How much should you pay a cold caller?
Offshore real estate callers are typically posted at $5 to $8 an hour, or $520 to $960 a month on a full-time salary. A US caller costs more: the federal median for telemarketers was $17.04 an hour in May 2025. Those are the two public benchmarks we can trace to a source. Here they are side by side.
| Caller | Pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Offshore VA, hourly role | $5 to $8 an hour | OnlineJobs.ph postings, Oct 19 to 21, 2026 |
| Offshore VA, salaried full-time role | $520 to $960 a month | OnlineJobs.ph postings, Oct 19 to 21, 2026 |
| Deal bonus in those postings | $250 per closed deal (2 of 7 postings) | OnlineJobs.ph postings, Oct 19 to 21, 2026 |
| US telemarketer, median | $17.04 an hour ($35,450 a year) | BLS OEWS, May 2025 |
| US telemarketer, middle 50% | $14.25 to $19.34 an hour | BLS OEWS, May 2025 |
The offshore figures come from a sample of seven real estate cold caller and wholesaling postings on OnlineJobs.ph, the same sample behind our guide to hiring real estate cold callers. Seven public postings is a snapshot, not a survey, so treat it as a starting range. The US figures come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for telemarketers.
How much do cold callers make in the US?
The closest federal benchmark is the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for telemarketers (SOC 41-9041): a median of $17.04 an hour, or $35,450 a year, in May 2025, across 58,430 jobs. The BLS defines telemarketers as workers who solicit donations or orders for goods or services over the phone. So this covers phone sales in every industry, not real estate callers alone.
| Percentile | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $13.00 | $27,040 |
| 25th | $14.25 | $29,640 |
| Median | $17.04 | $35,450 |
| 75th | $19.34 | $40,230 |
| 90th | $24.21 | $50,350 |
The BLS annual figures assume a full-time year of 2,080 hours. Where a caller lands in that range depends on experience, hours and market, so use the median as the going rate for US phone sales work, not as a real estate quote.
How much do you pay a cold caller for wholesaling?
In public wholesaling postings, offshore callers are typically offered an hourly base of $5 to $8, often with a bonus when a deal closes. Here is the pay in each of the seven real estate postings in our OnlineJobs.ph sample, dated October 19 to 21, 2026:
- Real estate wholesaling VA, lead generation and acquisition: $6 to $8 an hour
- Full-time real estate cold caller: $5 an hour
- Real estate lead manager and cold caller (wholesaling): $6 to $7 an hour plus bonuses
- Experienced real estate lead manager: $6 to $7 an hour plus $250 per closed deal
- Experienced real estate acquisition manager: $6 to $7 an hour plus $250 per closed deal
- Real estate cold caller: $520 a month
- Real estate agent outreach, cold caller and texter: $960 a month plus commissions
Four of the seven added a bonus or commission on top of a base, and none paid on commission alone. Three were lead manager or acquisition roles, which cover more than dialing.
Pay a base that keeps a reliable caller dialing every day. Then tie the upside to something you can check: a qualified lead that matches your buy box, or a closed deal.
Should you pay a cold caller hourly, per lead or commission only?
Hourly is the simplest, hourly plus a bonus ties pay to results, and commission only pushes all the risk onto the caller, which makes good callers hard to find and keep. Each structure works for someone. Here are the trade-offs.
| Structure | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly only | Predictable cost. The caller can focus on good conversations, not quick wins. | You pay for time, not results, so you track dials, talk time and leads yourself. |
| Hourly plus a per-lead bonus | Rewards output within days, not weeks. | Needs a written definition of a qualified lead, or you pay for weak ones. |
| Hourly plus a per-deal bonus | Ties pay to revenue. Two postings in our sample used it, at $250 per closed deal. | Deals close weeks after the call, and the caller depends on your follow-up to get paid. |
| Commission only | No cost until a deal closes. | Hard to hire and keep. It can push callers toward pushy calls that burn your list. US wage rules may apply. |
A per-lead bonus only works when everyone agrees what a lead is. Write it down: motivation, condition, timeline and price. Our wholesaling cold calling script collects exactly those four on every call, so you can check each lead before you pay on it.
Check wage rules before you go commission only. In the US, sales made by phone do not count as outside sales under the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to the US Department of Labor. So that exemption does not cover an inside caller you employ, and minimum wage and overtime rules can apply even on commission. Whether a caller is an employee or a contractor is a separate question. This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Ask an employment attorney or an accountant about your setup.
