EOR Pricing: Fee Structures, Deposits, and the Fine Print

Short answer: an employer of record can advertise a monthly fee of a few hundred US dollars per employee, but that figure is not the employer's total bill. Across the official pricing pages reviewed for this article in late July and re-verified on August 1, 2026, public EOR fees ran from a USD 199 starting price to USD 699 list prices — and those two kinds of numbers are not comparable final quotes. The comparable recurring cost is gross salary plus country-specific employer charges, mandatory additional compensation, benefits, the EOR service fee, service taxes where applicable, and foreign-exchange cost. Add nonrefundable setup or event-driven charges for the period, then track refundable deposits or prefunding separately as cash tied up rather than expense. For scale: worked below for Portugal, a EUR 4,000 monthly hire carries EUR 5,775 a month in salary, statutory employer contributions, and mandatory additional compensation before any provider fee — 44% above base pay.

This page covers the cost structure and how to compare quotes on equal terms. It carries one country worked in full and no country table: statutory rates change annually, they turn on caps, floors, worker category and salary band, and the only safe figure for your case is the current one published by that country's own tax or social-security authority. Where the arrangement's legal availability is the issue rather than its price, that is a separate question, and three markets that regulate it directly are named below.

Before you price anything, settle the structure:

• No legal entity in the worker's country, and the facts support employee status — an EOR is the right instrument, and this page is about what it costs.
• You already have an entity there — you are pricing payroll or co-employment, not an EOR.
• The worker is genuinely an independent contractor — you are pricing a contractor platform, and the classification question comes first.
• The arrangement is licensed or restricted in the worker's country — several major markets license or limit the labour-leasing and dispatch arrangements an EOR relies on, and availability, not price, is the binding constraint. That is a question for local counsel before any vendor conversation.

If you are new to the model itself, start with how an employer of record works; this page assumes that context and focuses on what the arrangement costs and how to compare quotes on equal terms.

Whether you are budgeting a first international hire, forecasting recurring spend and cash timing, or normalizing vendor quotes that refuse to line up, the job is the same: identify the full cost base, then force every number onto the same assumptions.

On this page

• The full cost stack at a glance
• What an EOR really costs: the components, one by one
• Current public EOR pricing
• Flat, percentage, and custom fee models
• How to build a comparable EOR quote
• Three total-cost scenarios
  • One country, worked: Portugal
• Hidden costs and contract terms that reverse comparisons
• What leaving an EOR costs
• When EOR pricing stops making sense
• Your next action
• Frequently asked questions
• Sources and last verified date

The full cost stack at a glance

Two totals matter, and they are different calculations:

Recurring employer cost = gross salary + statutory employer costs + mandatory additional compensation + selected benefits + EOR service fee + recurring administrative charges + applicable service taxes + FX cost.

Initial cash requirement = recurring employer cost + nonrefundable one-time fees + refundable deposit or prefunding.

Annualized estimate = recurring employer cost × 12, with annual bonuses or other periodic charges added separately rather than averaged into a monthly figure.

Finance forecasts the first; treasury approves the second. Collapsing them is how a hire that fits the budget still fails the first invoice. Resist the urge to smooth one-time fees or deposits into a blended monthly rate; the smoothing hides exactly the cash event you need to plan for.

Every component depends on inputs only you can fix: the worker's country, gross salary and currency, benefits package, start date, contract type and term, headcount, immigration need, payroll frequency, and billing currency. Until every provider has quoted the same inputs, their numbers cannot be compared. The table below is the checklist for that conversation.

