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Marketing Seat Costs Philippines

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Real World Offshore Marketing Seat Costs

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Hiring Strategy

Ways You Pay

For some business models, it’s pretty clear how much your vendor makes, like Costco, Cost Plus Drugs, or Everlane pre-Shein acquisition. Real estate agents, payment processors, and freight forwarders also work transparently.

Clear fees work well for selling to sophisticated buyers. It creates trust, makes comparisons easy, and keeps the engagement on point. Scroll down for the indicative calculator.

Most businesses aren’t as forthcoming about their margins, so it’s not clear how much they profit from your patronage. Ride-hailing surge pricing and airline mystery ticket costs are great examples. Other industries like enterprise software and automobile sales, where clients and vendors negotiate final fees, exemplify opaque pricing.

Outsourcing covers the engagement model waterfront: offshore staff augmentation companies tend toward cost-plus delivery, while BPO operators prefer a flat hourly rate.

The hourly rate is pretty simple, but it leaves you guessing. How much reaches the person doing the work? What goes to statutory costs? What does your vendor make?

You don’t really know the underlying costs, but the vendor absorbs risk and variability in the equation, so you are left to judge the value based on trust and track record.

​

Offshoring Structures in 60 Seconds

We’re discussing staff augmentation, but it’s worth pausing to review the various offshore models in play, since they tend to organize their pricing model by segment.

  • Shared/pooled seats (agency) - Clients share a person's time. The provider owns the person, the process, and the schedule. This suits very small businesses testing offshore for the first time.

  • Project-based - The work has a defined scope, deliverable, and end date. The provider owns delivery, and the relationship ends when the project does.

  • Staff augmentation (dedicated staff) - A full-time person(s) works for the client, using the client's tools, under the client's day-to-day direction. The provider is the employer of record and handles hiring, payroll, benefits, compliance, equipment, and workspace.

  • Managed services - The provider owns the process and outcomes, usually defined by SLAs and/or KPIs. The provider supplies team leads, QA, training, and workforce management. The client buys a result rather than staff.

  • Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) - The provider builds a dedicated operation for the client, runs it for an agreed period, then hands it over so the client owns it outright.

  • Captive center - The client owns its own offshore entity, office, and staff. This is where a BOT ends up, but some companies build captives directly.

What Do You Want to Do?

To understand the rates you should expect, you always want to start with your business outcome and walk the staffing model backward.

At our typical marketing team clients’ scale, we usually judge the work by how well it delivers sales opportunities, and our clients want to maximize their spend ROI, including the staff they engage.

Once you have defined outcomes using your targets, you need to decide how to get there. Maybe you need a team to run a social blitz, run LinkedIn outreach, make cold calls, or manage a company newsletter.

The Work You Want to Accomplish

What skill sets do you need to hire to meet your marketing objectives? For DTC, you might need a social media manager and a video editor to drive direct sales. For B2B, you want to fill your pipeline with content, cold email, and LinkedIn outreach.

Skill-level Needed to Succeed

The other consideration is the required skill level needed to do the job. Do you need a design savant or a competent video editor? Does persistence check the box, or do you need virtuosity?

Cost-plus Pricing

As the name implies, cost-plus pricing has two parts:

  • The Loaded Cost of the Person. Salary plus everything an employer in the Philippines is required or expected to provide: statutory contributions, 13th-month pay, benefits, equipment, and a place to work.

  • The Fee. A fixed percentage of the fully loaded cost or a flat fee, covering recruiting, employment, compliance, the structured first 45 days, and ongoing retention and development.

Because the fee is clearly defined, the price of any seat is easy to check and easy to plan around.

Illustration: Social Media Manager

Here's a mid/senior-level social media manager, one of the most common seats in our marketing teams. This person plans and runs your social calendar, writes and schedules posts, manages your community, and reports on performance, working to your direction and brand guidelines.

Line itemPHPUSD
Basic salary60,000959
SSS — employer share (incl. EC)3,53056
PhilHealth — employer share1,50024
Pag-IBIG — employer share2003
13th-month pay (monthly accrual)5,00080
Leave accrual5,68291
Allowance2,50040
Insurance6,00096
Equipment2,50040
Employer cost86,9121,389
Management fee25,000399
Billable rate111,9121,788


Philippines Fully-loaded Cost Explainer

Base Salary

We develop the base salary based on current Philippine market rates for the role and seniority in your specification. (We favor highly proficient professionals and pay accordingly.) We estimate this in the staffing brief for approval.

