScaleHorse is the service we wish existed when we started hiring offshore at Royal Vending.

We are not a typical outsourcing agency where the employee works for the agency and you pay a margin every month. With ScaleHorse, you hire direct: the employee works for your business, you pay their wage directly, and our fee is a one-off placement cost — not a lifetime markup.

Our mission is simple: help local businesses grow more effectively, operate more efficiently and buy back their time through offshore recruitment.

We help businesses identify the right roles, source and vet candidates and provide the systems and resources required to effectively manage offshore employees.

Our process

1. Understand. We learn about your business, workload and the problem you're trying to solve.
2. Source. We source from a pool of 200-300 qualified candidates for your role.
3. Vet. Candidates go through our screening process.
4. Interview. We interview candidates and shortlist the strongest.
5. Reference checks. We verify their work history and experience.
6. Personality testing. We check candidates are matched to the specific demands of the role, not just their skills on paper.
7. Second round (if needed). For roles that need it, candidates go through a further round of assessment.
8. Shortlist of 3. You get a shortlist of the top 3 candidates to interview and choose from yourself.
9. Hire direct. You pay a $500 deposit to start. The remaining balance of our $4,800 fee is only payable once you're happy with the hire.
10. Build the system. We give you the tools and resources to manage the employee effectively from day one.
11. Backed by our guarantee. 6-month replacement guarantee, at no extra cost, if it doesn't work out.