What hiring actually costs
Every platform prices this differently, and some of them charge the freelancer too, which does not show up on your invoice but does show up in what they need to charge you. Both sides are here.
- RemoteHire.ph$12,468
- OnlineJobs.ph$12,299
- VirtualStaff.ph$13,188
- Upwork$12,608
- Fiverr$12,660
Figures last checked 8 Aug 2026. Assumptions are below, in full.
Where every number comes from
RemoteHire.ph: $39 a month, assumed for all twelve. Hiring often takes fewer months than that, so this is the most expensive way to count our own price. The freelancer keeps everything, because we never take a cut of what you pay them.
OnlineJobs.ph: Job board and worker database, Philippines only.
- Pro, paid annually. Monthly is $69, i.e. $828 a year. source
- “No salary markups or ongoing fees.” source
- Their own FAQ says the subscription is only needed while you are recruiting, so a single month at $69 is a real option once you have hired.
- Pro includes 3 job posts and 75 worker contacts a month; Premium is $349 a year for 10 and 500. Those are capacity limits, not fees.
VirtualStaff.ph: Hiring platform with payroll and compliance admin.
- $99 a month per person hired. One seat assumed here. source
- “Zero markups: staff receive 100% of the monthly pay.” source
- The price is per seat: hiring a second person doubles it, which is the opposite shape to a flat fee.
- Their pricing page does not state in so many words that workers pay nothing beyond the no-markup line, so that is how it is read here.
Upwork: General freelance marketplace.
- Marketplace plan. 3% on eligible US bank payments. source
- One-off contract initiation fee. source
- Set per contract and fixed for that contract's life. The old flat 10% no longer exists. source
- The freelancer's fee is a range set per contract, so it is drawn as a band. Anyone showing you one Upwork number for this is showing you a number they chose.
- Business Plus is a 10% client fee. A $49.99 monthly price for it is widely repeated and does not appear on their live pricing page, so it is not used here.
Fiverr: Gig marketplace.
- Buyer service fee on every transaction, tips included. source
- The seller keeps 80%, on gig extras and tips as well. source
- Orders under $200 carry a further $3.50 each, so a year made of small orders costs the buyer noticeably more than the percentage suggests.
- The buyer fee applies to every transaction separately, including tips.
One hire a year is assumed, which is what the per-contract fees are counted against. Payment-method surcharges, currency conversion and anything either side negotiates are excluded on all rows, ours included. If you find one of these wrong, it is wrong in one file and we would rather fix it than keep it.
Questions
- Do you take a cut of what I pay the freelancer?
- No. RemoteHire.ph charges a flat $39/month a month to the hiring side and nothing else. Money moves directly between you and the person you hire; we never hold it, never route it and never take a percentage of it.
- Does the freelancer pay anything?
- No, and there is no plan under which they will. That is why the second view on this page exists: on a marketplace that charges the freelancer, what you pay and what they receive are two different numbers, and only one of them usually gets advertised.
- Why is Upwork drawn as a range?
- Because their freelancer fee is set per contract and can be anywhere from 0% to 15%. Any single number would be a number we picked, and picking the worst one on a page that competes with them would make this page not worth reading.
- How current are these figures?
- Every one was checked on 8 Aug 2026 against the company's own pricing or help pages, and each carries a link to where it was read. Where a figure is widely repeated but not on their own site, it says so and is left out of the arithmetic.