Outsourcing Cold Calling to the Philippines: A How-To Guide

Introduction

If you’ve ever tried to build an in-house SDR team from scratch, you know the pain: six-figure payroll, months of hiring and training, and reps who burn out before you’ve really dialed in your messaging. Meanwhile, your AEs are complaining that their calendars are empty.

That’s why so many B2B teams are looking at the Philippines for cold calling. The country has quietly become a global contact-center powerhouse, with more than $31.5B in annual contact-center revenue and over 1.6 million people working in the sector. When you combine that talent pool with labor savings of 50-70% versus US hires, it’s worth a serious look for any outbound-focused sales org.

In this guide, we’ll walk through why the Philippines works so well for B2B cold calling, when it does not make sense, how to design an outsourced program that actually generates pipeline, how to choose and manage the right partner, and how SalesHive approaches Philippines-based cold calling as part of a modern SDR strategy.

Why the Philippines Is a Cold Calling Powerhouse

Before you outsource a critical part of your go-to-market, you need to know why the Philippines is such a popular destination-and whether those strengths line up with B2B sales.

1. A Massive, Mature Contact-Center Industry

The Philippines isn’t an “emerging” call-center market; it’s a global heavyweight. Contact centers there generated about $31.5B in revenue in 2024, up from $29.5B in 2023, and represent roughly 83% of the entire IT-BPM industry’s earnings. The country is projected to hit close to $49B in annual contact-center revenue by 2028 if current growth holds.

On the global stage, the Philippines commands around 16% of the outsourcing market, contributing roughly $38B in contact-center revenue in 2025 with a workforce of about 1.8 million professionals. In other words: there is plenty of specialized talent for outbound campaigns, not just customer support.

For B2B teams, that scale means:

• A deep bench of agents with 3-10+ years of calling experience
• Providers that have seen thousands of campaigns, from SaaS to logistics
• More competition among vendors, which (if you choose wisely) drives up quality

2. Real Cost Advantages (Without Going Cut-Rate)

Let’s talk money, because that’s usually the first reason this conversation starts.

A typical call center agent in the Philippines earns around PHP 261,800 per year-about PHP 21,800 per month. That translates to roughly $4,700–$5,000 USD annually or about $2.30 per hour. Compare that to the average US Sales Development Representative, who earns about $38,964 per year, or roughly $19/hour, before benefits and overhead.

When you layer in benefits, taxes, office space, and tech, all-in costs for an in-house US SDR often land between $54.5K and $84K per year. By contrast, a fully loaded Philippine cold caller (including the BPO’s margin, infrastructure, and management) typically runs $8K–$12K per year. That’s a 4-6x difference in cost per seat.

For a B2B team, those savings translate directly into options:

• Hiring more outbound capacity with the same budget
• Reinvesting the delta into paid media, content, or events
• Testing new verticals or markets with lower financial risk

3. English Proficiency and Cultural Fit

If you’ve ever had a bad experience with offshore calls, you’re probably wondering about language.

The Philippines ranks 20th out of 113 countries in the 2023 EF English Proficiency Index, earning a “high proficiency” rating and placing second in Asia after Singapore. English is widely used in business, education, and government, and decades of exposure to Western media means Filipino agents are comfortable with US and European idioms, small talk, and business etiquette.

Sales-focused content from SalesHive and others notes that the country has a 90%+ English literacy rate, with many agents trained to use neutral accents for international calling. This combo of language skills and cultural familiarity makes it far easier for Philippine reps to handle nuanced B2B conversations than teams in some other low-cost regions.

4. Time Zone and 24/7 Coverage

The Philippines operates on UTC+8 (Asia/Manila). That’s almost perfectly opposite the US, which sounds like a drawback until you remember: BPOs in the Philippines are built around night-shift work. They’re used to aligning agent schedules with North American and European business hours.

For B2B teams, this enables:

• Full US coverage (East to West Coast) with a single offshore team
• Extended hours for global outbound (EMEA + North America)
• 24/7 follow-up on inbound leads if you mix roles (not just cold calling)

5. Government Support and Infrastructure

The Philippine government actively promotes the BPO and IT-BPM industry with tax incentives, dedicated IT parks, and workforce development programs. Major hubs like Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao have modern office towers, redundant power, and high-speed internet tailored to contact-center operations.

For you, this means you’re not asking someone to call from a laptop and AirPods at their kitchen table-you’re usually plugging into hardened infrastructure with enterprise-grade dialers, CRMs, call recording, and analytics already in place.

When Outsourcing Cold Calling to the Philippines Actually Makes Sense

Outsourcing isn’t a magic switch. In some situations it works beautifully; in others, it’ll just amplify your existing problems. Let’s separate the two.

