Free tool
Offshore hiring business case builder
You have run the salary comparison and you know the number. The step that actually decides whether the hire happens is the one after that: writing something the person who controls the budget can say yes to without a second meeting. This tool turns your figures into that document. It separates year one from steady state, states every assumption where it can be challenged, prices doing nothing alongside the options, and pre-empts the objection your specific approver is most likely to raise.
Display only. Nothing here converts between currencies, so enter both sides in the same one.
The hire you would otherwise make. Base pay only. Employer costs go in the load below.
Employer taxes, insurance, benefits, equipment, software, and desk costs. Most finance teams already carry a standard figure for this.
Agency fee, job board spend, or the internal recruiter time this search consumes. Zero is a legitimate answer.
All in, the way a managed provider quotes it. If you do not have a figure yet, size one with the Egypt offshore salary calculator.
Placement fee, equipment, or setup. Leave at zero for a managed arrangement that bills monthly with nothing up front.
Search, offer, and notice period. SHRM's 2026 median time to fill is 39 calendar days to offer accepted, which is about 6 weeks before any notice period is added. Work out the exact dates in the hiring timeline planner.
Applied to both options equally. A local hire ramps too, so this changes the cost per productive week and never the gap between the two options.
Defaults to zero on purpose. A guess here is the easiest number in the memo for an approver to attack. If you can defend a figure, get it from the cost of vacancy calculator and use that.
Checks first for cash out the door this year, the payback on anything one-time, and which budget line it lands on.
A dated deliverable is the single strongest line in any headcount request. Without one, the memo argues on cost alone.
Year one, from approval
$19,108
46 weeks of payroll plus $0 one-time. This is the number that lands in this year's budget.
Difference a year
$55,900
Steady state, against the local hire. $4,658 a month, or 72 percent.
Cost per full-strength week
$455
Year one buys 42 weeks at full contribution. The same week costs $1,751 on the local hire.
Time to full contribution
10 weeks
From a yes to a person contributing at full strength, including the ramp.
| Line | Local hire | Dedicated remote hire, Egypt | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fully loaded, per person, per year | $77,500 | $21,600 | $55,900 |
| Steady state, whole request, per year | $77,500 | $21,600 | $55,900 |
| One-time cost | $5,000 | $0 | $5,000 |
| Year one, measured from approval | $73,558 | $19,108 | $54,450 |
| Cost per full-strength week in year one | $1,751 | $455 | $1,296 |
Generated business case
Business case: one Customer Support Specialist on a dedicated remote team in Egypt
Header: Prepared for CFO or finance lead
1. The ask
- Approve the use of $19,108 in year one to place one Customer Support Specialist as a dedicated remote hire based in Egypt, starting roughly 6 weeks from the day this is approved.
- At steady state this runs $21,600 a year against $77,500 for the equivalent local hire, a difference of $55,900 a year, or 72 percent.
- Funding: This spends an approved line differently rather than asking for new money. The decision is about how the budget is used, not whether it exists.
2. Why this is in front of you now
- The role is already approved and open. The work it covers is either not happening or is being covered informally, and the position has been unfilled long enough to notice.
- No cost has been attached to leaving this as it is, because none can be defended with the numbers currently available. The case below is argued on cost per unit of capacity instead.
3. The numbers
- Steady state, one full year, everyone at their desk:
- Local hire, fully loaded $77,500 a year ($77,500 per person)
- Dedicated remote hire, Egypt $21,600 a year ($21,600 per person)
- Difference $55,900 a year, $4,658 a month
- Year one, measured from approval, with a start 6 weeks out:
- Local hire $73,558 (46 weeks of payroll plus $5,000 one-time)
- Dedicated remote hire, Egypt $19,108 (46 weeks of payroll plus $0 one-time)
- Difference in year one $54,450
- What the money actually buys in year one:
- 42 weeks at full contribution, after 6 weeks to start and a 8 weeks ramp at 50 percent output.
- Cost per full-strength week $455 remote, $1,751 local.
4. Assumptions, stated so they can be challenged
- a. The local comparison is $62,000 base plus 25 percent employer load for taxes, benefits, equipment, and software.
- b. The remote figure of $1,800 a month is fully loaded and is what a managed provider quotes, so it already contains what the load percentage adds on the local side.
- c. Both options are assumed to start on the same date. If the remote search is faster in practice, this memo understates the case rather than overstating it.
- d. The ramp is applied to both options equally. A local hire ramps too, so the ramp changes the cost per productive week and does not change the gap between the two options.
- e. Everything is in USD at present rates. No currency movement is forecast, and none is assumed.
- f. Costs are compared, not value. No revenue is attributed to this hire anywhere in this memo.
5. Risks and how each is handled
- Starting point: The search reopens at the same cost if the first offer is declined or the hire does not pass probation.
