Has anyone actually compared what their VA agency charges per closed deal versus what they'd have spent hiring the same labor direct

The agency premium you're paying is essentially an insurance and recruiting fee rolled into one monthly line, and whether it pencils depends on how often you'd actually use the bench. At $1,850 a month, you're probably 40 to 60 percent above what a direct hire in the Philippines or Colombia costs for the same task set, which on a two-property load means the agency is charging you for optionality you may rarely need. The number worth building is not the monthly delta but the annualized cost of a bad direct hire: if a self-sourced VA washes out at month three and you spend six weeks re-recruiting and retraining, that friction on a flip timeline has a real dollar figure, and on the Lakewood deal specifically you should be able to attach an actual carry cost to those six weeks. Where direct usually wins is once you're running five or more seats, because you can build your own SOPs and the per-seat spread compounds, but at two properties the agency's overhead absorption argument is at least partly legitimate.

What I'd want to know is how many times in four months the agency has actually pulled from the bench, because if the answer is zero, you're paying for a product you haven't consumed.