Good Fit: You Have a Defined ICP and Offer

If you already know who you sell to, what pains you solve, and what a qualified meeting looks like, a Philippine team can slot in as an extension of your SDR org.

Typical good-fit scenarios:

• SaaS / tech selling to repeatable ICPs (e.g., 50-1000 employee companies in specific verticals)
• Professional services or agencies targeting well-defined roles (CMOs, RevOps leaders, HR directors)
• Manufacturing / logistics / industrial selling standard offerings into clear buying centers

Here, the work is high-volume and pattern-based-perfect for a trained offshore team armed with a solid playbook.

Good Fit: You Need Scale More Than Hyper-Customization

If you’re running a volume-based outbound motion-thousands of accounts, broad geos, simple qualification logic-outsourced calling shines. A Philippine team can crank through large lists reliably, as long as the messaging is tight and the lists are clean.

You can then layer your in-house SDRs or AEs on top for:

• Strategic accounts
• Late-stage nurturing
• Complex, multi-threaded deals

Weak Fit: You Don’t Have Product-Market Fit Yet

If you’re still figuring out your ICP, pricing, and core value prop, don’t throw that problem over the fence to an offshore team. You’ll end up burning budget and leads while you experiment.

In that situation, you’re better off having a small in-house or near-shore SDR pod (or a partner like SalesHive running a more hands-on, strategic program) to iterate quickly and feed learnings back into the product and positioning.

Weak Fit: Ultra-Enterprise, Political Deals

If your average deal is seven figures and requires board-level buy-in, custom security reviews, and deep consensus-building, your cold calling motion is less about volume and more about high-stakes orchestration.

You can still use Philippine support-for list research, initial touches, and follow-up-but you’ll probably want enterprise SDRs and AEs close to home taking point on live conversations.

Designing Your Outsourced Cold Calling Program

Let’s assume you’re a good fit. How do you actually design a Philippine-based calling program that generates qualified pipeline instead of regret?

Step 1: Cement Your ICP and Qualification Criteria

Before you sign a contract, document three things:

1. Firmographics, Industries, company sizes, geos, and tech stack indicators you care about.
2. Personas, Job titles, functions, seniority, and buying roles (economic buyer vs. user vs. influencer).
3. Meeting definition, What exactly counts as a qualified meeting?

For example:

• ICP: US-based SaaS companies, 50-500 employees, using Salesforce or HubSpot.
• Persona: VP Sales, Head of Revenue Operations, or CRO.
• Qualified meeting: Prospect confirms they have an SDR team, are sending at least 5,000 cold emails/month, and are open to outsourcing part of their SDR function within 12 months.

Hand this to your provider and bake it into scripts, CRM fields, and QA rubrics.

Step 2: Build a Real Playbook (Not Just a Script)

Philippine reps don’t need a 40-page manifesto, but they do need more than a one-page script. Your playbook should include:

• Talk tracks for the first 10 seconds (hook)
• Discovery questions and fallback questions
• Common objections and how you want them handled
• Qualification checklist
• Clear next steps and CTAs

Record a few of your own or your best SDRs’ calls and share them. Nothing trains faster than hearing how a real sales pro navigates objections and pivots.

Step 3: Instrument Your Tech Stack

You need visibility. At minimum:

• CRM integration, All calls and meetings logged to your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, etc.).
• Dialer + recording, Every call recorded and accessible for QA.
• Reporting, Shared dashboards showing dials, connects, meetings, and pipeline by campaign.

Many Philippine BPOs already have predictive dialers and CRM integrations. If they don’t, that’s a red flag.

SalesHive, for example, runs everything through its own AI-powered sales platform and syncs data into clients’ CRMs. That allows clients to see booked meetings, outreach volume, and list performance in real time while we iterate on scripts and targeting.

Step 4: Set SLAs and KPIs That Matter

Activity numbers (dials per day) are table stakes. For B2B teams, the real KPIs are:

• Connect rate (live conversations / dials)
• Conversation-to-meeting rate
• Meetings per rep per week
• Meeting acceptance and show rate
• SAL / SQL conversion (or opportunities created)
• Pipeline and revenue generated

Agree on realistic benchmarks for your industry and price point. A high-ACV SaaS product selling into the C-suite will naturally see fewer meetings per 100 calls than a low-ticket SMB service.

Step 5: Plan a 60-90 Day Pilot

Don’t commit to a year out of the gate. Instead:

• Pick one ICP and one primary offer.
• Engage one provider for 60-90 days.
• Run weekly reviews and mid-pilot adjustments.

By the end of that period you should know:

• Are you getting enough conversations?
• Are meetings showing up and qualified?
• Is the provider improving over time or flatlining?

If yes, scale. If not, course-correct on strategy-or change partners.

Choosing the Right Philippine Partner

Here’s where a lot of teams go sideways. They Google “Philippines call center,” pick the cheapest quote, and then act surprised when results are mediocre.