- Handling: Run a paid work sample before the offer, and agree a replacement term in writing before signing anything.
- Employment and payroll compliance in Egypt sits with whoever is the employer of record. Confirm in writing which party carries it before signing, and take local advice on the contract itself.
- Handling: use a provider that carries payroll, contracts, and statutory obligations, and get the allocation of responsibility in the agreement rather than in an email.
- Time zone overlap is a real constraint. Egypt runs UTC+2 all year, which gives a full working day of overlap with Europe and the Gulf and a partial afternoon with North America.
- Handling: agree core hours in the offer, not after the start date, and plan the week around the overlap you actually have.
- Single point of failure. One remote hire holding one function is a concentration risk regardless of where they sit.
- Handling: require written process documentation inside the first ninety days as a condition of passing probation.
- CFO or finance lead will most likely push back on the grounds that the saving is a steady-state figure being presented as if it lands in year one.
- Handling: the year one and steady state figures above are reported separately for exactly that reason. Quote the year one number in the budget conversation.
6. Alternatives considered
- Do nothing. Guaranteed to happen if no decision is made. No defensible figure is available, which is itself a reason to decide rather than defer.
- Hire locally. $73,558 in year one, $77,500 a year after that. Closest substitute and the basis of every comparison above.
- Freelance or agency cover. Faster to start and simpler to stop, at a higher hourly rate with no continuity of knowledge. Reasonable for work that genuinely ends.
- Redistribute the work internally. Free in the budget and not free in delivery, since it is paid for in whatever the absorbing team stops doing.
7. What is being decided, and by when
- A yes today puts someone at the desk in roughly 6 weeks and at full contribution in roughly 10 weeks. Every week this decision waits moves both of those dates by a week.
- Decision needed: approve $19,108 for year one, $21,600 a year thereafter, for one Customer Support Specialist.
This is a planning tool, not financial, legal, or tax advice. The figures it produces are only as good as the inputs you give it, and the memo says so in its own assumptions section on purpose. Confirm employment, payroll, and tax obligations in Egypt with a qualified local adviser before you sign anything.
The fastest way to replace the remote figure in this memo with a real one is to tell us the role. Hire Nile shares vetted Egyptian candidates with actual rates, usually within a few business days, with payroll, contracts, and equipment handled.
Headcount requests rarely fail on the number
They fail on being unanswerable, and the delay costs more than the figure being argued about.
The way a hiring request usually dies is not a no. It is a request for more detail. Someone brings one figure to a meeting, the approver asks what it is being compared against and over what period, the answers are approximate, and the outcome is that everyone agrees to revisit it next month. Nothing was rejected. The role simply stays open for another cycle, and whatever the open seat was costing carries on costing it.
That failure mode has a structure, and the structure is predictable enough to write against. An approver is checking three things, in order. Compared to what. Over what period. And what happens if we do nothing. A document that answers all three in its first half rarely generates a fourth meeting, because there is nothing left to send the requester away to find out.
Compared to what. A saving is not a number, it is a difference between two numbers, and half of any difference is the option you did not propose. If the memo does not name the local hire you would otherwise make, with its own loaded cost and its own one-time fee, then the approver has to construct that side themselves, and they will construct it less favourably than you would have. Every figure in the tool above is a paired comparison for this reason.
Over what period. Year one and steady state are different numbers. Year one starts on the day the decision is made, so it carries a start date and any one-time cost, and it is the figure that shows up in this year's budget. Steady state is twelve clean months with the person already at their desk. Presenting a steady state saving as if it lands this year is the single most common unforced error in a headcount memo, and a finance lead will find it immediately.
What happens if we do nothing. Doing nothing is the option that gets chosen automatically whenever a decision is deferred, which makes it the most likely outcome of any meeting rather than a hypothetical. It belongs in the table with a price on it. If you cannot defend a price, say that plainly and argue the case on cost per unit of capacity instead. That is a weaker argument and it is a true one, which is worth more in the second meeting than a strong argument that did not survive the first.
The two places these memos overstate the case
A business case written by the person who wants the hire is not a neutral document, and everybody in the meeting knows it. The way to get the benefit of the doubt is to visibly give away the two advantages you could most easily have taken.
The first is ramp. It is tempting to charge a productivity discount against a new offshore hire, because it is real: somebody who started three weeks ago is not yet delivering what they will deliver in month six. The problem is that a local hire ramps in exactly the same way, and applying the discount to one side of a comparison and not the other quietly converts the analysis into an argument. This tool applies the ramp to both options identically and reports the result as capacity rather than as cost, which is why the headline it produces is cost per full-strength week. That unit survives cross-examination and a percentage saving frequently does not.
