Dominican Republic Call Center Outsourcing Costs
An outsourced call center agent in the Dominican Republic costs roughly $10 to $16 an hour, all in, and typically about $13. It is the lowest-cost option in the Caribbean nearshore cluster, works US daytime hours, and has a growing bilingual workforce around Santo Domingo.
How the Dominican Republic compares on price
At $13 an hour, the Dominican Republic costs less than 12 of the other 18 countries in the index and more than 3. India, South Africa and Tunisia cost the same.
Why companies outsource to the Dominican Republic
- Time zone
- UTC-4
- Live US overlap: full
- English proficiency
- 503 Moderate
- EF English index 2025 · rank 55 of 123
- Working languages
- Spanish · English
- Primary support language: English
- 01
Market scale
The Dominican Republic has a fast-growing BPO base centered on Santo Domingo and Santiago, helped by free-trade-zone incentives. Capacity is smaller than on the Latin American mainland but growing steadily.
- 02
Language and accent
The bilingual workforce is still developing. Agents have a neutral accent, and the country draws on close ties to the US and a large returning diaspora. The deepest English talent is in the main cities.
- 03
Time zone
On Atlantic time (UTC-4) with no daylight saving, the country matches US Eastern time in summer and runs an hour ahead in winter. Either way, it covers the US business day in full.
- 04
Best-fit work
The Dominican Republic fits bilingual voice and customer care when buyers want Caribbean nearshore coverage at the lowest rate in that cluster, rather than the strongest English.
How the rate moves
By channel
Chat, email and back office cost less: they don't run in real time, so one agent can work several conversations.
By complexity
The biggest lever on your rate, by far. A tier-3 specialist costs well over twice as much as a back-office agent.
Dominican Republic call center cost breakdown
The hourly rate a vendor charges is not what the agent earns. Of a $13 rate in the Dominican Republic, roughly 30% reaches the agent as take-home pay ($2.60 to $5.20/hr). About 40% covers benefits, team leads and quality assurance, and the last 30% pays for technology, facilities and the vendor's margin. A quote far below the range usually means one of those layers is missing, not that the vendor is more efficient.
Outsourcing to the Dominican Republic, answered
How much does it cost to outsource customer service to the Dominican Republic?
About $13 an hour per agent, fully loaded, meaning the rate already covers pay, benefits, supervision, tools and facilities. Most vendors quote between $10 and $16. That works out to roughly $2,080 per agent per month at 160 billable hours, or about $499,200 a year for a 20-agent tier-1 voice team on business hours.
What does one call center agent cost per month in the Dominican Republic?
Roughly $2,080 a month for a full-time agent, at the typical $13 rate and 160 billable hours. Vendor quotes run from $1,600 to $2,560. That figure is for first-line (tier-1) voice support. A back-office agent costs closer to $1,664 a month, and a tier-3 specialist about $4,160.
What does a 10-agent call center team cost in the Dominican Republic?
About $20,800 a month, or $249,600 a year, for 10 tier-1 voice agents on business hours. Vendor quotes for the same team usually land between $16,000 and $25,600 a month. Round-the-clock coverage adds up to 25 percent.
Is the Dominican Republic cheaper than the Philippines?
No. The Dominican Republic averages $13 an hour, against $12 in the Philippines, so it costs about 8% more. For a 20-agent tier-1 voice team, that adds roughly $38K a year. It is still about 63% cheaper than a US onshore agent at $35.
What drives the price of call center outsourcing in the Dominican Republic?
Complexity, more than anything else. In the Dominican Republic, a back-office agent costs about $10.40 an hour, first-line (tier-1) support $13.00, tier-2 $17.68 and a tier-3 specialist $26.00. Switching from voice to email moves the rate far less, from $13.00 to $10.40. Round-the-clock coverage adds a shift premium of up to 25 percent.
Methodology and sourcesRate data v2026.2 · May 2026
- 01
Rates are billable US dollars an hour, fully loaded, drawn from vendor disclosures and the contracts rethinkCX sees when running outsourcing engagements. Refreshed quarterly.
- 02
Channel, complexity, and shift-premium multipliers come from Crescendo.ai 2026 and Business.com shift-differential data.
- 03
English proficiency scores come from the EF English Proficiency Index 2025 (123 countries). Time-zone offsets are standard time, per the IANA time-zone database.
Using this data. The BPO Cost Index is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. You can republish the figures, chart them, or build on them, commercially or otherwise, as long as you credit the source: “Dominican Republic call center outsourcing costs, rethinkCX BPO Cost Index, rethinkcx.com”.
Not sure which country fits?
Cost is one input. We help teams decide whether to outsource at all, which market fits their customers, and how to run a vendor once the contract is signed.
Book a free 15-min call See how we run outsourcing projects →