Most ways to hire in Latin America start with people who are looking for work: job boards, freelance marketplaces, an agency's bench. Vela starts with people who aren't. It's a placement firm that headhunts senior professionals already employed at companies in your field, mostly in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico, vets them the way it hires its own team, and introduces three for one seat.
This review covers how a Vela search runs, what it costs, what the fee includes, and where it doesn't fit. Everything comes from Vela's own site, read in October 2026. Our verdict: for a US company filling one senior operating seat, such as customer success, operations, project management or an executive assistant, Vela is our pick, with a few real limits below.
Here's the TLDR (terms checked in October 2026):
- What it is: a headhunting and placement firm for senior Latin American professionals in operating roles at US companies. Not a staffing agency, not an employer of record.
- Price: 20% of the hire's first-year base salary, billed when they start. A $1,000 deposit starts the search and is credited to the fee.
- Speed: first profile around day 7, three vetted candidates by day 21 for common seats.
- Guarantee: 90-day replacement, no second fee.
- Best for: one seat that matters, where you want someone senior who stays.
- Not for: engineers, ten hires at once, or the lowest hourly rate.
What Vela is
Vela calls itself "headhunting, not staffing." Its terms describe it as "a recruiting and placement firm" that is "not an employer of record, a staffing agency, or a professional-employer organization." That matters for cost: once you hire, you contract with and pay the person directly, and Vela takes no cut of their pay.
The seats it fills are operating roles. Its home page lists customer success, project and operations, executive and admin, design and content, marketing, account management, sales development, finance and bookkeeping, recruiting, customer support, and data and reporting. Many of its role pages are written for marketing agencies and private equity firms. Candidates sit in Medellín, Bogotá, Buenos Aires or Mexico City, per its FAQ; the home page also mentions the Philippines and lists Manila in the footer.
Vela's team page names two founders: Jonathan Garces, who runs placement and spent eight years inside agencies in Miami and New York, and Justin Gluska, who builds the platform the searches run on.
How a search works
Vela lays out every step on its how it works page:
- A 20-minute call. You describe the seat; Vela writes the role brief and benchmarks the salary for the candidate's city. You approve it rather than write a job description.
- Market mapping. No job post goes up. Vela builds a list of people already doing the job at companies like yours, usually a few hundred names, and ranks it.
- Personal outreach. Each person gets a message written for them, by warm intro, referral or a researched personal email. Vela says most say no, and that's priced in.
- Working interviews. Everyone who answers gets a screening call, then a working interview about the real situations the seat handles. English is checked live, with C1 as the minimum.
- Trial task and references. Remaining candidates do a short task built from your brief, and Vela calls the people they reported to.
- Three candidates. You get three people, each with a scorecard, reference notes and the trial task they did. If none fit, the search continues.
Vela puts your side at under an hour before the shortlist: the 20-minute call and a short kickoff, then the interviews. It says 21 days is the pace for common seats, and that harder roles take longer at the same fee, with a warning early rather than at day 21. One client testimonial on its site describes about a month "from sign up to hire."
Pricing and terms
Vela publishes its terms, which is less common than you'd think among placement firms:
- Deposit: $1,000 to start. Refunded in full if Vela hasn't introduced candidates you want to meet by the day-21 deadline; once it has, the deposit is earned. On hire it's credited to the fee.
- Placement fee: 20% of first-year base salary, billed when you and the candidate confirm terms. Vela's example: a $36,000 base means a $7,200 fee.
- Nothing else: no retainer, no monthly minimum, nothing per candidate, and one tier.
- Replacement: if the hire leaves or is let go within 90 days, for any reason on either side, Vela reruns the search with no second fee. It checks in at day 7, 30 and 90.
- Optional extra: an AI bootcamp for the hire, priced separately (price not published) and never bundled.
Its terms of service add that the binding commercial terms sit in a separate engagement agreement, so read that before you pay the deposit.
