Published 13 September 2026 by Offshored. A plain comparison of the three ways Australian businesses get work done by people they do not employ locally.
Outsourcing hands a task or function to a vendor. Offshoring gives you your own full-time team member in another country. A virtual assistant is a freelancer or platform worker you pay by the hour or the task. The three words get used as if they meant the same thing, and they do not.
The table below is the short version. The rest of this guide explains each model, what it costs an Australian business in 2026, and which one fits which situation.
| Outsourcing | Offshoring (dedicated staff) | Virtual assistant | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A finished task or a managed function | A named person who works only for you | Blocks of hours or individual tasks |
| Control over the work | Low. The vendor decides who does it and how | High. You set the tasks, systems, hours and priorities | Medium. You brief the tasks; the VA decides when |
| Who employs the person | The vendor | The staffing provider's overseas entity (for Offshored, Australian Pathways OPC in the Philippines) | Nobody. Usually a sole trader or platform contractor |
| Who manages them day to day | The vendor's team leader | You, with HR, payroll and support from the provider | You |
| Continuity | Staff rotate behind the vendor's process | The same person, month after month | Depends on the individual's other clients |
| Typical monthly cost (AUD) | A$300 to A$5,000+ for bookkeeping packages; phone answering from about A$185 for 50 calls | A$1,900 to A$4,800 all inclusive, by role | A$850 to A$1,300 part-time offshore; A$800 to A$3,000 agency retainers; A$35 to A$75 an hour for Australian freelancers |
| Best for | Defined, repeatable work you never want to think about | Ongoing roles that need someone inside your business | Small, irregular workloads under 20 hours a week |
| Main risk | You lose visibility and the vendor's incentives are not yours | You have to manage a person, and a poor hire costs time | Availability, turnover and no one to call when they disappear |
Cost figures are typical 2026 market ranges for Australian small and medium businesses, linked under sources. The offshore column is Offshored's published pricing; the full breakdown is in the 2026 cost guide.
Outsourcing is paying an external vendor to deliver a task or a whole business function, using the vendor's own staff, process and tools.
Your bookkeeping firm is outsourcing. So is the agency that runs your Google Ads, the answering service that picks up your phone after hours, and the large business process outsourcing (BPO) provider that runs a bank's call centre. In every case you are buying an outcome, not a person. The vendor decides who does the work, and that person may serve a dozen other clients the same day.
You get a mature process and someone else carries the recruitment and management load. In return you accept their turnaround times, their scope, and their price for anything outside it. Outsourcing can be onshore or offshore; the word describes the commercial arrangement, not the location.
Offshoring is having your own dedicated team member based in another country, working full-time in your systems and your business hours, with a local provider handling employment, payroll and compliance.
The person is yours in every practical sense. You interview and choose them, you set their tasks, they log in to your Xero or your job management software, they join your Monday meeting, and they report to you. What sits offshore is the employment contract, the payroll and the compliance, which a staffing provider runs on your behalf. Offshored uses the dedicated offshore staffing model: the client chooses the person, that person works only for the client's business in the client's systems and hours, and Offshored handles recruitment, onboarding, payroll and day to day HR, with each team member employed in the Philippines by Australian Pathways OPC, a registered Philippine company. The how to hire steps and pricing page set out the process and the fee.
People sometimes call this "staff augmentation" or "employer of record" staffing. The names differ, the model is the same: one business, one dedicated person, one monthly fee.
A virtual assistant (VA) is a remote worker, usually a freelancer or a contractor sourced through a platform or agency, who completes administrative or specialist tasks for one or more clients on an hourly or per-task basis.
VAs range from an Australian executive assistant working from home for three clients, to an offshore freelancer on Upwork or OnlineJobs.ph billing ten hours a week for inbox management. The common thread is flexibility. You can start with five hours, stop next month, and pay for nothing in between. The trade is that the VA sets their own schedule around their other clients, they are not employed by anyone, and when they move on there is no provider obliged to replace them.
The same job title also exists on the dedicated model: a full-time offshore virtual assistant who works only for you, on your hours, from A$1,900 a month. Which one you need depends on the volume and the rhythm of the work, covered below.
For most Australian businesses under about 50 staff, the decision comes down to four questions.
How much of the work is inside your systems? If the job is "reconcile the bank feed and lodge the BAS", an outsourced bookkeeper does it well and you never see the process. If the job is "own our accounts, chase debtors, answer the plumbers' questions about purchase orders and sit in on the weekly WIP meeting", the person needs to be inside your business, and that is offshoring.
Who do you want deciding priorities? An outsourcing vendor works to a scope. Anything outside it is a change request. A dedicated offshore team member works to whatever you put in front of them today, the same as a local employee.
How much management can you carry? Outsourcing needs almost none. Offshoring needs a manager, a task list and a weekly check in, exactly as a local hire would. Providers take on HR, payroll and equipment, but nobody can set your priorities for you.
What does it cost per useful hour? Outsourcing looks cheap for a small, defined scope and expensive once you exceed it. A dedicated offshore team member is a fixed monthly fee for a full working week, which in Offshored's case runs from A$1,900 a month for admin and support roles, with no recruitment fee and no lock-in contract.
A VA is enough when the work is under about 20 hours a week, arrives in bursts, and can be done in the VA's own time. Booking travel, formatting proposals, cleaning up a spreadsheet once a quarter, scheduling social posts. If the task would not justify a part-time employee, it will not justify a dedicated offshore hire either.
