This is the question everyone asks first and almost nobody gets a straight answer to. Vendors quote a number that depends on things they haven’t asked you about yet, or they refuse to say anything until you’ve sat through a demo. Neither is useful.
We don’t publish rates, for a reason we’ll explain below. What we can do is tell you exactly what moves the number, what to compare it against, and how to tell a fair quote from a bad one.
What actually moves the price
Six things, roughly in order of how much they matter.
- Seniority of the role. A billing clerk and a carrier rep who can hold a rate call are not the same hire and are not priced the same.
- Shift and coverage. A normal daytime seat costs less than an overnight one, and an overnight seat costs less than one covering weekends. That gap is not margin — it is what it takes to keep good people on unsocial hours.
- Number of seats. Recruiting and managing four people for one client is cheaper per head than doing it for one.
- How specialised the work is. General back office is a wide talent pool. Someone who can read an HOS log or prepare an IFTA return is not.
- Term and notice. Short notice costs more, because the risk moves to the vendor.
- Security requirements. If your customer contract demands specific controls, that has a real cost and should be quoted, not waved through.
Why we won’t put a number on this page
Because any number we published would be wrong for most of the people reading it, and the ones it was wrong for in the cheap direction would feel misled later. A published “from $X” is a marketing device, not a price.
What we will do is give you a real number on a first call, once we know the role, the shift and the systems. That call takes twenty minutes and does not require a demo.
The comparison almost everyone gets wrong
People compare a seat rate against a US salary. That is not the comparison. The real one is against your loaded cost, which is the salary plus everything you stop thinking about after the offer letter is signed.
- Employer payroll taxes
- Health insurance and any benefits you offer
- Paid time off, sick days and the cover for both
- A desk, a machine, a monitor, a headset, a phone line
- Software seats — TMS, email, board access, whatever else has a per-user price
- Recruiting: job ads, agency fees, and the hours your team spends interviewing
- Turnover. The one nobody puts in the spreadsheet. If a seat turns over twice a year you are paying the recruiting and training cost twice a year, and running short in between.
Run those numbers for a seat you already have and you get the figure a quote should be measured against. It is usually a long way above the salary line, and the exercise is worth doing whether or not you ever hire offshore.
The costs a quote won’t show you
Two are real and you should plan for them.
Your team’s time in month one. Budget roughly an hour a day from whoever is supervising, for the first few weeks. Brokerages that skip this to save time spend it in month two fixing things instead.
Tooling. A new person usually needs their own TMS login, their own board access, their own email. Those are your costs, not the vendor’s, and they are easy to forget when comparing quotes.
How to tell a fair quote from a bad one
Four questions. The answers tell you more than the number does.
- Is it a flat rate per seat, or a percentage of anything? A percentage of margin or revenue creates an incentive to move loads rather than move them well. Ask outright — it is not always volunteered.
- What is included? Equipment, employment costs, cover for holiday and sickness, management, replacement. If those are extras, the headline rate is not the rate.
- What does it cost when it doesn’t work? Notice period, whether replacing someone costs a new fee, who pays to retrain them. This is where a vendor’s incentives show.
- Is the person dedicated or shared? A pooled seat should be cheaper than a dedicated one. If it isn’t, you are paying dedicated prices for shared attention.
One thing worth saying plainly
Cheapest is not the goal. A seat that costs less and doesn’t work costs you the rate, plus your team’s time, plus the loads that got covered badly while you found out — and then you are back at the start three months later, more cynical and no further forward.
The number to optimise is not the monthly rate. It is whether the seat gives you back more than it takes.
The short version
Price is driven by seniority, shift, seat count, specialisation, term and security. Compare it to your loaded cost, not a salary. Budget for your own time in month one and for the tooling. Then judge the quote on what is included and what happens when it goes wrong, not on the headline.
