A Smarter Way to
Build Your Team.

Free briefing · 6-page PDF · 9 min read

The problem with how work gets done

Every growing business eventually needs more capacity than it has. The instinct is to find more people, but in 2026, every option for adding people forces a bad trade between cost, quality, and control. You either pay a premium, accept inconsistency, or take on the full weight of managing someone yourself.

The result is the same everywhere: leaders spend their scarcest resource, attention, recruiting, vetting, briefing, and correcting talent, instead of running the business. The problem isn't a shortage of talent. It's that every model leaves you as the manager.

The options, and what they really cost

Freelance marketplaces (Fiverr, Upwork). Transactional and fragile. You vet, manage, and QA every engagement, and the platforms stack fees on top of the work, commonly ~15 to 34% above what you think you're paying. Continuity breaks the moment a freelancer moves on.

Hiring / EOR platforms (Deel, Remote, Oyster). Payroll and compliance rails. They help you legally pay someone you've already found and still have to manage. The platform fee (e.g., ~$599/employee/month for Deel) sits on top of full salary, employer taxes (~15 to 45%), FX spreads, and a refundable deposit. No talent, no management, no output, just paperwork.

Premium talent networks (Toptal). High quality, premium price: roughly $60 to $150+ per hour, billed hourly, for work you still scope and direct.

Full-time hiring. Maximum control, maximum drag: a 60 to 90 day cycle and ~$85,000 to $120,000+ fully loaded for a mid-level role, plus equipment, recruiting, and ramp and turnover risk.

The hidden costs

The sticker price is never the price. Here's what each option actually carries:

Competitor figures reflect publicly reported 2026 pricing and third-party analyses; exact figures vary by plan, country, and payment method.

The LI/LX model

LI/LX is a managed production platform. You submit unlimited requests; we assign them to our AI production system, manage the production, QA-review every deliverable, and deliver finished work, for one flat monthly fee, starting at $1,295/month. Delivery is white-labeled and fully managed. You never recruit, manage, or pay a freelancer.

What you get:

• ✓A managed team (or a named dedicated expert) working for you
• ✓Overnight delivery, finished, QA-reviewed work every morning
• ✓Execution, not just files, builds go live, automations get tested
• ✓Onshore data security and one point of accountability

What you skip: recruiting, payroll, employer taxes, equipment, marketplace cuts, hourly billing, and the daily burden of managing the person.

Head to head

Why managed changes everything

Every other option leaves the outcome on your desk. A freelancer delivers a file; whether it's right is your problem. An EOR processes a paycheck; whether the person performs is your problem. With LI/LX, the outcome is ours. We assign, manage, and QA-review the work, so you direct the what and we own the how. That single shift, from unmanaged to managed, is what turns extra hands into real capacity.

How it works

• 1Submit your request, choose from 17 guided request types.
• 2Our AI production system creates it; our US team reviews and approves it.
• 3Every deliverable is QA-reviewed before it reaches you.
• 4Your team works overnight.
• 5You wake up to completed, reviewed work in your portal.

Who it's for

Digital agencies needing white-label overflow production; e-commerce and D2C brands with a constant content pipeline; founders who want a first hire without the risk; and service businesses, accounting and tax firms, insurance agencies, real estate teams, consultants, and professional practices, that need digital execution without hiring.

Get started

The fastest way to see if LI/LX fits is a 30-minute discovery call. No pitch, a real conversation about your volume and the right plan for your goals.

Pricing and competitor fee structures reflect publicly available 2026 information and are subject to change. LI/LX plans start at $1,295/month.