You must be careful when analyzing how much companies spend or plan to spend on outsourcing.

Generally the larger the company the more they figure to spend, according to the Outsourcing Institute’s Fifth Annual Outsourcing Index.

However, while the average sum works out to $17.2 million per respondent’s company, the median is only around $2 million, meaning half spend more than that and half spend less than that sum.

There is a big difference because 55% of the respondents are spending or planning to shell out $5 million or less.

Keep in mind that 408 of the 1,110 respondents work for companies with fewer than 500 employees.

And 60% of the respondents from companies with fewer than 500 employees said their budget is under $1 million while 18% figure to spend $1 million to $5 million.

Around one-third of the respondents in each of the next three categories—500 to 999 employees, 1,000 to 2,499 employees, and 2,500 to 4,999 employees—also figure to spend between $1 million and $5 million on outsourcing.

And while 18% of companies with 2,500 to 4,999 employees budgeted between $6 million and $25 million for outsourcing, just 14% of companies with both 5,000 to 9,999 employees and more than 10,000 employees expect to spend this sum of money.

Also noteworthy, 17% of companies with more than 10,000 employees expect to shell out more than $100 million.