- Mid Size Firms
- Small Firm
A staffing markup you cannot see is still on the invoice
An Australian recruiter priced the bundled offshore service. What it covers when your paralegal quits: nobody answered.
An Australian recruiter has put a number on the offshore staffing markup: 3 to 5 times what the staff earn. Tarino, based in Sydney, published it on markets.businessinsider.com on September 10, 2026. The number is the easy part.
Tarino sells a one-time placement fee instead of an ongoing monthly margin. Founder Chris Tan says the gap between what agencies charge and what staff take home is hidden on purpose. The release credits two outsourcing industry sources for the markup range. Salary data comes from Indeed, Glassdoor, Jobstreet and PayScale, updated for 2026. The multiple is sourced. So is the pitch bolted to it.
The market it describes is Australian businesses. The structure it describes is not Australian at all.
What the multiple is measuring
A single bundled fee hides its own composition. That is true. A managing partner who has never been shown the split is right to ask for it. Tarino's argument is that the split, once you see it, is indefensible.
But a multiple against take-home pay is not a multiple against nothing. Employment liability sits somewhere. So does compliance, and backfill when the person resigns. So does the legal entity that makes an NDA enforceable where they actually live. And payroll, for someone who is not on your books. Strip those out and the fee drops. The obligations moved to you. Moved, not removed. A one-time fee is not a cheaper version of a managed arrangement. It is a different arrangement. Both are legitimate. Only one of them leaves the firm holding the bag at month nine.
Price the removal.
Where a law firm should read this
Tarino's release says the model carries no onboarding or setup fees at any point. Read that twice if you run a firm. Onboarding is the work. A fee not charged for it is not work that stopped existing. Somebody in your building does it instead, usually the person with the least time and the highest rate. Not a saving. A transfer.
Post the job, pick the candidate, hire. Then find out in week three that nobody wrote down what a correct file looks like. That failure has nothing to do with what any agency charged. It happens at every price point, and a clean invoice does not fix it. The four systems a firm needs before a remote hire lands sit on the firm's side of the line. No fee structure supplies them.
The markup belongs on the record. It is still not the number that decides whether the hire works.
Transparency is a claim about the invoice. Capacity is a claim about the firm.
Related Topics
Recommended Readings
Build Your Offshore Team Risk-Free
No upfront cost. Fill roles in 14 days. Pre-vetted, not just pre-screened.