People often ask me “How do I pay people?”
Paying people is the easiest part of working with an OFS.
There are so many options. You can pay through
Paypal,
wise.com,
Western Union, or
our favorite, Easypay at OnlineJobs.ph (www.OnlineJobs.ph/easypay).
You can use whatever works for you, no need to worry about things on the OFS side. Any of these services will take care of that for you.
Don’t wire money.
Don’t pre-pay for work.
How often and how much you pay them depends on what you negotiate with them. We pay most of our OFS once a month. Some of them get paid every 15 days.
I also recommend paying your OFS weekly for the first couple of months. It helps establish trust so they know you’re not out to scam them. This also gives you an out if you realize that it’s not working out; you don’t need to wait for the end of the month or 2 weeks before letting them go. After 2 months or so, you can switch to monthly or bi-monthly payments.
I actually don’t recommend Paypal. Their fees are super high (between 5-7%…it’s really hard to get a handle on it) and they hide them pretty well.
EasyPay is the payment system we wished existed so we created it.
Wise.com is also a really great option.
Most people just hook their bank account up to one of these services. They’re all secure, and using your bank account makes fees super minimal (except with Paypal) and payments happen super fast (after the first payment).
Paying with a credit card always incurs a 3% fee which gets old really fast when you’re paying staff salaries each month.
Also…don’t be late with your payments. They’re depending on the money you’re sending. If you’re late, they may run out of money. When they run out, they might not eat.
John