Question 1

How is this different from using a recruitment agency?

Accepted Answer

A recruitment agency finds you a candidate, charges a placement fee (usually 15 to 25% of the first year's salary, up front) and steps away. The person becomes your employee, with everything that entails: payroll, employer's NI, pension auto-enrolment, HR, and all the risk if it doesn't work out.

Kadraa runs the search the same way a good recruiter would. That is where we started, and it is what our reviews are about. But the model changes from the moment you choose someone. There is no placement fee. Your consultant contracts with Kadraa, not with you. We run their payroll, handle the foreign transactions, absorb the admin and any HR concerns, and you pay a single monthly fee. And where a recruiter's replacement guarantee runs out after three to twelve months, ours never does. If it stops working out, at any point and for any reason, you give one month's notice and we start the search for a replacement the same day.

Question 2

Is Kadraa an Employer of Record (EOR)?

Accepted Answer

No. An EOR is a company that legally employs your worker in their country and then rents that employment to you, usually for a platform fee on top of salary. It is a fine tool for big companies hiring their own employees abroad. It is also a lot of machinery for a UK business that just wants one good marketer.

With Kadraa there is no employment being rented to you at all. We contract directly with your consultant in South Africa, place them in your team full time, and charge you one monthly fee that covers everything: their pay, our management of payroll and foreign transactions, all administration, and replacement forever. You never touch an employment relationship in either country, and you don't need an EOR, a South African entity or a global employment platform to make it work.

Some providers in this market claim to be a contractor marketplace and your EOR at the same time. Those are different legal structures. We would rather explain ours precisely.

Question 3

Do I pay employer's National Insurance or pension contributions?

Accepted Answer

No. Both attach to UK employment relationships, and you do not have one with your consultant. For a UK employee on £40,000, employer's NI adds £5,250 a year (15% above the £5,000 threshold) and auto-enrolment adds £1,013 at the 3% employer minimum. That is around £6,250 of cost sitting on top of the salary before overheads. With Kadraa, the monthly fee is the entire cost. That is why our calculator itemises the UK side: the honest comparison is not salary against fee, it is the full employer cost against the fee. As with anything touching tax, your own adviser should confirm your position. We are glad to walk them through the structure.

Question 4

What happens if the person isn't right, or it stops working later?

Accepted Answer

You are never locked in. Give one month's notice, the same notice you would give any employee, without the process, risk or cost of a UK dismissal, and we begin the search for a replacement immediately. If it stops working out, at any point and for any reason, give one month's notice and we start looking for a replacement the same day. No time limit. No replacement fee. Typical time from brief to a signed contract with a start date is 21 days, and a replacement search starts from a much warmer position because we already know your business, your tools and exactly what the first person got right and wrong. Conventional recruiters give you a replacement window of three to twelve months and then charge you a fresh fee. We think that misprices the risk you are actually carrying. The cost of a mis-hire does not expire after month twelve, so our replacement terms don't either.

Question 5

How quickly can someone start?

Accepted Answer

Typically we present candidates, you interview, and a contract is signed with an agreed start date within 21 days of the brief. Your time cost through that period is the interviews. We run the sourcing, vetting and shortlisting, and we adjust the brief as your picture of the role sharpens (several of our reviews describe exactly that). Start dates then depend on the individual's availability and any notice they are serving, which we confirm before you commit.

Question 6

What exactly does the monthly fee include?

Accepted Answer

Everything. The search itself (sourcing, vetting, shortlisting) with no upfront recruitment fee. The contractual layer: we contract directly with your consultant in South Africa, so no employment relationship ever touches you. Their monthly payroll, run by us, including the foreign transactions. All of the administration behind the hire. Any HR concern, up to and including ending a contract, handled by us. And replacement forever: if it stops working out at any point, one month's notice and we begin the search for a replacement the same day, at no additional fee. The fee you agree up front is the whole cost. There is nothing else to pay: no setup fee, no placement fee, no platform fee, no charges for moving money.

Question 7

What about the time difference?

Accepted Answer

There barely is one. South Africa sits almost directly south of the UK. Cape Town is one hour ahead of London in British summer, two in winter. Your consultant works your working day, in your stand-ups, answering in your Slack in real time. This is the structural difference between South Africa and the offshore destinations most businesses think of first: the Philippines is seven to eight hours ahead of London, and Latin America runs three to eight behind, oriented to US time. A South African consultant is simply a colleague whose office is further south.

Question 8

How strong is the talent, really?

Accepted Answer

South Africa's professional class works in English as a first language, in a business culture built on UK and Commonwealth lines, with a deep pool of digital marketing and tech talent serving international clients. Rather than assert this, we would point you at the evidence. Twenty-plus named UK companies have left five-star reviews describing candidate quality: "the quality of the candidates has been exceptional", "we actually ended up making two hires rather than the one we had planned", "the candidate is amazing and we recently promoted him". A dozen founders have said it on camera too. The economics work not because the talent is worth less, but because UK salaries carry a cost-of-living premium that South Africa doesn't.

Question 9

Do I need a South African entity, a visa, or any local setup?

Accepted Answer

No. Nothing about the model requires you to establish anything in South Africa, sponsor anything in the UK, or register anywhere. Your consultant lives and works in South Africa, contracted by Kadraa. You direct their work remotely, as you would any remote member of your team. Your setup effort is the same as adding a UK remote hire to your tools: an email address, your project management stack, your Slack.

Question 10

Who is this for, and who is it not for?

Accepted Answer

It is for UK businesses hiring full-time digital marketing and tech roles (SEO, paid media, content, social, email, design, development, data) who want a dedicated person embedded in the team, not a freelancer or an agency retainer. It suits founders and marketing leaders who care what a hire actually costs, all in, and who want the option to change course without carrying employment risk.

It is not for two-hour-a-week tasks (a VA marketplace will serve you better) and not for one-off projects (that is freelance work). And if what you actually want is to employ someone yourself, we can simply recruit for you the classic way. We would rather tell you that on the first call than place someone into the wrong structure.

Hire a Paid Search Specialist in South Africa

What a Paid Search Specialist actually does

What to look for when you interview

Why South Africa for this role

How hiring one works

Related roles

Bring a role. Leave with its price.