The phrases get used interchangeably. They describe different contracts.
Outsourcing sells capacity
A QA outsourcing engagement gives you people: a tester or a team, for a number of hours or a monthly retainer, working from your test plan or writing one. Scope is whatever you assign. Output is the work done. The measure is time.
For market context, one vendor's published estimate puts traditional outsourcing at $4,000 to $6,400 per tester per month at 2026 rates, and a three-tester team plus lead at about $18,000 a month. (Source: Bug0, 2025-09-18 · verified 2026-09-21) Another vendor prices sprint engagements at USD 3,000 to 15,000 per sprint. (Source: remote.qa, 2026-07-03 · verified 2026-09-21) These are their figures about their market, cited as such.
A service sells an outcome within a scope
QA as a service, in the sense this site uses, gives you a defined result: every release tested against a published checklist, an automated suite grown to a stated limit, a verdict (a one-word release result (pass, pass with findings, fail) with the findings and the checklist version behind it) per release, a report per month. Scope is written on the plan page as limits: releases per week, flows by month 2, surfaces, environments. Output is the verdict and the suite. The measure is whether the checklist ran and what it found.
The price is flat because the scope is. Work inside the scope is included; work outside it is a different plan, not an invoice. Our prices are on the plans page.
Where the difference shows
The contract. Outsourcing contracts describe people and hours. A service contract describes limits and guarantees. Ours has five guarantees, including a free month if a release ships with a critical finding we marked as passed.
The report. Outsourcing reports describe activity: test cases executed, hours spent. A service report describes state: releases tested, verdicts, findings by severity, flows automated against the limit. The sample report is the second kind.
Leaving. An outsourced team leaves with its knowledge. A service that builds the suite in your repository and publishes its checklist leaves you with both. Cancel with 30 days' notice; the suite stays.
When outsourcing is the right call
When the work is exploratory, product-specific and not reducible to a checklist: a new product category, hardware, games, regulated domains with their own test standards. A defined scope is a strength only when the scope is the right one. The first QA hire or service page goes through the same trade-off against hiring.