13th-month Pay

Required under Philippine law: one additional month's salary per year, paid in December. We accrue it monthly.

Employer Statutory Contributions

The employer's share of social security (SSS), national health insurance (PhilHealth), and the housing fund (Pag-IBIG). These are set by law and adjust periodically.

Health Insurance

The benefits package that comes with regular employment at Lumikha.

Equipment

A work-ready setup with the security configuration your data needs.

Staff Augmentation Fee Explainer

The fee covers the engagement structure. It covers:

Position Spec & Recruiting

Sourcing, screening, a practical exercise drawn from your actual work, and a structured interview, before you meet the shortlist.

Employment & Compliance

Employer of Record Obligations: Contracts, payroll, statutory filings, data privacy obligations, and everything that comes with being the

The First 45 Days

Blanketed support for our clients and their staff: Weekly calibration calls, Reviews at day 15, 30, and 45, and a knowledge-transfer plan that leaves you with documented processes.

Replacement

One free replacement within 90 days if a person doesn’t work out.

Retention and development. A four-day week, a development plan for every seat, and an annual increase of 2–5% tied to performance.

Lumikha’s Model

We charge a base of $339/person/month. For fully loaded cost salaries that exceed $1,600, we use a scaled percentage of fully loaded cost. (±3-4% of Filipinos earn more than $1,600, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.)

Team sizeFee percentage
5–9 people30% for loaded costs over $1,600
10–19 people25% for loaded costs over $1,600
20+ people20% for loaded costs over $1,600

Annual Increases

Each year, team members receive a 2–5% increase tied to their performance, based on your semi-annual reviews.

People who are paid fairly and see a solid career tend to stay. A Lumikhan who has worked for you for two years brings valuable institutional knowledge.

Build an Indicative Estimate

Pick a job role from our list of examples: Web Developer, Creative Director, Senior Social Media Manager, Video Editor, Marketing Operations Manager.

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Harry Fozzard Bio Pic | Lumikha Founder
Harry Fozzard Bio Pic | Lumikha Founder

Harry Fozzard is the founder of Lumikha Teams, which has built marketing teams in the Philippines for growing companies since 2006.

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How we write this. We use AI tools to research and draft. A person on our team checks every fact, edits every line, and signs off before anything goes live.


