How To Pay For a Trial Task (Even If You Don’t Hire)

Here’s something most hiring guides won’t tell you: you should pay candidates for trial tasks whether you end up hiring them or not. It sounds counterintuitive—why pay someone you’re not going to work with?—but this practice is actually one of the smartest investments you can make in your hiring process.

Let me explain why, and more importantly, show you exactly how to do it.

Why You Should Always Pay for Trial Work

When you ask someone to complete a trial task, you’re asking them to stop what they’re doing, prioritize your project over paying clients, and demonstrate their skills on your timeline. That has real value, and treating it as such changes everything about your hiring process.

You attract better candidates. The best remote workers in the Philippines aren’t desperate—they’re selective. When they see you’re willing to compensate trial work regardless of outcome, it signals you’re a serious employer who respects their time. The people who ghost you after unpaid trial tasks? They were likely juggling three other opportunities and chose the one that valued them from day one.

You get honest effort. When candidates know they’ll be paid either way, they focus on doing their best work rather than gaming the system or rushing through to get to the “real” opportunity. You see their actual capabilities, not their audition performance.

You protect your reputation. The Filipino remote work community is tight-knit. Stories about employers who assign multi-hour trial tasks and then ghost candidates spread quickly on forums and Facebook groups. That “free work” you thought you were getting might cost you access to an entire talent pool.

What Makes a Fair Trial Task

Not all trial tasks are created equal. A good trial task should take 1-3 hours maximum and mirror the actual work you need done. If you’re hiring a content writer, you should ask for a 2,000-word article (not a 300-word section and an outline). If you’re hiring for customer support, simulate 5-10 realistic ticket scenarios.

The task should have clear deliverables and a defined scope. Vague instructions like “show me what you can do” waste everyone’s time and make it impossible to compare candidates fairly. Spell out exactly what you want, what format you need it in, and when you need it by.

State the compensation upfront. Don’t make it a surprise. Include it in your job posting or trial task invitation: “This trial task should take approximately 2 hours. You’ll receive $16 via Wise for completion, regardless of hiring outcome.”

How Much Should You Pay?

The math is straightforward: estimate how long the task should take, multiply by your hourly rate, and that’s your trial task budget.

If the role pays $8/hour and the trial should take 2 hours, pay $16. If it pays $5/hour and should take 3 hours, pay $15. Don’t overthink it. The goal isn’t to perfectly calibrate compensation—it’s to acknowledge the work has value.

Some employers worry this will get expensive if they’re testing multiple candidates. But consider the alternative: hiring the wrong person and spending weeks training them before realizing it’s not working costs far more than a few trial task payments. Think of it as insurance against bad hires.

The Best Way to Send Payment: Wise

Once you’ve decided to pay for trial tasks, you need a reliable way to actually send the money. For paying candidates in the Philippines, Wise (formerly TransferWise) is your best option.

Why Wise works so well for this:

The fees are low—usually 1-2% of the transfer amount, which means sending $16 costs you about $16.20. Payments arrive quickly, typically same business day. And you don’t need to set up any complicated business accounts or payroll systems. You can send one-off payments to anyone with a Philippine bank account or e-wallet.

The process is dead simple.

You need the candidate’s email and their Wise tag (it’s like an @[name]). If they don’t, you’ll need bank details (account number and bank name). That’s it.

Sending a Trial Task Payment Through Wise

1. Set up your Wise account
Go to wise.com and create an account. You should create a business account. Verify your identity (this takes a few minutes) and add your payment method.

2. Get the candidate’s payment details
When you assign the trial task, ask the candidate for their Wise tag.

3. Create the transfer
In Wise, click “Send money” and select Philippine Peso (PHP) as the transfer currency. Enter the amount. Wise will show you the exact exchange rate and fees before you confirm anything—no hidden costs.

4. Choose your delivery speed
Wise offers different speed options. For trial task payments, the standard option (usually arrives within hours to 1 business day) is perfectly fine and costs less than the instant option.

5. Review and send
Double-check all the details—especially the account number or mobile number. Sending money to the wrong person is a headache to fix. Once you confirm, Wise will deduct the amount from your account and notify you when the payment arrives.

6. Keep records
Save the transaction receipt. If there’s ever a question about whether payment was sent, you’ll have documentation. This also helps during tax season if you need to track contractor payments.

When to Send the Payment

Send payment as soon as the candidate submits the completed trial task. Don’t wait until you’ve reviewed all candidates or made your final decision. The whole point is to demonstrate you value their work regardless of outcome.

If you tell a candidate “I’ll pay you next week after I review everyone,” you’ve already undermined the goodwill you were trying to build. Pay promptly, just like you’d want to be paid for your work.

A simple message works: “Thanks for completing the trial task. I’ve just sent your payment of $16 via Wise to the account you provided. You should see it within 24 hours. I’ll be reviewing all submissions this week and will let you know our decision by Friday.”

What This Actually Costs You (And What It Saves You)

Let’s say you’re hiring one person and you test five candidates with paid trial tasks. At $16 per task, that’s $80 total. Seems like a lot until you consider what bad hires cost.

A single bad hire—someone who seemed great in interviews but can’t actually do the work—will cost you weeks of training time, missed deadlines, and the energy of going through the hiring process again. That’s easily thousands of dollars in real costs, not to mention the opportunity cost of what you could have accomplished with the right person.

The $80 you spent on trial tasks bought you certainty. You saw actual work samples under realistic conditions. You filtered out the candidates who could talk a good game but couldn’t deliver. And you built a reputation as an employer people actually want to work for.

Paying for trial tasks isn’t really about the money. It’s about what kind of employer you want to be and what kind of candidates you want to attract.

When you pay someone $16 for a trial task they completed—even though you’re hiring someone else—you’re sending a message that echoes beyond that single transaction. That candidate will remember you. They might refer someone else to your next job posting. They might even reapply in six months when they have more experience and you have another opening.

The Filipino remote work market is only getting more competitive. The employers who win aren’t necessarily the ones who pay the highest rates—they’re the ones who treat candidates like professionals from the very first interaction. Paying for trial tasks is the easiest way to put yourself in that category.

Set up your Wise account, budget $15-20 per trial task into your hiring process, and make it standard practice to compensate trial work. Your next hire will be better because of it, and you’ll sleep better knowing you built your team the right way.