Use this before you talk to agencies, recruiters, or candidates. The cheapest path can become expensive if your team has to rebuild the role after the person starts.
Choose who owns recruiting, training, review, and backup coverage.
Long enough to see if the role, SOP, and review loop are stable.
Decide what the role can see, change, export, or approve before hiring.
A managed provider may take on screening, backup coverage, and early coaching. With a direct hire, your team owns those jobs. Put the same task, access limits, review time, and replacement expectations beside each option before choosing.
A low monthly rate is hard to judge until the review work, replacement rules, and access limits are clear.
This path fits founders who know the work is repeatable but do not yet have a clean role brief, training checklist, or backup plan. It can also help when you need a vendor to screen candidates and keep the first month moving.
The tradeoff is control. Ask how the provider trains people, how replacements work, and whether you keep the work materials if you move the role later.
Direct hiring makes sense when you can explain the finished work, show examples, review samples, and fix mistakes without long meetings. You own more of the process, but you also keep more control over habits and tools.
If the role needs sensitive access, use a narrow first lane. Start with drafts, updates, research, reporting, or ticket prep before approvals or money movement.
Managed outsourcing is usually better when you need help with recruiting, replacement coverage, and early management. A direct offshore hire can be better when your role is already documented and your team can train and review the work.
Compare the total management load: recruiting, onboarding, tools, access rules, quality checks, replacement risk, and the time your team will spend reviewing work each week.
Use OutsourcedU to write the role, SOPs, onboarding steps, and weekly review before you hire more people.