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Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing vs Managed Services: How to Choose When a piece of work needs more hands than your team has, there are three established ways to get them: outsourcing, managed services, and staff augmentation. The names get used loosely, and providers often blur them, which makes a straightforward decision harder than it needs to be. The clearest way to tell them apart is to ask one question: who directs the work, and who owns what it builds? Each model gives a different answer, and each answer suits a different kind of work. Outsourcing: you buy an output With outsourcing, you define a result and a provider delivers it using its own people, tools, and process. You agree on what gets produced, by when, and to what standard. How it gets done is the provider's business. Outsourcing works best when the work is well bounded and repeatable: a set number of articles a month, a website build to an agreed spec, a defined batch of design assets. You manage the relationship through the brief and the deliverables, and you don't need to know who does the work day to day. Choose outsourcing when the result can be described completely in advance, and the work doesn't depend on deep knowledge of how your business runs. Managed services: you buy a function Managed services go a level higher. Instead of buying a result, you hand over an entire function, such as IT support, payroll, or a customer service desk, and the provider runs it against agreed service levels. The provider decides staffing, process, and tooling. You judge the service by whether it meets its targets. Managed services suit functions that are important but not central to how you compete, where a specialist provider can run them more consistently than you would in-house. Choose managed services when you want a function fully off your plate, and success can be measured through clear service levels. Staff augmentation: you add capability to your team Staff augmentation works differently from both. You add dedicated people to your own team. They work on your priorities, in your systems, alongside your people, and they take direction from you. The provider handles everything around the role: recruiting, employment, payroll, benefits, compliance, and retention. Because the people work inside your business day after day, they learn how it runs: your customers, your standards, your shorthand. Over time that knowledge becomes part of your organization's capability. It stays with the team you've built rather than sitting with a vendor. Choose staff augmentation when the work depends on context, priorities shift often, and you want the knowledge to build up inside your organization. The three models side by side Outsourcing Managed services Staff augmentation What you buy A defined output A running function Dedicated people on your team Who directs the work The provider The provider You How you measure it Deliverables Service levels Role outcomes you set Where knowledge builds up With the provider With the provider Inside your organization Best for Bounded, repeatable projects Non-core functions Work that depends on knowing your business How to choose Most organizations end up using more than one model, because different work suits different arrangements. For any given piece of work, three questions will usually point to the right one. How much context does the work need? If someone could do it well from a written brief alone, outsourcing is a strong fit. If doing it well depends on knowing your customers, your brand, and your internal decisions, staff augmentation is the better match. How often do priorities change? Fixed scope suits outsourcing and managed services, where changes go through a revised agreement. If your priorities move week to week, you want people who take direction from you directly. Where do you want the knowledge to live? Outsourcing and managed services build the provider's expertise in your work. Staff augmentation builds your own. If the work is something you expect to keep doing and improving for years, that difference compounds. Getting staff augmentation right The model is simple, but the results depend on how the role is set up. Three things make the difference. A specification built around outcomes. A list of skills and tasks tells a recruiter who to look for. A specification that starts with what the role must achieve tells them who will succeed. It also gives you and your new team member a shared definition of good work from the first week. A structured start. The first weeks decide whether a placement becomes a long-term team member. A planned handover of knowledge, with regular check-ins, turns a new hire into someone who owns the work. Clear lines of responsibility. You direct the work. The provider handles employment. When both sides know which questions belong where, the arrangement runs smoothly. How Lumikha Teams does it Lumikha Teams builds dedicated teams in the Philippines using the staff augmentation model, and we've done it since 2006. Every engagement starts with a brief. We draft a specification covering scope, seniority, tools, reporting line, and the measures that apply at day 45, and you approve it before we source anyone. If you know the outcome you need but not the shape of the team, we start with Capability Design and map the work first. You interview the shortlist and choose who joins your team. We employ every person we place, with regular employment, full statutory benefits, a four-day week, and an annual increase tied to performance. Each placement runs through a 45-day evaluation window, with reviews at 15, 30, and 45 days and a knowledge-transfer plan that leaves you with documented processes. Our pricing is cost-plus: you see the salary line and our fee on top of it, seat by seat, with no recruitment fee. The result is a team that works to your direction, learns your business, and stays.