Cost component	Recurring expense?	Initial cash?	What to verify
Gross salary	Yes	Yes	Local currency, pay period, and salary basis
Statutory employer costs	Yes	Yes	Which official country rates, caps, and worker assumptions apply
Mandatory additional compensation	Yes, often accrued	Yes	Whether 13th/14th-month pay, bonuses, or statutory benefits are included
Selected benefits	Yes	Yes	Pass-through or markup, broker fees, renewal basis
EOR service fee	Yes	Yes	Fixed, starting, or percentage; minimums, discounts, billing term
Service taxes / VAT	When applicable	Yes	Which line is taxable, and whether treatment is verified
FX cost	When conversion occurs	Yes	Rate source, spread, application base, timing, invoice disclosure
One-time / event fees	Period-specific	Yes	Setup, off-cycle payroll, immigration, termination, special payments
Termination and severance reserve	Accrued, not monthly	No	Statutory severance, notice pay, and accrued-leave payout under the worker's country law; who funds it, and when
Refundable deposit / prefunding	No, unless forfeited	Yes	Amount, trigger, refund timing, permitted use, credit risk

Your first practical action: pick one real worker-country case, freeze these inputs in writing, and send the same standardized quote request to every provider you are considering. If any quote raises questions about a specific country's employer costs, corporate tax or permanent-establishment exposure, immigration, or worker classification, route those to qualified local counsel or tax advisers — an EOR quote does not answer them.

Four rules for reading any EOR price

1. Quote-ready rule: do not compare EOR fees until every provider has quoted the same country, salary, currency, start date, benefits, headcount, immigration need, term, and payroll requirements.
2. Cash-flow rule: a refundable deposit can double the first cash transfer without doubling expense.
3. Missing-data rule: "not publicly verified" is a result, not a blank to fill.
4. Risk rule: an EOR changes the employment arrangement; it does not erase every tax, immigration, data, IP, works-council, or prior-classification issue.

What to price first, by situation

Your situation	Price this first	Fee model that usually fits	The fields that decide it	Where the risk sits
First international hire, approval pending	Initial cash requirement, not recurring cost	A firm per-employee list price; a "starting at" figure is not yet comparable	Deposit amount, trigger, and refund timing; setup fees	The deposit can exceed the first month's expense and is the number that fails the approval
Recurring spend across an existing EOR population	Recurring cost × 12, periodic charges kept in their period	List price on your actual billing term; price any annual-commitment discount as a contract term	Mandatory additional compensation; benefits renewal basis; FX	Blended monthly figures hide 13th-month accruals and year-two benefit repricing
Normalizing quotes that will not line up	Field-by-field status, not totals	Whatever each vendor quoted, translated into effective monthly cost per actual employee	Benefits itemization, billing currency, start-date and country assumptions	Divergence sits in the assumptions, not the fee
One senior hire at high salary	Deposit and accrual terms	Flat rather than percentage-of-salary; if a percentage is quoted, pin the base	Deposit basis; mandatory-compensation accrual; termination reserve	At senior salary the deposit dominates cash and never touches profit and loss
Headcount concentrating in one country	Total EOR cost against full entity cost	Seat minimums and annual plans only if the headcount is genuinely committed	Headcount trajectory; time horizon; local activity beyond employing	This is a structure question, not a pricing question
A worker already engaged as a contractor	Nothing yet — scope the exposure with counsel before requesting any quote	Not yet a fee question	Whether the facts supported contractor status, and for how long	A new arrangement does not cure prior exposure, and back-liability accrues while you shop

What an EOR really costs: the components, one by one

Gross salary

Gross salary is the compensation you agree with the worker, stated in local currency for a defined pay period. It flows through the EOR's payroll, but it is your cost, not part of the provider's fee. Set and compare offers in gross terms: a net-pay promise forces someone to reverse-engineer taxes and contributions, and it makes quotes incomparable across providers and countries.

