Comparison
US operators weighing a first nearshore hire against another domestic one, usually for a support, finance, sales development or operations role.
Checked against published pricing on September 20, 2026
The salary gap is real, and it is smaller than the pitch decks say once you count everything. A mid-level customer support lead in a US secondary market runs roughly USD 5,500 to 8,000 a month in base salary. The same seniority in Barranquilla, Medellín or Bogotá runs roughly USD 2,400 to 4,000. Add employer contributions on both sides and a one-time agency fee on the US side, and the first-year difference is usually between 45 and 60 percent.
The cost calculator runs that comparison on your own figures rather than ours. Change the salaries and the contribution rates; the arithmetic is the same either way.
| Hiring in the US | Hiring in Colombia through Dexee | |
|---|---|---|
| Time-zone overlap | Full | Full. Colombia is UTC-5 with no daylight saving |
| Written and spoken English | Assumed | Verified against CEFR, with a human reviewer on the spoken level |
| Legal employment | Your entity, your payroll | Dexee's entity, or a contractor agreement |
| Physical presence | Possible | No |
| US licences and clearances | Possible | No |
| Time to first shortlist | Two to six weeks | Ten business days |
| Replacement if it fails | Agency terms, if any | 90 days, published in full |
| Cost of a bad hire | Salary plus the agency fee again | Replacement at no fee |
The column that matters is the last two rows. Nearshore hiring fails in the same place domestic hiring fails: the wrong person, badly onboarded. What changes is what it costs you to be wrong.
Do not hire in Colombia for a role that needs someone in a room, that carries a US professional licence, that requires a security clearance, or that holds the relationship with a regulated US client who expects a domestic counterparty. Those are not coordination problems, they are hard constraints.
There is also a soft floor. Under roughly USD 3,000 a month in US salary, the gap does not repay the effort of setting up a cross-border relationship, and you are better off hiring locally or part-time.
One time zone, not twelve. A verified English level rather than a claimed one. A named contact who can be in the same room as the person when something goes wrong. And a written replacement guarantee, so the downside of being wrong is bounded.
If that describes the role, see what it costs or send us the brief and we will tell you within one business day whether we can fill it.