A VA stops being enough at three points. The first is volume: once you are buying 30 or more hours a week, a dedicated team member usually costs the same or less and gives you the whole week. The second is real time work: answering the phone during Australian business hours, responding to customers within the hour, or joining your team meetings needs someone rostered to your day, not fitting you in. The third is knowledge: work that takes months to learn (your pricing, your suppliers, your clients' quirks) is wasted on a contractor who may not be there next quarter.
A practical test: if the person left tomorrow, would you need to retrain someone for more than a week? If yes, you need dedicated staff, not a VA.
Outsourcing. Prices track the scope. Outsourced bookkeeping in Australia runs from about A$300 to A$600 a month for a micro business with fewer than 50 transactions, A$600 to A$1,200 for a small business with payroll and BAS, and A$1,200 to A$5,000 or more for a full accounts function. Live phone answering starts around A$33 a month plus A$3.89 a call, or about A$185 a month bundled with 50 calls. Agencies, IT managed services and payroll bureaus price the same way: a base package, then extras.
Offshoring (dedicated staff). Offshored's monthly fee by role is A$1,900 to A$2,400 for admin and customer support, A$2,100 to A$2,800 for bookkeeping, accounts payable and receivable, payroll, executive assistants and sales support, A$2,400 to A$3,400 for accountants, drafters, estimators, designers and digital marketers, and A$3,000 to A$4,800 for financial controllers and software developers. AI Operator roles run A$2,450 to A$5,500. The fee covers the team member's salary, 13th month pay, Philippine statutory contributions, health cover, payroll and tax withholding, plus equipment and office space for office based staff. There is no recruitment fee, no setup fee and no lock-in contract. The full breakdown, including a side by side against a Sydney bookkeeper's true employment cost, is in the 2026 cost guide.
Virtual assistants. Offshore freelance VAs charge A$8 to A$20 an hour depending on skill. Australian freelance VAs charge A$35 to A$75 an hour. Agency retainers sit between A$800 and A$3,000 a month depending on hours and complexity, and a part-time offshore VA at 20 hours a week typically costs A$850 to A$1,300 a month. The hourly rate looks small, but a full-time VA through an agency lands at A$1,600 to A$2,400 a month, which is the same money as a dedicated team member without the employment, the screening or a provider standing behind them.
Six months of unreconciled transactions is a project with an end date. Outsource it to a bookkeeping firm on a fixed fee. If the backlog exists because nobody owns the books week to week, hire a dedicated offshore bookkeeper afterwards so it never builds up again.
Under about 50 calls a month, an answering service is cheaper. Above that, or if callers need real answers rather than a message, a dedicated customer service team member on Australian hours pays for itself and gives every caller the same voice.
An architecture or engineering practice with peaks can outsource individual drawing packages to a drafting bureau. A practice that is always at capacity is better served by a dedicated offshore drafter who learns its standards and templates.
Lead qualification, CRM hygiene and appointment setting need someone inside your pipeline every day. That is dedicated staff. An outsourced lead generation agency sells you meetings; a dedicated sales support team member builds you a process.
A website rebuild, a data migration or a rebrand has a start and a finish. Outsource it to a specialist, or use a freelancer through a platform. Do not hire dedicated staff for work that ends.
If you need ten hours a week of inbox triage, a VA works. If you want someone who knows your calendar, your clients and your priorities well enough to make decisions, hire a dedicated offshore executive assistant on your hours. It is a common first hire for owner-led businesses.
Every role Offshored staffs, with its monthly cost band, is listed on the roles page.
No. Outsourcing describes who does the work: an external vendor with its own staff and process. Offshoring describes where the work is done: in another country. A business can outsource onshore (a Sydney bookkeeping firm) or offshore (a Manila call centre), and it can offshore without outsourcing at all by having its own dedicated team member overseas. Dedicated offshore staffing, the model Offshored provides, is the second kind: the person works only for you, in your systems and hours, and the provider handles employment and payroll.
Yes. Many businesses start with a VA and move once the VA's hours pass 25 to 30 a week or once the work needs someone available during Australian business hours. Offshored recruits to your brief, you interview and choose the person, and the typical time from brief to start date is one to two weeks. There is no recruitment fee and no lock-in contract.
Yes. Offshored team members work your business hours, whether that is Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth time. The Philippines is two hours behind AEST, so a standard Australian day is an ordinary working day in Manila.
You do, the same as any member of your team. You set the tasks, priorities and standards. Offshored handles recruitment, onboarding, payroll, HR and equipment, and stays involved if performance or fit ever needs attention. Each team member is employed in the Philippines by Australian Pathways OPC, Offshored's Philippine entity.
No. You engage a staffing service. The team member is employed in the Philippines by Australian Pathways OPC, a registered Philippine company, which means you have no overseas payroll, tax or employment obligations to set up.
More answers, including data protection, the minimum commitment and what happens if a team member leaves, are on the FAQ page.
Third party figures checked 13 September 2026 and quoted as published; they are market ranges, not Offshored prices. Offshore figures are Offshored's published bands.
Offshored places dedicated team members in admin, accounts, customer service, sales support, drafting, design, marketing and technology roles for 18+ Australian businesses. Browse the roles, or tell us your situation on a free 20-minute call and we will say plainly which model fits.
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