Statutory employer costs

Statutory employer costs are the contributions and payroll taxes the employer side owes under the worker's country rules — social security, pension or provident funds, health, unemployment, injury, training, and similar levies. They vary widely by country, worker category, and salary band, and many apply only up to a salary ceiling or above a floor, so a flat-percentage assumption that is roughly right at one salary can be meaningfully wrong at another. This is the largest uncertainty in any EOR budget and the line that most deserves a primary source: for a real case, take the rate, the cap, and the effective date from the country's own tax or social-security authority, not from any provider's country guide. Country-by-country employer burden belongs in a dated dataset rather than in a pricing page; the worked example later on this page shows what a single country looks like when the assumption is replaced by a governing instrument. The structural point here is that these charges are frequently the largest line after salary, and no platform fee tells you anything about them.

Employee deductions

Employee deductions — the income tax and employee-side contributions withheld from the worker's pay — also flow through payroll, but they are not employer cost. Keep them out of your employer-cost math entirely; an invoice or calculator that blends the employer and employee sides is not usable for comparison.

Mandatory additional compensation and benefits

Mandatory additional compensation covers legally required extras such as 13th- or 14th-month salary or statutory bonuses in the countries that require them. Whether the provider accrues these monthly or bills them when due changes your cash timing, so ask.

Benefits split into mandatory coverage the country requires and optional packages you choose. Either way, confirm whether the provider passes premiums through at cost or adds a markup or broker fee.

The EOR service fee, service taxes, and FX cost

The EOR service fee is the provider's own charge — the number on the pricing page. It is usually the easiest line to compare and often one of the smallest. Some agreements add further recurring administrative or platform charges beyond the headline fee; those belong in the recurring formula, not in a footnote.

Service taxes such as VAT or GST may apply to the service fee or other invoice lines depending on the billing jurisdiction; never assume tax is included, excluded, or recoverable without verifying.

FX cost arises whenever your billing currency differs from the payroll currency. The rate source, any spread or markup, the base it applies to, and the conversion date all move the total.

One-time fees and the termination reserve

One-time and event-driven fees — setup, off-cycle payroll runs, immigration work, background checks, equipment, terminations — are nonrefundable expenses that belong in the period they occur.

Termination and severance reserve is the liability behind the event fee, and it is usually much larger. Statutory severance, notice pay, and accrued-leave payout are determined by the worker's country law, not by the service agreement, and they are your cost regardless of which provider administers them. Establish early who funds them and when.

Refundable deposits and prefunding

Refundable deposits and prefunding are different in kind: cash security the provider holds, not expense — unless the contract lets the provider apply or keep it. A deposit changes your treasury position and working-capital need even when it never touches the profit-and-loss statement, which is exactly why the two-total model tracks it separately.

Where the money flows, and what the fee does not cover

Operationally, the money flows one way: you fund the EOR, and the EOR pays the worker and the local authorities. That flow is why payroll cutoffs and funding deadlines appear in EOR contracts — miss one, and the consequence lands on your employee's payday. What the fee does not buy is set out in full further down, under structure terms: no fee level changes the obligations that stay with your company.

Current public EOR pricing

Reviewed July 24, 2026, except the Rippling row, reviewed July 20, 2026, and the RemoFirst row, re-checked August 1, 2026. Operating-model entries reviewed August 1, 2026.

The two tables below record what each provider's own current documentation states, in alphabetical order. They are dated evidence for orientation — not a ranking, not a set of final quotes, and not proof of service capability or buyer fit. Fields no provider publishes stay visibly unverified. The first table carries the published price and what kind of number it is; the second carries the terms that change what that price actually costs you.

Published EOR price — each provider's own current pricing page, reviewed July 24, 2026, except the RemoFirst row (re-checked August 1, 2026) and the Rippling row (reviewed July 20, 2026)

