What an All-In Monthly Fee Should Include: Reading the True Cost of a Philippine Remote Hire
September 28, 2026
September 28, 2026
Two providers quote different monthly rates for the same role, and the obvious question is which one costs less. The more useful question is what each number actually represents. A quote can cover salary and nothing else, or it can already account for statutory employer contributions, 13th month pay, paid leave, payroll administration, recruitment, and ongoing employee support. Two figures that look close on paper can represent very different annual costs.
This is why Montani prices through an all-in monthly fee: not to put more items on one invoice, but to make the cost of employment clear before a client commits to a hire.
For an international business, that clarity matters early. Philippine employment costs do not end with the salary written in the offer. Some obligations come from Philippine law. Others come from the provider's own service model. A useful quote should make the difference visible, and this guide breaks down both layers.
For a covered employee, Philippine law creates statutory obligations: SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contributions, 13th month pay, applicable holiday and premium pay, night shift differential where it applies, and statutory leave entitlements. A provider's own operating model can add more on top: recruitment and screening, payroll and compliance administration, additional paid leave, performance management, employee support, and replacement or transition arrangements.
Statutory costs tell you what employment requires. The provider's service model tells you what the provider adds around that employment. A quote becomes easier to evaluate once the two are separated, and a lower headline rate often just means more of these costs are sitting outside the number you were shown first.
Some components of employment cost are not pricing choices. They come from Philippine labor and social legislation, and no compliant provider can price around them.
SSS. Under the Social Security Act of 2018 (Republic Act No. 11199), SSS contributions are shared between employer and employee according to the applicable contribution schedule. The employer's share is a real employment cost even though the employee's share is deducted from compensation. Schedules are updated periodically, so employers should check the current official SSS contribution table rather than rely on a figure from an older article.
PhilHealth. Contributions are shared between employer and employee based on applicable rules, salary limits, and current rates. The question for comparing quotes is whether the employer's share is already incorporated into the fee.
Pag-IBIG. Contributions are likewise shared, subject to the applicable compensation ceiling. For an international employer, this deduction can be unfamiliar because it has no direct US payroll equivalent.
13th month pay. For covered rank-and-file employees, Presidential Decree No. 851 requires 13th month pay equivalent to at least one-twelfth of basic salary earned during the calendar year. This should not be budgeted as a surprise December expense. An all-in model can account for the obligation throughout the year instead.
Night shift differential. Article 86 of the Labor Code provides for a differential of at least 10% of the regular wage for hours worked between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. This becomes relevant when Philippine-based professionals support US business hours. The question is not whether a role is "overnight," but whether the schedule creates a statutory premium the quoted fee already covers.
Service incentive leave. Covered employees who meet the applicable service requirements are generally entitled to at least five days of paid leave per year under the Labor Code, subject to statutory exclusions. That minimum should not be confused with the total paid leave a provider actually offers, which is where the provider's own model begins to matter.
The law sets the floor. What a provider builds on top of it is a separate decision, and it is where quotes that look similar on paper start to diverge in practice.
Montani's standard practice provides 10 vacation leaves and 12 sick leaves per year, well above the statutory minimum. When comparing providers, the useful question is not whether a quote says "benefits included," but how much leave the employee actually receives and what portion is statutory versus provider policy.
Montani also runs performance evaluations every six months. The formal review sets direction; the monthly check-in means issues surface while they are still manageable, rather than waiting for a renewal cycle. For a client managing a remote professional from another country, this support layer is easy to miss when comparing rates, because it does not appear as a line item on a salary spreadsheet.
Recruitment and screening are part of the same engagement rather than a separate purchase. At Montani, this includes sourcing, assessment, and interview coordination before employment begins, so a client is not simply buying payroll administration after finding its own candidate.
Finally, Montani uses a one-month Transition Deposit that covers the final 30 days of an engagement. This is a commercial mechanism the provider has chosen to design, not a statutory employee benefit, and it should be evaluated on its own terms rather than mistaken for a government requirement.
Montani has recruited more than 10 technical professionals for Rev365 since 2018, across several hiring phases, while handling payroll, HR administration, compliance, and employee engagement for the engagement. Because those functions sit inside the same structure rather than being billed as separate line items later, Rev365 has not had to reconcile a headline rate against a growing list of add-on charges as the team scaled. That is the practical value of an all-in model over several years, not just one invoice.
"An all-in fee should tell the client what they're actually paying for before they sign, not after the first unexpected invoice," says Carlos Abiera, Owner of Montani International.
Compare the rows before comparing the numbers.
An all-in fee can mix three different things, and a provider that calls itself "all-inclusive" should be able to say which category each cost belongs to.
Statutory costs exist because the employee is covered by Philippine labor and social legislation: employer contributions and 13th month pay are examples. Provider benefits are practices the provider has chosen to add, such as Montani's leave allowance, evaluations, and monthly feedback. Provider services are the operational work the provider performs for the client, such as recruitment, payroll, and compliance administration.
Keeping these separate prevents a common misreading of a quote: assuming that everything inside the fee is legally required, when much of it is a deliberate part of the provider's model.
Before choosing between two quotes, put both into the same worksheet.
The goal is not to make every provider's pricing structure identical. It is to make the comparison itself identical, so a lower monthly number cannot hide a higher annual one.
A monthly rate is easy to put side by side with another. It is the annual cost that is easier to actually understand. Twelve months of fees, plus any statutory costs billed separately, plus any provider fees billed separately, plus applicable premiums and one-time charges, is what determines the real first-year cost of a hire. That is the number worth building the comparison around, not the figure on the first page of the quote.
For Rev365, keeping recruitment, payroll, compliance, and performance support inside one structure since 2018 has meant the relevant comparison was always the standing engagement, not a rate that needed re-checking every time a new hiring phase began.
The most useful question when reviewing a Philippine remote hiring quote is not "who has the lowest monthly rate." It is "what does this monthly rate actually represent over the full year." That is the comparison that turns a price quote into a decision based on the complete cost of the engagement, not just the number on the invoice.
Explore how Montani structures remote-team engagements or see how Montani hires and vets talent before comparing your next quote.