The second is the start date. An offshore search through a provider with an existing bench is often faster than a local search run by a team that is already busy, and it would be reasonable to model that advantage. The tool does not, and assumes both options start on the same day. If the remote search does turn out faster, the memo has understated its own case rather than overstated it, which is the direction you want any error in a document you are asking someone to trust. The assumption is written into the memo explicitly so the approver can see the choice was made rather than missed.
The same logic explains why the cost of doing nothing defaults to zero. There is a version of this memo where an impressive figure sits in that line, derived from revenue divided by headcount multiplied by days open. It is the easiest number in the document to attack, and once it falls the assumptions that survived tend to fall with it by association. If you have a defensible figure, the cost of vacancy calculator derives one by netting the payroll you are not paying against the output you are genuinely losing. If you do not, zero is a stronger position than an estimate you cannot source.
What each approver reads first
The same facts in a different order, because the first objection depends entirely on who is reading.
| Reader | Checks first for | Objection if you do not pre-empt it |
|---|---|---|
| CFO or finance lead | cash out the door this year, the payback on anything one-time, and which budget line it lands on | that the saving is a steady-state figure being presented as if it lands in year one |
| Founder or CEO | how quickly the capacity arrives and what it unblocks, with the cost as the constraint rather than the headline | that the plan buys a person rather than an outcome, with no date attached to either |
| Board or investor group | the change in operating model, the concentration risk it creates or removes, and how it is reversible | that a cost decision is being made without naming what breaks if the arrangement ends |
| Department head or budget owner | the delivery this unblocks, who manages the person day to day, and what the team stops doing without it | that the work will land as extra management load on a team already at capacity |
None of these readers wants a different set of facts. They want the same facts led by the one that answers their question, with the objection they were going to raise already handled two paragraphs later. That is most of what separates a memo that gets decided from one that gets deferred.
Where you are starting from changes the argument
A request to backfill an approved but empty seat and a request for net new headcount are different asks wearing similar clothes, and an approver treats them very differently. The first spends money that has already been agreed. The second competes against every other unfunded proposal in the company. The tool asks which one you are making because the risk section and the framing both change with the answer.
| Starting point | The risk it creates | How the memo handles it |
|---|---|---|
| A seat is open and unfilled | The search reopens at the same cost if the first offer is declined or the hire does not pass probation. | Run a paid work sample before the offer, and agree a replacement term in writing before signing anything. |
| The existing team is absorbing the work | Absorbed work is invisible until someone resigns, at which point the gap is larger than the headcount plan suggests. | Name the two or three people currently absorbing it and the hours per week involved, so the approver can see the cost that moves rather than a cost that is added. |
| This is net new capacity for new work | Net new spend has no offsetting line, so it competes directly with everything else in the budget. | Tie the request to a dated deliverable that does not happen without it, and state plainly what gets cut if it is declined. |
| Replacing agencies, freelancers, or short-term contractors | Knowledge held by outgoing contractors leaves with them, and the handover is usually underestimated. | Overlap the two arrangements for a defined number of weeks and treat the overlap as a one-time cost in the plan rather than an unplanned overrun. |
The numbers worth sourcing before you send it
Three inputs carry most of the weight, and two of them have published benchmarks you can cite.
Time from approval to a person at the desk. SHRM's 2026 recruiting benchmarking data puts the median time to fill at 39 calendar days for nonexecutive positions and 45 days for executive positions, measured from requisition open to offer accepted. That measurement stops at acceptance, so a candidate serving a notice period adds to it. For a business case, model decision to first day, because the capacity does not exist until then and the approver is buying capacity rather than a signed contract. The hiring timeline planner works the same span backwards from a date you need someone in place.
How contested the hire will be. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 7.4 million job openings in June 2026, a rate of 4.4 percent, with 5.3 million hires and 5.4 million total separations in the same month, published on August 4, 2026. Hires and separations running that close together is the useful part for a memo: it means the seat you are trying to fill is being competed for at roughly the same rate seats are being vacated across the economy, so a plan that assumes the first offer is accepted is optimistic.
The fully loaded local cost. This is the figure most often understated, because base salary is the number everyone remembers and the employer load is the number sitting in a different system. Employer taxes, insurance, benefits, equipment, software seats, and workspace are all part of what the alternative actually costs, and leaving them out shrinks the side of the comparison you are arguing against. Most finance teams already carry a standard loading percentage. Ask for theirs rather than inventing one, and name it in the assumptions so the number is theirs as well as yours.
For the remote side of the comparison, the Egypt offshore salary calculator sizes a fully loaded monthly figure by role and seniority, the offshore team cost calculator does the same for a multi-role roster, and the contractor versus employee calculator covers the engagement model question that usually follows approval.
What the memo will not do for you
It will not attribute revenue to the hire. Every figure in the output is a cost compared against another cost, and there is no line anywhere that claims a person will generate a return. Revenue attribution for a single seat is the least defensible category of number in any business case, and including it tends to move the conversation from whether to approve the role to whether your model is credible.