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Hiring Strategy

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Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing vs Managed Services: How to Choose When a piece of work needs more hands than your team has, there are three established ways to get them: outsourcing, managed services, and staff augmentation. The names get used loosely, and providers often blur them, which makes a straightforward decision harder than it needs to be. The clearest way to tell them apart is to ask one question: who directs the work, and who owns what it builds? Each model gives a different answer, and each answer suits a different kind of work. Outsourcing: you buy an output With outsourcing, you define a result and a provider delivers it using its own people, tools, and process. You agree on what gets produced, by when, and to what standard. How it gets done is the provider's business. Outsourcing works best when the work is well bounded and repeatable: a set number of articles a month, a website build to an agreed spec, a defined batch of design assets. You manage the relationship through the brief and the deliverables, and you don't need to know who does the work day to day. Choose outsourcing when the result can be described completely in advance, and the work doesn't depend on deep knowledge of how your business runs. Managed services: you buy a function Managed services go a level higher. Instead of buying a result, you hand over an entire function, such as IT support, payroll, or a customer service desk, and the provider runs it against agreed service levels. The provider decides staffing, process, and tooling. You judge the service by whether it meets its targets. Managed services suit functions that are important but not central to how you compete, where a specialist provider can run them more consistently than you would in-house. Choose managed services when you want a function fully off your plate, and success can be measured through clear service levels. Staff augmentation: you add capability to your team Staff augmentation works differently from both. You add dedicated people to your own team. They work on your priorities, in your systems, alongside your people, and they take direction from you. The provider handles everything around the role: recruiting, employment, payroll, benefits, compliance, and retention. Because the people work inside your business day after day, they learn how it runs: your customers, your standards, your shorthand. Over time that knowledge becomes part of your organization's capability. It stays with the team you've built rather than sitting with a vendor. Choose staff augmentation when the work depends on context, priorities shift often, and you want the knowledge to build up inside your organization. The three models side by side Outsourcing Managed services Staff augmentation What you buy A defined output A running function Dedicated people on your team Who directs the work The provider The provider You How you measure it Deliverables Service levels Role outcomes you set Where knowledge builds up With the provider With the provider Inside your organization Best for Bounded, repeatable projects Non-core functions Work that depends on knowing your business How to choose Most organizations end up using more than one model, because different work suits different arrangements. For any given piece of work, three questions will usually point to the right one. How much context does the work need? If someone could do it well from a written brief alone, outsourcing is a strong fit. If doing it well depends on knowing your customers, your brand, and your internal decisions, staff augmentation is the better match. How often do priorities change? Fixed scope suits outsourcing and managed services, where changes go through a revised agreement. If your priorities move week to week, you want people who take direction from you directly. Where do you want the knowledge to live? Outsourcing and managed services build the provider's expertise in your work. Staff augmentation builds your own. If the work is something you expect to keep doing and improving for years, that difference compounds. Getting staff augmentation right The model is simple, but the results depend on how the role is set up. Three things make the difference. A specification built around outcomes. A list of skills and tasks tells a recruiter who to look for. A specification that starts with what the role must achieve tells them who will succeed. It also gives you and your new team member a shared definition of good work from the first week. A structured start. The first weeks decide whether a placement becomes a long-term team member. A planned handover of knowledge, with regular check-ins, turns a new hire into someone who owns the work. Clear lines of responsibility. You direct the work. The provider handles employment. When both sides know which questions belong where, the arrangement runs smoothly. How Lumikha Teams does it Lumikha Teams builds dedicated teams in the Philippines using the staff augmentation model, and we've done it since 2006. Every engagement starts with a brief. We draft a specification covering scope, seniority, tools, reporting line, and the measures that apply at day 45, and you approve it before we source anyone. If you know the outcome you need but not the shape of the team, we start with Capability Design and map the work first. You interview the shortlist and choose who joins your team. We employ every person we place, with regular employment, full statutory benefits, a four-day week, and an annual increase tied to performance. Each placement runs through a 45-day evaluation window, with reviews at 15, 30, and 45 days and a knowledge-transfer plan that leaves you with documented processes. Our pricing is cost-plus: you see the salary line and our fee on top of it, seat by seat, with no recruitment fee. The result is a team that works to your direction, learns your business, and stays.