Provider	Public EOR price	Price type	Price scope	Evidence status
Deel	USD 599 per employee/month	List price	Not stated on the reviewed page	Verified with limitation
Multiplier	Starting at USD 400 per month	Starting price	Localized by country	Verified with limitation
Oyster	USD 699 per employee/month	List price; annual seat-based discounts available	Not stated on the reviewed page	Verified with limitation
Papaya Global	Starting from USD 650 per employee/month (EUR 650 in European countries)	Starting price	Varies by region	Verified with limitation
Plane	USD 499 per person/month	List price	Not stated on the reviewed page	Verified with limitation
Remote	USD 699 per employee/month; USD 599 billed annually	List price with a billing-term discount	Not stated on the reviewed page	Verified with limitation
RemoFirst	Starts at USD 199 per employee/month	Starting price	May vary by local country requirements	Verified with limitation
Rippling	No public EOR amount on the reviewed page	Quote only	Not applicable	Partial — quote required

What none of these figures is: a total employer cost, a quote, a country-specific price for your case, or evidence of an owned legal entity in your target market.

Terms that change the total — each provider's own current documentation. Price and contract terms reviewed July 24, 2026, except the RemoFirst row (August 1, 2026) and the Rippling row (July 20, 2026); the operating-model column reviewed August 1, 2026 for every provider

Provider	Operating model	Deposit or prefunding	FX treatment	Setup and onboarding fees	Minimums, contract, and cancellation
Deel	Direct — states it owns entities in the countries it covers	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	"Competitive exchange rates"; no numeric markup published	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Month-to-month billing; cancel anytime, with local termination rules still applying to EOR employees
Multiplier	Operating model not verified	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Not quantified; billing accepted in USD, SGD, AUD, EUR, GBP	None stated in the pricing FAQ	No minimum headcount; no contract-termination fee stated
Oyster	Mixed — states it owns or partners with local entities	Refundable deposit required for EOR hires; amount not published	Conversion fee applies only when payment currency differs from contract currency	Setup, onboarding, and offboarding stated as included in the subscription fee	No minimum stated
Papaya Global	Partner — states it employs through in-country partners (company blog)	Refundable deposit charged; amount not published	Not quantified on the reviewed page	Onboarding fee charged; amount not published	No minimum worker count; no minimum contract length stated; 60-day opt-out clause in the basic agreement
Plane	Partner — pricing FAQ refers to its employer-of-record partner	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Pricing FAQ states its employer-of-record partner adds a small, unquantified percentage markup	None stated	No minimum charge; cancellation subject to the employee's contractual termination period
Remote	Direct — states it owns and operates 100% of its entities	No upfront deposits; reserve payments collected in rare, high-risk circumstances	Remote-set exchange rate; varies and is shown on invoices	No EOR setup fee stated	No minimums or required contract lengths stated
RemoFirst	Partner — in-country partner model disclosed in the pricing FAQ	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Not quantified	No setup or onboarding fees stated	No annual contracts or minimums; no termination fee stated
Rippling	Operating model not verified	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page	Not disclosed on the reviewed pricing page

Every cell in this table carries the evidence status shown for that provider in the table above, and a cell reading "not disclosed" is a finding about what the provider publishes rather than a blank.

The operating-model column records what each provider says about its own model at company level. It is not a per-country verification, and the model can differ market by market: a provider that owns entities in most of its footprint may still employ through a partner in yours. The identity of the legal employing entity in your specific country is a quote-stage question with a documentary answer, and it belongs in the order form rather than in a sales email. It matters for price as well as accountability — where employment is partner-delivered, the partner's margin sits somewhere in your total, disclosed or not. Across the eight providers reviewed on August 1, 2026, two describe a direct owned-entity model, one describes a mixed model, three describe partner-delivered employment, and two state no model at all on the pages reviewed.

Sources: each provider's current official pricing page — Deel pricing, Multiplier pricing, Oyster pricing, Papaya Global pricing, Plane pricing, Remote pricing and its Employer of Record page for the annual-billing option, RemoFirst pricing, and Rippling pricing. Operating-model entries come from each provider's own description of its model: Deel's EOR product page, Oyster's EOR guide, Papaya Global on the local-entity model, and Remote's Employer of Record page, with Plane's and RemoFirst's taken from their pricing FAQs.