Look for B2B, Not Just BPO

You don’t want a generic “we do everything” contact center that mostly handles customer support. You want a provider with:

• B2B case studies
• Experience with outbound lead generation, appointment setting, and SDR-as-a-service
• Familiarity with your type of sale (SaaS, services, complex B2B)

Ask for examples of:

• Script frameworks for B2B outreach
• Sample reports or dashboards for B2B campaigns
• References from clients with similar ACVs and cycles

Evaluate Training and QA

The best providers treat SDR work as a craft. Ask them:

• How do you train new reps on B2B cold calling specifically?
• Do you use call recordings and coaching frameworks?
• How often do managers review calls and provide feedback?
• What happens if a rep underperforms?

You’re not just buying seat time; you’re buying a system of ongoing coaching and improvement.

Check Tech Stack and Integrations

At minimum, your partner should support:

• CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.)
• Dialer with recording and analytics
• Time-zone aware scheduling

Bonus points for:

• AI-enabled call analytics
• Sequence tools that integrate email + phone
• Data enrichment and list-cleaning capabilities

SalesHive, for example, uses an in-house AI platform plus tools like its eMod engine to personalize emails and its dialer to orchestrate multi-channel campaigns. That means Philippine callers can plug into an existing, optimized stack rather than hacking things together.

Ask Hard Questions About Compliance

You’ll want clear answers on:

• TCPA-safe dialing practices for the US
• Handling of DNC lists and suppression rules
• GDPR/CCPA-aware data processing if you’re targeting EU/California

Any reputable provider should have written policies and be able to walk your legal or compliance team through them.

Understand Pricing Models

Common models you’ll see:

• Hourly / per seat, You pay per rep per hour or per month.
• Per-appointment, You pay only when a meeting is booked.
• Hybrid, Lower base fee + per-meeting or per-SQL bonus.

Hourly is most common for serious B2B programs because it aligns with building a real outbound engine, not just cherry-picking easy meetings. But you can still tie bonuses to SALs/SQLs to keep everyone goal-aligned.

Onboarding, Training, and Managing a Philippines-Based Team

Once you’ve picked a partner, the real work starts. Here’s how to avoid the classic ‘fire-and-forget’ mistake.

Treat Them as an Extension of Your Team

If you want outsourced reps to sound like insiders, you have to treat them like insiders.

Do:

• Invite them to weekly sales standups or pipeline reviews.
• Give them access (within reason) to your sales collateral and case studies.
• Share feedback from closed-won and closed-lost deals.

Don’t:

• Hand them a script and disappear for a month.
• Keep strategy and messaging discussions completely separate.

SalesHive’s SDR outsourcing model, for example, pairs each client with a dedicated US-based strategist plus SDRs (US and/or Philippines-based). That strategist is on calls with you weekly, adjusting scripts and targeting while the callers execute the play.

Front-Load Training

The first 2-3 weeks should be heavy on enablement:

• Market and persona education (who you sell to and why they care)
• Product walkthroughs and demo recordings
• Live role-plays with your sales leaders or top SDRs
• Compliance and objection handling practice

Use call simulations and recorded calls from your own team so reps hear what “good” sounds like in your specific context.

Stand Up Feedback Loops

At least weekly, you should be:

• Reviewing actual call recordings
• Looking at connect and meeting rates by list and script
• Adjusting messaging based on patterns (objections, confusion, interest)

Cold calling is a feedback engine. The faster you process that feedback, the faster performance improves.

Align Incentives on Quality, Not Just Volume

If your provider is paid purely by the meeting, don’t be shocked when AEs complain about junk appointments.

Best practice:

• Set minimum criteria for what counts as a billable meeting.
• Tie part of compensation to SALs/SQLs or opportunities created.
• Use AE feedback on meeting notes to validate quality.

This keeps everyone focused on pipeline and revenue, not just booked slots.

Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)

You can do everything above and still shoot yourself in the foot if you fall into a few classic traps.

Pitfall 1: No Single Owner Internally

If marketing thinks the outsourced team reports to them, sales thinks they own it, and RevOps is stuck in the middle, you’ll get finger-pointing instead of progress.

Fix: Assign a clear internal owner (Head of Sales Dev, VP Sales, or RevOps leader) responsible for:

• Approving scripts and ICP definitions
• Running weekly reviews with the provider
• Reporting results to leadership

Pitfall 2: Dirty or Misaligned Lists

Even the best callers can’t fix bad data. If your provider is working from a mix of outdated contacts, wrong industries, or irrelevant titles, your connect and meeting rates will crater.

Fix: Either provide high-quality lists yourself or choose a partner (like SalesHive) that includes list building and verification as part of the engagement. Make sure lists are tightly mapped to your ICP and that bounced emails and bad numbers are cleaned quickly.

