One of the most common questions SME owners ask is: "Is it more cost-effective to hire a full-time IT employee, or use an IT outsourcing service?" This article breaks down the real costs of both options to help you make an informed decision.
The Cost of Hiring In-House IT
- Salary: A junior-to-mid-level IT employee in Bangkok/Samut Prakan typically costs 20,000–35,000 THB/month.
- Benefits and social security: Adds roughly another 15–20% on top of salary.
- Bonuses and paid leave: A hidden cost that's often overlooked.
- Equipment and tools: Computers, software licenses, diagnostic tools.
- Skill-gap risk: A single employee rarely covers every specialty (network, server, security, cloud) — meaning you often end up hiring extra specialists anyway.
All in, the real cost of one full-time IT hire usually lands at 30,000–45,000+ THB/month — plus the risk of turnover, which means restarting the hiring and training process from scratch.
The Cost of IT Outsourcing
- Fixed monthly fee: Ranges from a few thousand to tens of thousands of baht depending on device count and service tier.
- A full multi-disciplinary team: Instead of relying on one generalist, you get specialists across every domain.
- No benefits overhead: No social security, bonuses, or paid leave to manage.
- No turnover risk: Your provider is responsible for staffing continuity, not you.
A Numbers Comparison
For a mid-sized business with roughly 30–50 devices:
- One full-time IT hire: ~35,000–45,000 THB/month (before accounting for skill-gap risk)
- IT Outsourcing (Business package): ~15,000 THB/month for a full specialist team with a clear SLA
The Bottom Line
For most SMEs without highly complex IT environments, outsourcing is clearly the more cost-effective choice — both in predictable spending and in the breadth of expertise you get from a full team, rather than depending on one person's skill set.