Commercial relationships and funding. EOR Hub is an independent publisher. We are not an employer of record, a PEO, a payroll processor, a law firm, or a tax, immigration, or investment adviser, and nothing here is legal, tax, or immigration advice for your situation. How this page is funded: EOR Hub is supported by advertising and, on some pages, disclosed referral links. No provider has paid for placement, ordering, or inclusion on this page, and compensation never determines what is included or how it is ranked. If a compensated link is added to this page, it will be disclosed here. As of publication, no approved affiliate or referral agreement exists with Deel, Multiplier, Oyster, Papaya Global, Plane, Remote, RemoFirst, or Rippling; we have applied or intend to apply to programs operated by providers in this category, and we will name any provider and date once a relationship becomes active. Inclusion, ordering, and every cell above were determined before and independently of any such relationship: the tables are alphabetical, nothing on this page is ranked or scored, and no provider paid for, previewed, or approved its entry.

What each provider publishes, and what your quote must close

Every unverified cell above is a question your written quote has to close, and the questions differ by provider because the gaps differ. The notes below read the two tables together for each provider and name what is left open.

Deel

A firm list price rather than a "starting at" figure, from a provider that states it owns entities in the countries it covers. The gaps are on the cash side: the reviewed pricing page addresses neither a deposit nor a setup fee, and those are the two lines most likely to move your first transfer. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: neither a deposit nor a setup fee is addressed on the pricing page. Ask whether either applies in your country, and whether a higher tier or country surcharge applies at your headcount.

Multiplier

A country-localized starting price is a floor, not a quote, and no operating model is stated on the pages reviewed — so the identity of the employing entity is entirely open. Accepted billing currencies are the one term the page does quantify. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: the published figure is a country-localized starting price. Ask for the figure for your country, and for the deposit and FX terms the page does not quantify.

Oyster

A firm list price, and the only provider here that states setup, onboarding, and offboarding sit inside the subscription. Against that, it is also the clearest about requiring a refundable deposit while leaving the amount unpublished — a disclosed obligation of undisclosed size, which is a harder thing to budget than a disclosed fee. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: the deposit is required but unpriced. Ask the amount, the trigger, and the refund timing, and ask what the annual seat-based discount commits you to.

Papaya Global

An entry figure that varies by region and by service tier, from a provider whose own material describes partner-delivered employment. Two mandatory charges — a refundable deposit and an onboarding fee — are confirmed as charged and left unpriced, the widest gap in this set between a disclosed obligation and a disclosed amount. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: two amounts are withheld. Ask the deposit amount and the onboarding fee, ask which tier the entry price assumes for your country, and ask which partner entity employs your worker.

Plane

A firm list price, with an unusually direct account of the structure behind it: employment runs through an employer-of-record partner, and that partner adds a percentage FX markup the page does not size. A disclosed markup of unknown size is not the same finding as no markup. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: the FX markup is disclosed but not quantified. Ask the percentage, the base it applies to, and which entity employs your worker in your country.

Remote

Two published numbers rather than one, the difference being a billing-term commitment, and the only stated no-upfront-deposit position in this set — qualified by reserve payments in rare, high-risk circumstances. Remote also makes the strongest ownership claim here, stating it owns and operates all of its entities. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: the USD 599 rate is tied to annual billing. Ask what the annual term obliges you to, and what circumstances trigger a reserve payment.

RemoFirst

The lowest published price in this set, qualified by the provider in the same breath — it may vary by local country requirements — which makes it a starting price rather than a rate. Employment is partner-delivered by the provider's own disclosure, and neither deposit nor FX terms appear on the reviewed page. Evidence status: Verified with limitation. What your quote must close: the price varies by country and employment is partner-delivered. Ask the figure for your country, the deposit and FX terms, and the name of the employing entity.