Pitfall 3: Overcomplicating the Offer

If reps need 10 minutes just to explain what you do, you’ve lost. Offshore or onshore, your initial pitch needs to be simple.

Fix: Boil your cold call pitch down to:

• Who you help
• The core problem
• The outcome you drive
• A low-friction next step (15-30 minute discovery or demo)

You can unpack details later in the meeting.

Pitfall 4: Starving the Program of Context

If you never update your provider on product changes, competitor moves, or new positioning, they’ll be using stale talk tracks long after the market has moved on.

Fix: Treat them as part of your GTM feedback loop. When your AEs close a big win or lose a deal, share why. Update battlecards, objection handling, and success stories regularly.

Pitfall 5: Expecting Miracles in 2 Weeks

Your team probably needed months to get your internal SDRs productive. Offshore reps aren’t magic. They need time to learn, test, and refine.

Fix: Set realistic expectations:

• Weeks 1-2: Training, call testing, early feedback.
• Weeks 3-4: Baseline performance, early wins.
• Weeks 5-8: Optimization and scale.

If there’s zero improvement after 8-10 weeks, then it’s time to re-examine ICP, messaging, or the provider itself.

How This Applies to Your Sales Team

Let’s bring this down from theory to your actual pipeline.

Scenario 1: Lean GTM Team, Strong Product

You’ve got:

• A solid product with paying customers
• 1-2 AEs and maybe one overworked SDR
• A clear sense of who you sell to, but no capacity to hit them all

For you, outsourcing cold calling to the Philippines lets you:

• Add affordable dialing power without a long hiring cycle
• Keep AEs focused on discovery and closing
• Test new segments or geos while protecting burn

A hybrid approach like SalesHive’s starter package-US strategist + Philippine caller-gives you both strategic guidance and low-cost execution.

Scenario 2: Established Sales Org, Stalled Pipeline

You’ve got:

• A full AE bench
• Some inbound, but outbound is sporadic
• Reps complaining about “not enough at-bats”

Here, a Philippine team can:

• Take over consistent top-of-funnel outreach
• Reactivate old opportunities and closed-lost accounts
• Free up in-house SDRs to focus on named accounts and ABM plays

You keep strategy, messaging, and enterprise accounts in-house while offloading the grind of volume calling.

Scenario 3: New Market or Vertical Expansion

You’re entering a new region or vertical and don’t want to bet the farm on it yet.

Outsourced calling lets you:

• Test messaging across hundreds of accounts quickly
• Collect real-world objections and questions to refine positioning
• Decide whether to invest in a dedicated in-house pod later

With the right partner, you can spin this up in weeks instead of quarters.

Where SalesHive Fits In

SalesHive sits at the intersection of outsourced talent and modern sales tech. Since 2016, we’ve helped over 1,500 B2B companies book more than 100,000 meetings by combining specialized SDR teams with our AI-powered outbound platform.

On the talent side, we offer US- and Philippines-based SDR options. Our SDR outsourcing services explicitly include highly trained Philippine reps where appropriate, working alongside US-based strategists and SDRs to mirror your tone, brand, and value prop across calls and emails. In our cold calling packages, you can even start with a dedicated Philippines-based caller plus a US strategist on a month-to-month agreement, giving you a low-risk way to test the model.

On the tech side, our platform handles multichannel orchestration (phone + email), A/B testing, and reporting. Our eMod engine uses AI to research prospects and personalize cold emails at scale, so your Philippine callers aren’t cold-calling strangers-they’re following up with accounts that have already seen relevant, customized messaging.

Everything is tracked in real time: dials, connects, meetings, and pipeline. You get full visibility and control without having to build the system yourself.

Conclusion + Next Steps

Outsourcing cold calling to the Philippines isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a powerful lever when you use it the right way. The country brings a rare combination of:

• Deep, mature contact-center talent
• 50-70% cost savings versus US hires
• Strong English skills and cultural alignment for Western markets
• Robust infrastructure and government support for BPO

If you’ve already figured out who you sell to and what a good meeting looks like, a Philippines-based cold calling team can massively increase your outbound coverage without blowing up your budget. The key is to own the strategy-ICP, messaging, qualification-and partner with a team that can execute, report, and improve.

Here’s a simple roadmap:

1. Tighten your ICP and meeting definition.
2. Shortlist and vet 3-5 serious Philippine partners.
3. Design a 60-90 day pilot with clear KPIs.
4. Instrument your tech stack and reporting from day one.
5. Treat outsourced reps as part of your team, not a black box.

If you’d rather skip the trial-and-error and plug into an existing system that already blends US strategy, Philippines-based calling, and AI-powered personalization, talk to SalesHive. We’ll help you design a program that actually fills your AEs’ calendars with qualified meetings-not just dials and dashboards.