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Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing vs Managed Services: How to Choose When a piece of work needs more hands than your team has, there are three established ways to get them: outsourcing, managed services, and staff augmentation. The names get used loosely, and providers often blur them, which makes a straightforward decision harder than it needs to be. The clearest way to tell them apart is to ask one question: who directs the work, and who owns what it builds? Each model gives a different answer, and each answer suits a different kind of work. Outsourcing: you buy an output With outsourcing, you define a result and a provider delivers it using its own people, tools, and process. You agree on what gets produced, by when, and to what standard. How it gets done is the provider's business. Outsourcing works best when the work is well bounded and repeatable: a set number of articles a month, a website build to an agreed spec, a defined batch of design assets. You manage the relationship through the brief and the deliverables, and you don't need to know who does the work day to day. Choose outsourcing when the result can be described completely in advance, and the work doesn't depend on deep knowledge of how your business runs. Managed services: you buy a function Managed services go a level higher. Instead of buying a result, you hand over an entire function, such as IT support, payroll, or a customer service desk, and the provider runs it against agreed service levels. The provider decides staffing, process, and tooling. You judge the service by whether it meets its targets. Managed services suit functions that are important but not central to how you compete, where a specialist provider can run them more consistently than you would in-house. Choose managed services when you want a function fully off your plate, and success can be measured through clear service levels. Staff augmentation: you add capability to your team Staff augmentation works differently from both. You add dedicated people to your own team. They work on your priorities, in your systems, alongside your people, and they take direction from you. The provider handles everything around the role: recruiting, employment, payroll, benefits, compliance, and retention. Because the people work inside your business day after day, they learn how it runs: your customers, your standards, your shorthand. Over time that knowledge becomes part of your organization's capability. It stays with the team you've built rather than sitting with a vendor. Choose staff augmentation when the work depends on context, priorities shift often, and you want the knowledge to build up inside your organization. The three models side by side Outsourcing Managed services Staff augmentation What you buy A defined output A running function Dedicated people on your team Who directs the work The provider The provider You How you measure it Deliverables Service levels Role outcomes you set Where knowledge builds up With the provider With the provider Inside your organization Best for Bounded, repeatable projects Non-core functions Work that depends on knowing your business How to choose Most organizations end up using more than one model, because different work suits different arrangements. For any given piece of work, three questions will usually point to the right one. How much context does the work need? If someone could do it well from a written brief alone, outsourcing is a strong fit. If doing it well depends on knowing your customers, your brand, and your internal decisions, staff augmentation is the better match. How often do priorities change? Fixed scope suits outsourcing and managed services, where changes go through a revised agreement. If your priorities move week to week, you want people who take direction from you directly. Where do you want the knowledge to live? Outsourcing and managed services build the provider's expertise in your work. Staff augmentation builds your own. If the work is something you expect to keep doing and improving for years, that difference compounds. Getting staff augmentation right The model is simple, but the results depend on how the role is set up. Three things make the difference. A specification built around outcomes. A list of skills and tasks tells a recruiter who to look for. A specification that starts with what the role must achieve tells them who will succeed. It also gives you and your new team member a shared definition of good work from the first week. A structured start. The first weeks decide whether a placement becomes a long-term team member. A planned handover of knowledge, with regular check-ins, turns a new hire into someone who owns the work. Clear lines of responsibility. You direct the work. The provider handles employment. When both sides know which questions belong where, the arrangement runs smoothly. How Lumikha Teams does it Lumikha Teams builds dedicated teams in the Philippines using the staff augmentation model, and we've done it since 2006. Every engagement starts with a brief. We draft a specification covering scope, seniority, tools, reporting line, and the measures that apply at day 45, and you approve it before we source anyone. If you know the outcome you need but not the shape of the team, we start with Capability Design and map the work first. You interview the shortlist and choose who joins your team. We employ every person we place, with regular employment, full statutory benefits, a four-day week, and an annual increase tied to performance. Each placement runs through a 45-day evaluation window, with reviews at 15, 30, and 45 days and a knowledge-transfer plan that leaves you with documented processes. Our pricing is cost-plus: you see the salary line and our fee on top of it, seat by seat, with no recruitment fee. The result is a team that works to your direction, learns your business, and stays.

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How We're Building the Next Gen of Outsourcing Over Coffee
How We're Building the Next Gen of Outsourcing Over Coffee
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Start With a Conversation

Tell Us What You Want to Do

Pick my brain. Spend 30 minutes with a Philippines team builder since 2006. Let’s talk about roles you can't fill, or the outcome you're after.

We start with what has to be true in twelve months. From there we reverse engineer your team: seniority, skills, accountability, and budget. Exit with a sense of your options, costs, and timelines. 

Book a Call

Start With a Conversation

Tell Us What You Want to Do

Pick my brain. Spend 30 minutes with a Philippines team builder since 2006. Let’s talk about roles you can't fill, or the outcome you're after.

We start with what has to be true in twelve months. From there we reverse engineer your team: seniority, skills, accountability, and budget. Exit with a sense of your options, costs, and timelines. 

Book a Call

Get Started

Four Ways to Build Your Team

Marketing pods, high-skilled pros built to your specifications, project teams, or a budgeted roadmap before you hire anyone. Seats are staffed in the Philippines with cost-plus pricing for full transparency.

Contact Us

Build Your Staff Augmentation in the Philippines

Get Started

Four Ways to Build Your Team

Marketing pods, high-skilled pros built to your specifications, project teams, or a budgeted roadmap before you hire anyone. Seats are staffed in the Philippines with cost-plus pricing for full transparency.

Contact Us

Build Your Staff Augmentation in the Philippines

Get Started

Four Ways to Build Your Team

Marketing pods, high-skilled pros built to your specifications, project teams, or a budgeted roadmap before you hire anyone. Seats are staffed in the Philippines with cost-plus pricing for full transparency.

Contact Us

Build Your Staff Augmentation in the Philippines