Rippling

No public EOR amount and no stated operating model on the reviewed page. Rippling appears here because quote-only status could itself be verified from the official page, and that is a finding in its own right: the evidence for this provider begins in a sales conversation rather than in public documentation. Evidence status: Partial — quote required. What your quote must close: nothing is public. Ask for the complete fee schedule in writing before any comparison, and treat the demo as the start of the evidence rather than the evidence.

How this matrix was built, and how it ages

Inclusion gate. Providers appear here because current first-party pricing evidence was available, or because quote-only status could be verified from the official page; nothing is scored, ranked, or ordered by anything but the alphabet, and inclusion implies no recommendation. A provider whose EOR price could be established in neither form from its own current documentation — no published figure and no verifiable quote-only status — is not listed, and this set is not exhaustive of the category.

Review scope. The review scope was identical for every provider: its current pricing page, plus — where the pricing page did not state the operating model — one further page published by the same provider, consulted for that field alone. No provider was researched more deeply than that, and no figure was taken from a page outside those two, so a provider that publishes a number somewhere other than its pricing page appears here as quote-only rather than as a list price. Every cell reflects only what the provider's own page states — competitor comparison pages, review sites, and sales conversations were not used for any row, and generic "no hidden fees" slogans were not carried over as facts, only specific stated terms.

Where sources disagree. One conflict is worth naming in advance: secondary write-ups of this category routinely report that a given provider charges no deposit or no setup fee where the provider's own page is simply silent. Silence is recorded here as not disclosed, never as none, and the two are not the same finding. The same rule runs in the other direction: where secondary coverage reports a deposit multiple or an FX band that a provider's own reviewed pages do not state, this matrix records the provider's silence rather than the secondary figure.

Status vocabulary. "Verified with limitation" means the figure is supported by the current official page but a qualifier — a "starting" label, a country or billing-term condition, an unpublished deposit amount — restricts what it can tell you; "Partial" means the row cannot support a price comparison at all.

What is deliberately absent. Country counts are omitted: advertised availability is not evidence of an owned local entity or of uniform service, and it adds nothing to a price comparison.

Refresh and correction. These pages change without notice, and a price captured last quarter may no longer exist — so this matrix is re-verified on the publication date and on a monthly-to-quarterly cycle thereafter. Rows that fail re-verification are corrected, limited, or removed — never silently re-dated — and any undated EOR price you meet elsewhere should be treated as stale until proven current. The Portuguese figures further down sit on a separate clock: statutory contribution rates and the instruments behind them are rechecked at least semiannually and on any budget or tax-year change.

Corrections. If a figure or term above no longer matches your current documentation, write to hello@eorhub.com with the page and the date you checked it, and the row will be re-verified and re-dated or removed. Providers may submit corrections about their own entry through the same address.

Three things to take from the matrix. First, none of these amounts is a total: every one excludes salary, statutory employer costs, mandatory compensation, and benefits, and most leave deposits and FX unquantified, so the cheapest visible number and the cheapest actual outcome can be different providers. Second, the price types differ in kind — a fixed list price, a country-dependent "starting at" figure, a billing-term discount, and a quote-only posture answer different questions, and laying them on one scale manufactures a false ranking. Third, where two providers publish the same list price, the difference between them sits in the terms table rather than in the price. For the Deel and Remote pairing specifically, our current look at Deel versus Remote pricing and fit goes further.

Flat, percentage, and custom fee models

A fee becomes comparable only after you know its unit, base, minimum, discount, term, and included services. The mechanism matters more than the headline.

Flat per-employee fees are the dominant published model, but "flat" hides four different animals. Ask whether the amount is a single global price, a country-specific price, a "starting at" figure that rises with jurisdictional complexity, or a promotional or negotiated rate. Ask what billing term it assumes, whether it survives at your actual country and start date, and which services are inside it — a fee that includes offboarding and one that bills termination separately are not the same price even at the same number.

