Should a Singapore SME outsource telemarketing or hire in-house?
Hire in-house when calling is a permanent part of how you sell and you have someone who can train and supervise the caller. Outsource when the volume is uneven, when you are still testing whether a list or message works, or when nobody on your team has time to manage a new hire.
The two options differ mainly in what you commit to up front. A hire is a fixed commitment of salary, management time and a ramp-up period before you learn whether the calling works. Outsourcing is usually a commitment to a batch of calls, so you find out what a list produces before you decide to build anything permanent.
What does hiring an in-house telemarketer involve?
Hiring means paying a monthly salary whether or not meetings are booked, plus employer obligations. For Singapore citizens and permanent residents, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) states that employers must pay CPF contributions every month, including for part-time and casual staff, with contributions due at the end of each month.
There are also costs that do not appear on a payslip: writing the call script, training, listening to calls, replacing the person if they leave, and your own time. The upside is real. An in-house caller learns your product, hears objections first-hand and can pass that back to your sales team.
In-house suits a business that has enough calling to keep one person busy most days, and a manager who will check the work weekly.
What does outsourcing involve, and how is it priced?
Outsourcing means a service makes the calls for you, usually from a list you supply, and hands back booked meetings or call results. You do not recruit, but you still need a good list, a clear reason for the call and someone to attend the meetings.
A service can charge per meeting booked, per hour of calling, or per number called. Per-hour pricing leaves you paying for time regardless of output. Per-number pricing is the easiest to forecast, since you know the cost of the batch before it starts.
Whichever model you look at, ask four things: who owns the list and what happens to it afterwards, whether you can listen to the calls, who is accountable for the campaign, and whether you are tied to a contract or a monthly fee.
Do the Do Not Call rules change the choice?
The Do Not Call (DNC) rules are a legal question for your list, whichever option you pick. Organisations check numbers against the DNC Registry at dnc.gov.sg, and the PDPC's page on checking numbers refers to a 21-day validity for a check, so a list checked a month ago needs checking again.
Calls to an organisation for that organisation's own purposes are generally outside the DNC rules. That protection is lost once the call is about the person's own needs, for example a call to a director about their personal insurance or investments. The detail is in the PDPC's Advisory Guidelines on the Do Not Call Provisions.
This is general information. For a specific list or campaign, check with a lawyer or read the PDPC guidelines and the Personal Data Protection Act directly. Moneylenders should also note that unsolicited calls by moneylenders have been banned since 1 April 2025.
How do you decide for your business?
Count the calls first. If you expect to call a few thousand numbers a year, or in occasional campaigns, one salary will probably sit idle for part of the time. If you would call every working day, a hire can make sense.
Then look at your constraints. If you cannot spare time to train and listen to calls, an in-house hire will drift. If your offer needs a detailed technical conversation before a meeting makes sense, in-house knowledge matters more. If the aim is only to book meetings with the right people on a list you already own, a service is a shorter path.
A single outsourced batch is one way to read the results before you decide whether to hire.
Where does Greetsby fit?
Greetsby is an appointment-setting service in Singapore. It calls the people on your own list and books meetings into your calendar. It is built for small and mid-sized businesses that sell to other businesses, B2B sales teams, and financial advisory firms. Individual representatives cannot sign up themselves, because under MAS Notice FAA-N02 only the firm may appoint an introducer.
Pricing is per number called: S$1.80 a number, covering up to 4 attempts on different days between 9.30am and 6.00pm. A batch of 1,000 numbers is S$1,800, 2,000 is S$3,600 and 3,000 is S$5,400, paid before calls start, with no contract or monthly fee. Every call is recorded and you can play any of them. You approve the opening and the reason for the call first, and a named caller is responsible for your campaign.
Greetsby does not promise a number of meetings. The first batch shows what your own list produces. You check your list against the DNC Registry before sending it and confirm that you have. Questions go to hello@greetsby.com, and the Get started page lists the batches.
Questions
Is outsourcing telemarketing cheaper than hiring in Singapore?
It depends on volume. A hire costs the same each month whatever the output, plus CPF for citizens and permanent residents, while a per-number batch has a known cost before it starts. Work out your yearly call volume before comparing.
Do I need to check the Do Not Call Registry before outsourcing calls?
Calls to organisations for their own purposes are generally outside the DNC rules, but that protection is lost once a call is about the person's own needs. Where checks apply, the PDPC refers to a 21-day validity. Confirm your case with a lawyer.
Who owns the call list when I outsource?
Agree this in writing before you send anything. Ask that the list is used only for your campaign, is not resold or added to anyone else's campaign, and is deleted when you ask.
Can an individual financial adviser representative hire an appointment-setting service?
No. Under MAS Notice FAA-N02, only the financial adviser firm may appoint an introducer, so the firm must be the one to sign up.
Sources
- PDPC: Check Numbers Against Do Not Call (DNC) Registry
- Ministry of Manpower: Employer's contributions (CPF)
General information for businesses in Singapore, not legal advice.