"Where" you outsource matters almost as much as "who" you outsource to. Each model trades cost against coordination overhead differently.
Onshore
Same country, same time zone, usually the highest hourly rate. Best when your work involves heavy regulatory constraints or when face-to-face meetings are a real requirement, not a nice-to-have.
Nearshore
Neighbouring or nearby regions with overlapping working hours. You get near real-time collaboration at a meaningfully lower rate than onshore, at the cost of a smaller talent pool than offshore hubs.
Offshore
The largest talent pools and the lowest rates, typically with limited or no working-hour overlap. This model rewards companies with strong async documentation habits and punishes companies that rely on ad-hoc verbal alignment.
Choosing between them
If your team can write a clear ticket and review a pull request asynchronously, offshore usually delivers the best value. If your project depends on daily live discussion — discovery-heavy, ambiguous-requirement work — nearshore or onshore reduces the risk of misalignment compounding over weeks.