Percentage-of-salary models charge a share of pay rather than a fixed amount. If a provider quotes this way, pin down the exact base (gross salary, total payroll cost, or invoice subtotal), any minimum fee or ceiling, and how bonuses, allowances, and benefits count toward the base. The scaling property is the point to model: at an illustrative 5% of gross, a USD 5,000 monthly salary carries a USD 250 monthly fee and a USD 10,000 salary carries USD 500 — the same service at twice the fee, purely because pay rose, and every future raise raises the fee again. None of the public pages in the matrix above quotes a percentage model in its published price; treat any percentage arrangement as a quote-level term to be confirmed in writing, never assumed.

Custom and bundled quotes arrive as one negotiated figure or one consolidated invoice. Before comparing, decompose the bundle back into the standard stack — service fee, salary, statutory charges, benefits, taxes, FX, deposits, event fees — even if the vendor presents a single line. Ask explicitly which components the bundled number contains and which will be invoiced on top. A bundle you cannot decompose is a bundle you cannot benchmark, and it cannot be entered honestly into the worksheet in the next section.

Minimums and seat commitments change the effective price. A low per-employee rate tied to a seat minimum or annual commitment costs more than its unit price at small headcount. Illustratively, a plan at USD 300 per employee per month with a ten-seat minimum costs USD 3,000 per month regardless of usage; with six actual employees, the effective rate is USD 500 per employee — two-thirds above the advertised unit price. Always divide the true committed spend by the employees you will actually have, not the employees the plan assumes.

Discounts come in distinguishable species — list-price reductions, startup or nonprofit programs, volume tiers, annual-billing discounts, time-limited promotions, and individually negotiated rates. The matrix contains one fully documented example of the billing-term kind: the same list service at USD 699 per employee per month billed monthly or USD 599 with annual billing, a USD 1,200 per-employee difference over a year, purchased with a commitment. Record which kind of discount you were offered, what conditions attach, and when it expires, because a discount with a clawback or a term commitment changes the contract as well as the price.

Whatever the mechanism, finish by translating it into one comparable unit: effective monthly cost per actual employee, on your billing term, at your headcount, with the included services listed beside the number. That single translation step is what lets a "starting at" price, a percentage, and a bundled quote sit honestly in the same column of the worksheet that follows.

How to build a comparable EOR quote

Comparison shopping fails when each vendor answers a slightly different question, and in practice the divergence follows three predictable patterns: different benefits bundles quietly attached to the "same" package, different billing currencies that bury FX in the totals, and different start-date or country assumptions that change which rules and rates apply. The fix is procedural. Freeze one employment case, one service case, and one set of required disclosures, then require every provider to quote against exactly that — field by field, in writing. The worksheet below is the instrument; copy it into your quote request and give every field a status when the answers come back.

Worksheet field	What every provider must answer identically
Country and work location	The worker's country, plus region or city where rules vary
Worker status and contract type	Employee; indefinite or fixed-term; full- or part-time; probation terms
Salary, currency, and period	Gross amount in local currency with the pay period stated
Start date	The same target date for all quotes
Immigration need	Whether sponsorship or a permit is required, and who handles it
Headcount and seats	Number of workers now and any committed seats
Benefits package	The identical mandatory-plus-optional package, itemized
Payroll frequency and special pay	Pay cycle, expenses, equity, allowances, equipment
Integrations and support scope	HRIS/accounting connections and the support model included
Employing entity and operating model	The named legal entity that will employ in this country, and whether it is provider-owned or a partner
EOR service fee	Amount, unit, and basis (fixed, starting, or percentage with base)
Minimums and discounts	Any seat minimums, and the discount type, conditions, and expiry
Setup and onboarding fees	Amount and trigger, or a written statement that none apply
Deposit / prefunding	Amount, trigger, permitted use, refund timing, top-up rules
FX terms	Rate source, spread or markup, application base, conversion timing
Benefits treatment	Pass-through at cost or markup; broker fees; renewal basis
Service taxes	Which lines are taxable, at what rate, in which jurisdiction
Event fees	Off-cycle payroll, immigration, background checks, termination, other
Quote validity	How long the quoted terms hold
Billing term, renewal, cancellation	Contract length, notice periods, refund timing on exit
Governing document	Which order form or agreement controls if documents conflict