It will not tell you what is legally required in Egypt. Employment, payroll, and tax obligations depend on the engagement model, the contracting entity, and facts specific to your company. The memo names compliance as a risk and points at the question that needs answering before signature rather than answering it, because that is the correct handling for a document that will be read by people who are not lawyers. Take local advice. The background reading on this site is written for context, not as a substitute for it.
It will not survive being sent unedited. The output is a first draft that has already answered the standard questions, which is the part that takes the longest and the part people skip. The specifics that make it persuasive at your company are yours to add: the deliverable with a date on it, the two people currently absorbing the work, the line the budget moves from. Those are the sentences an approver actually decides on, and no generator knows them.
Common questions
What is a business case for a hire?
A business case for a hire is a short written argument that a specific spend should be approved. It states the ask as a number and a date, describes what is happening now without the hire, compares the proposed option against the closest realistic alternative over a defined period, lists the assumptions behind every figure so they can be challenged, names the risks and how each is handled, prices the alternatives including doing nothing, and ends with the exact decision being requested. A salary comparison is an input to a business case. It is not a business case on its own, which is the most common reason a headcount request comes back with a request for more detail rather than a yes or a no.
Why does this tool report year one and steady state separately?
Because they are different numbers and quoting them as one is the fastest way to lose credibility in an approval meeting. Year one is measured from the day the decision is made, so it contains a start date and any one-time cost, and it is the figure that lands in this year's budget. Steady state is a full twelve months with the person already at their desk and nothing one-time in it, and it is the figure that matters for the plan after this one. A memo that presents a steady state saving as if it arrives this year invites exactly the objection a finance lead is trained to raise, and the correction usually costs more time than the difference between the two figures.
Should ramp time be charged against the offshore option?
No. A local hire ramps too. A model that applies a productivity discount to one side of a comparison and not the other is not a comparison, it is an argument. This tool applies the ramp identically to both options and reports it as year one capacity instead, which is the number of full-strength weeks the money actually buys. That changes the cost per productive week for both options and leaves the gap between them unchanged, which is the honest treatment. It also gives you something more useful to say than a percentage saving, because cost per full-strength week is a unit an approver can compare against anything else they are being asked to fund.
How long does it take to fill a role?
SHRM's 2026 recruiting benchmarking report puts the median time to fill at 39 calendar days for nonexecutive positions and 45 days for executive positions, measured from the day the requisition opened to the day the offer was accepted. That figure ends at offer acceptance, so it does not include the notice period the hired candidate still has to serve with their current employer. For a business case, use decision to first day at the desk rather than requisition to offer, because that is the date the capacity actually arrives and the only one your approver cares about.
What should I put for the cost of doing nothing?
Zero, unless you can defend a figure. This tool defaults that input to zero deliberately. An invented number for what an unfilled seat is costing is the single easiest line in a memo for an approver to attack, and losing that line tends to take the credibility of the rest of the document with it. If you can evidence a figure, derive it properly: net the loaded payroll you are not currently paying against the output you are genuinely losing, rather than dividing revenue by headcount. The cost of vacancy calculator on this site does that calculation, and its output can be pasted straight into this input.
Does an offshore hire actually cost less than a local one?
It depends entirely on the two figures you enter, and this tool will tell you plainly when it does not. If the fully loaded monthly cost you enter for the remote hire exceeds the loaded cost of the local hire, the result says so and suggests you argue the case on availability and speed rather than on price. That outcome is uncommon for roles compared against United States, United Kingdom, Gulf, or Western European salaries, and it is entirely possible for roles compared against markets with lower prevailing pay. A tool that could only ever return one answer would not be worth putting a number from into a board pack.
What is the difference between cost per hire and a business case?
Cost per hire measures what the recruiting process consumes: advertising, agency fees, recruiter time, assessment tools, and travel. It is a recruiting efficiency metric and it belongs in the one-time cost line of a business case. The business case is the wider argument about whether the ongoing spend should happen at all, which is dominated by the recurring cost rather than the one-time one. Confusing the two produces a memo that argues hard about a five thousand fee while barely mentioning the sixty thousand a year sitting underneath it.
Is the memo this tool produces legal or financial advice?
No. It is a planning document built from figures you supply, and it says so in its own assumptions section. Employment, payroll, and tax obligations in Egypt depend on the engagement model, the contracting party, and facts specific to your company, and they should be confirmed with a qualified local adviser before anything is signed. The memo names compliance as a risk and points at the question you need answered rather than answering it for you, which is the correct handling for a document that will be read by people who are not lawyers.
Replace the estimate with a real number
The weakest figure in most of these memos is the remote cost, because it is the one the writer has never been quoted. Tell us the role and we will send vetted Egyptian candidates with actual rates, usually within a few business days, with payroll, contracts, and equipment handled. Then the memo has a real number in it and you can send it.