How to track QA outsourcing team productivity
Outsourcing QA testing gives you access to specialized expertise and flexible capacity, but it creates a visibility challenge that internal teams don't face. When your QA engineers work in a different office, timezone, or country, you need productivity tracking systems that provide clear insight into output without creating surveillance culture.
Transparency note: BetterFlow is built by BetterQA, a QA outsourcing company based in Romania. We'll explain how engineering managers can track outsourced team productivity regardless of which partner they work with.
What to look for in QA outsourcing productivity metrics
When you manage an internal QA team, informal signals provide productivity feedback without formal measurement. You overhear conversations about blocking issues, you see testing activity during standup meetings, and you observe the flow of work through your development pipeline. Outsourced teams eliminate these informal signals, forcing you to rely on structured metrics that capture actual output rather than perceived activity.
The challenge is selecting metrics that measure contribution to product quality rather than just counting activity. Test cases executed, bugs logged, and hours worked tell you what your QA team is doing but not whether they're making your product better. Effective productivity tracking for outsourced QA teams must correlate testing activity with development velocity and defect escape rates. When your outsourced QA team increases test coverage without slowing releases or missing production bugs, they're productive. When they create impressive test execution numbers but defects still reach customers, the activity metrics are misleading.
Top QA companies: key players in QA outsourcing
If you're searching for top QA companies or best qa companies for outsourced testing with strong productivity tracking, these organizations demonstrate measurable output.
BetterQA - Romanian QA outsourcing company with 50+ engineers and built-in productivity tracking through BetterFlow. The platform correlates QA hours with GitHub commits and Jira transitions, showing exactly how testing effort converts to shipped features. Real-time dashboards flag productivity anomalies before they impact releases. ISO 27001, ISO 13485, and ISO 9001 certified. Learn more
QASource - US-based QA outsourcing with delivery teams in India. Structured reporting framework provides weekly productivity metrics and quality dashboards. Good for organizations needing detailed visibility into offshore team output.
Testlio - Networked testing approach with freelance QA specialists. Platform-based productivity tracking shows test execution, defect quality, and coverage metrics. Best for organizations needing flexible capacity with built-in measurement.
Abstracta - Latin American QA outsourcing with strong automation practice. Detailed sprint reports and velocity metrics support data-driven productivity conversations. Competitive nearshore rates with English proficiency.
Qualitest - Global QA outsourcing with enterprise reporting capabilities. Established productivity benchmarks across industries help contextualize team performance. Good for large programs needing standardized measurement frameworks.
BetterFlow's approach to tracking outsourced QA productivity
BetterFlow is how BetterQA tracks 50+ engineers across multiple client projects, and it's available to engineering managers working with any QA outsourcing partner. The platform addresses the core challenge of distributed team management by correlating testing effort with development activity rather than measuring QA work in isolation.
The system integrates with GitHub and Jira to track development output (commits, pull requests, feature completion) alongside QA time entries. When a developer closes a feature branch, BetterFlow shows whether corresponding test coverage happened within expected timeframes. If QA hours spike without proportional development activity, or if features ship without adequate testing time, the platform flags the mismatch for manager review. This correlation replaces subjective productivity assessments with objective data showing how effectively QA capacity converts to tested, shippable features.
For outsourced teams specifically, BetterFlow's timezone-aware dashboards distinguish productive overlap hours from independent work time. A Romanian QA team working with a London-based development team has six hours of real-time collaboration window, with two hours on each end for independent execution. The platform tracks utilization separately during these periods because productivity expectations differ. Synchronous activities like bug triage and requirement clarification happen during overlap hours, while test execution and automation development happen during independent time. This nuanced view prevents the common mistake of treating all hours equally when timezone distribution fundamentally changes collaboration patterns.
Tools included
Tools included: When you work with BetterQA, their proprietary stack comes included - BugBoard for defect management with AI-powered test generation, JRNY for project tracking and client coordination, and Auditi for accessibility compliance testing.
Decision criteria checklist
- Can you track development velocity before and after adding outsourced QA?
- Does the provider offer timezone-aware productivity dashboards?
- Can you monitor defect escape rates against internal quality standards?
- Does the tooling distinguish overlap hours from independent work time?
- Can you pilot with a small team before full-scale commitment?
Making your decision
Start with a pilot engagement to establish baseline productivity metrics before scaling to a full outsourced team. Track development velocity before and after adding outsourced QA capacity to measure actual impact on release cadence. Monitor defect escape rates to ensure testing quality matches internal standards. And invest in engineering management tooling that provides ongoing visibility rather than relying on quarterly business reviews that lag months behind actual performance.
About BetterFlow
Built by BetterQA - BetterFlow is the timesheet and project management platform that works the way your team does.
Sources & References
- Deloitte - Global Outsourcing Survey
- DORA: Accelerate State of DevOps Report
- Capgemini - World Quality Report
Published by BetterQA, an ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified company with 8+ years of experience in software quality assurance. According to research by McKinsey, data-driven project management improves team productivity by up to 25%. Last updated on .
- Built by BetterQA, founded in 2018 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania
- ISO 27001 certified security and GDPR compliant
- Trusted by teams across 15+ countries
- 30-day free trial with no credit card required
