Most comparisons between in-house and outsourced customer service fail because they only count salaries. This whitepaper introduces a 7-category cost model, illustrated with real data.
Visible costs (in-house): salaries, social charges, supervision, initial training. Hidden costs: recruitment, turnover (replacement cost: 6-9 months of salary), contact center software, physical space, supervision, absenteeism management.
In our analysis, the real total cost of a 25-agent in-house operation sits between €1.4M and €1.9M/year. The same operation outsourced costs €0.9M to €1.3M/year with the same contracted KPIs.
The break-even point usually appears above 40 agents for stable, low-turnover operations — below that threshold, outsourcing is more economical in almost every scenario.