“I’ll just hire a caller” sounds cheaper than paying a company. Sometimes it is. But the hourly rate is only one line of the real cost. Here’s a worked example you can adjust with your own numbers — or plug them into the calculator on our homepage.
What an in-house caller actually costs
| Cost | US-based caller (example) | Offshore VA (example) |
|---|---|---|
| Pay: 40 hrs/week × 4.33 weeks | $18/hr → $3,118 | $6/hr → $1,039 |
| Dialer, data and skip tracing | $400 | $400 |
| Hiring, training and turnover | $300 | $300 |
| Your time managing: 6 hrs/week at $75/hr | $1,949 | $1,949 |
| Monthly total | ≈ $5,767 | ≈ $3,688 |
These are example figures — your wage, tools and hourly value will differ. The point is the shape: the wage is often less than half the true cost.
The costs that don’t show up on an invoice
- Ramp-up time. A new caller needs weeks to get comfortable with your market, your script and objections.
- Turnover. When a caller quits, you start hiring and training again — and the pipeline dips.
- Quality control. Someone has to listen to calls and check that leads really meet your criteria. If that’s you, it’s hours every week.
- Data management. Lists, skip tracing, scrubbing and dispositions don’t run themselves.
What outsourcing replaces
With LGO, a dedicated caller works your market 40 hours a week for $1,500 a month on the Essential plan (Combo: $1,400 per caller for two; Premium: $1,200 per caller for five or more). That price includes:
- 10,000 skip-traced records per caller, scrubbed against do-not-call lists.
- A script built around your market and buy box, and a caller you approve by voice sample.
- Every lead reviewed against the 4 pillars before it reaches you, with the call recording.
- The LGO CRM, a weekly report — and caller replacement at no extra onboarding cost.
- A guarantee: 30 warm and hot leads, or we keep calling at our cost.
When in-house makes sense
Building your own team can be the right call if you already have a manager with time to recruit, train and QA callers every week, and you want to scale to a large in-house floor. If your best hours are better spent making offers and closing, outsourcing the calling usually costs less — and gets leads flowing in about a week.