What does a cold caller really cost beyond pay?
Pay is only one line. A caller you hire yourself also needs a dialer, which HousingWire puts at $150 to $400+ a month, and lists at $100 to $300+ a month, plus payroll taxes on a US employee, your management time and the cost of turnover.
- Dialer: $150 to $400+ a month (HousingWire, October 6, 2026).
- Lists: $100 to $300+ a month for a list service (HousingWire). For comparison, Call Savvys skip tracing is $0.03 per record.
- Payroll taxes on a US employee: the employer pays 6.2% Social Security tax and 1.45% Medicare tax on wages, 7.65% in FICA, according to the IRS. Federal and state unemployment tax and workers' comp come on top.
- Management time: someone writes the script, trains the caller, listens to recorded calls and coaches every week. Those hours come out of offers and closings.
- Turnover: when a caller quits, you post the job, screen and train again, and your pipeline goes quiet until the new caller is up to speed.
- Compliance: scrubbing lists against the National Do Not Call Registry, keeping an internal do-not-call list and dialing in legal hours are all on you.
Want your own numbers? Plug your pay rate, tools and close rate into the free cold calling cost calculator.
What does a self-hired cold caller cost per month? A worked example
Example only, built from the cited figures above: a full-time offshore caller on a $520 to $960 monthly salary, plus a dialer and a list service, comes to about $770 to $1,660+ a month. A full-time US employee at the BLS median comes to about $3,430 to $3,880+ a month. Neither total includes bonuses or your time.
| Per month | Offshore VA | US employee |
|---|---|---|
| Pay | $520 to $960 | $2,954 ($35,450 a year divided by 12) |
| Employer FICA (7.65%, other payroll costs extra) | Not included | $226 |
| Dialer | $150 to $400+ | $150 to $400+ |
| Lists | $100 to $300+ | $100 to $300+ |
| Total before bonuses and your time | $770 to $1,660+ | $3,430 to $3,880+ |
Payroll taxes are left off the offshore column because the 7.65% applies to wages paid to US employees. How you pay an overseas VA is a question for your accountant. Add $250 for each closed deal if you copy the per-deal bonus from our sample, plus the hours you spend training and listening to calls.
Now compare that with one line. Call Savvys Starter is $1,200 a month for a dedicated, trained caller, with the predictive dialer, rotating local numbers, human QA plus AI scoring of every call, recordings, reports and the free Pipelio CRM included. Bring your own lists, or use our skip tracing at $0.03 per record, so a 10,000-record list is $300.
The cheapest monthly total is not always the cheapest deal. Judge every option on what each closed deal costs. Our cold calling cost per deal benchmarks show the ranges.
Is it cheaper to hire a cold caller or use a managed team?
On pay alone, an offshore VA is cheaper. Once you add the dialer, lists, management and turnover, a managed team lands in the same range, and it puts the lead volume in writing.
| Option | Monthly cost | Tools, lists and QA | If the caller quits | Lead guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offshore VA you hire | $5 to $8 an hour, or $520 to $960 a month, plus bonuses | You buy a dialer ($150 to $400+) and lists ($100 to $300+), and you run QA | You rehire and retrain | None |
| US employee you hire | About $2,954 at the BLS median, plus 7.65% payroll taxes | You buy the tools and lists, and you run QA | You rehire and retrain | None |
| Call Savvys managed team | $1,200 (1 caller), $2,300 (2), $3,300 (3). Enterprise from $1,100 per caller | Predictive dialer, local numbers, human QA and AI scoring included. Lists: yours, or $0.03 per record | Replacement within 24 hours | 20 to 40 qualified leads per caller a month, in writing |
Call Savvys prices are our published plans: month to month, no setup fee, calling in about 5 days. See pricing for what each plan includes, or weigh the two routes in detail in cold calling VA vs done-for-you.
When does hiring your own caller make sense?
Hire your own caller when you already have a tested script, a dialer, clean lists and someone with time to listen to calls every week. Hand it off when your hours are worth more on offers and closings. If you hire, screen on a live role-play, not a resume, and put the pay structure and the definition of a qualified lead in writing before the first dial. Our hiring guide walks through all three ways to hire.
If you would rather skip the hiring, Call Savvys puts a dedicated, trained human caller on your market. By the numbers: $19M+ in client deals, 91k+ appointments set, a 5.0 rating on Clutch and 93% guarantee achieved.