To put the fee in context: Vela's published salary ranges for these seats run from about $20,000 to $44,000 a year at the local senior tier, so the fee on those seats would land between about $4,000 and $9,000, paid once. A $36,000 hire costs $43,200 in year one with Vela's fee, and the salary alone after that. A staffing agency that adds a monthly margin keeps charging for as long as the person works for you.
What the fee includes
- A role brief written from your call.
- A salary benchmark for Medellín, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Bogotá.
- A working call, scorecard and reference check for every shortlisted candidate.
- Scheduling of interviews.
- A contractor agreement template and a guided setup of Deel, Wise or Payoneer to pay the hire.
- The 90-day replacement.
Pros and cons
What we like:
- It reaches people who aren't on job boards, which is where senior hires usually are.
- Published, simple pricing: one fee, once, and a deposit you can get back.
- No markup on the hire's pay, so they earn what you pay them.
- You see real work (a trial task) and reference notes before you interview anyone.
- A 90-day replacement that doesn't need a performance review to trigger.
- Hours are agreed in the brief, and Vela's FAQ says it doesn't take seats that need someone present past 6pm Eastern.
What to weigh:
- No engineers. Vela says plainly it's not the choice for "engineers, or a development shop."
- One seat at a time. It's not built for "a bench of ten people by the end of the quarter."
- You're the employer. Vela doesn't run payroll or benefits; you contract and pay the hire yourself, or add an EOR such as Deel or Remote on top.
- Slower than a marketplace. Three candidates in about three weeks, versus profiles in a day or two from a talent network.
- Up-front cost. A 20% fee is more than a job board subscription, even if it's less than years of agency margin.
- Newer and small. We found no third-party reviews to point to, and its terms don't name the legal entity behind it.
Who should use Vela
Vela fits a founder or operator hiring one senior person who will own something: client accounts, operations, a project portfolio, an executive's calendar. It works best when you'll sit in the final interviews yourself and can onboard within a month. If you're hiring an executive assistant, our guide to hiring a remote executive assistant in Colombia or Mexico covers what to expect from the role. If you're still deciding between regions, see LATAM vs the Philippines for remote hiring.
It's the wrong tool if you need developers, a large team fast, or someone to run payroll for you.
How Vela compares
- Toptal is a freelance network you pay by the hour or week, with a $79 monthly subscription and a trial of up to two weeks, per its FAQ. Faster to start, but you're renting talent rather than hiring it.
- South charges one monthly rate that bundles the hire's pay and its fee, and handles payroll, per its pricing page. Convenient, but the fee never ends.
- Hire With Near offers both a one-time placement fee and a monthly staffing model, with fee amounts shared on a call, per its pricing page.
- HireTalent.lat lets you search profiles and hire Latin American workers yourself from $48 a job post, or have its recruiters run the search for $999 up front and 20% on hire, per hiretalent.lat. It suits junior and mid-level roles at lower cost.
For a wider look at the market, our roundup of platforms to hire remote talent in Latin America and the CEO's guide to building a remote LATAM team cover the other models.
FAQ
How much does Vela cost?
A $1,000 deposit to start, credited toward the fee, then 20% of the hire's first-year base salary when they start. There's no retainer, monthly fee or markup on their pay.
Is the Vela deposit refundable?
In full, if Vela hasn't introduced candidates you want to meet by day 21. Once it has, the deposit is earned, and it's still credited to the fee if you hire.
Who employs a Vela hire?
You do, usually as a full-time contractor. Vela provides a contractor agreement template and helps you set up Deel, Wise or Payoneer, but it doesn't run payroll or benefits.
Does Vela place software developers?
It doesn't lead with them, and its site says it's not the best fit if you're looking for engineers. For developers, look at engineering-focused firms such as Revelo, Terminal or BairesDev.
Do Vela candidates work US hours?
Yes. Its FAQ says candidates work US business hours with Eastern overlap by default, and that Vela doesn't take seats that need someone present past 6pm Eastern.
If you have one senior seat to fill and can give it 20 minutes this week, a Vela search is a low-risk way to see who's out there.
Disclosure: Vela's co-founder owns Gold Penguin LLC. HireTalent is made by Digital Mundo LLC, which has the same owner.