Run the process with the same discipline you expect from the answers. Send the worksheet as one document and require a field-by-field written response; a verbal assurance is not an answer, and neither is a link to a marketing page. For each returned quote, record the quote date, the validity window, the vendor contact and channel, and whether each term is public list pricing or individually negotiated — negotiated terms need the order form, not the email, as their evidence. Note stated exclusions and assumptions verbatim, because that is where quotes stop being comparable.

Hold the answers to a quality bar, too. "Included" is not an answer until it names the document and the number it is included in; a benefits line must arrive itemized with premiums, not as a package name; and a quote that still says "starting at" is not yet a quote — it is an invitation to keep asking. For evaluation, normalize currencies deliberately: keep every original figure in its quoted currency, then convert all quotes to one comparison currency using a single, dated reference rate you record alongside the results. That conversion is an evaluation convenience, not a payment forecast — the provider's own FX terms, captured in the worksheet, govern what you will actually pay.

Then score each field with an explicit status: verified in writing, verified with a stated limitation, quote pending, or not disclosed. A missing number stays "not disclosed" — never convert silence into zero, and never fill a blank from another provider's answer or an industry rule of thumb. A comparison built on an expired quote is already wrong, so re-date anything older than its validity window before deciding. When the worksheet comes back complete from at least two providers on the same inputs, you have a real comparison; at that point, if you are ready to evaluate the vendors themselves rather than just their prices, compare verified EOR providers using the same evidence discipline.

Three outcomes end the exercise without a signature, and each is a legitimate result rather than a failure:

• No provider will employ in the worker's country, or the arrangement is licensed or restricted there. The answer is a different structure and a conversation with local counsel, not a better quote.
• The complete cost — salary, statutory charges, mandatory compensation, benefits, fee, and reserve — exceeds what the role was budgeted for. The honest finding is that the hire is not funded at the level assumed, and the fee was never the reason.
• The worker has been engaged as a contractor in circumstances the facts may not support. That exposure is settled with counsel before any vendor conversation, because a new arrangement does not resolve it.

Countries where the arrangement itself is licensed or restricted

Availability is a country question before it is a price question. In several major markets, one company employing a worker who then works under another company's direction can amount to a regulated activity in its own right — labour leasing, or dispatch — with a licence, statutory limits, or both attached to it. Where that is the case, the first thing to establish is not the fee but whether the provider holds the licence and whether the arrangement can lawfully do what you need it to do. Three examples, each with a named statute and a named regulator:

• Germany. Employee leasing (Arbeitnehmerüberlassung) requires an official permit from the Bundesagentur für Arbeit under § 1(1) of the Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz. The same Act sets a default maximum of 18 consecutive months for one worker's assignment to one client (§ 1(1b)), which a collective agreement in the client's own sector may vary, and requires equal treatment with the client's workforce (§ 8), with an equal-pay entitlement after nine months of uninterrupted assignment. The licensing authority publishes its own operating instructions on the Act.
• Japan. Operating a worker dispatching business requires a licence from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare under Article 5 of the Act on Ensuring the Proper Operation of Worker Dispatching Services and Protecting Dispatched Workers, and Article 7 bars the Minister from granting one unless the statutory criteria are met.
• China. Labour dispatch is an administratively licensed activity, and the Interim Provisions on Labour Dispatch issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, in force since 1 March 2014, restrict dispatched workers to temporary, auxiliary or substitute positions and cap them at 10% of the client entity's total workforce. Resident representative offices of foreign enterprises are exempted from both the position restriction and the cap (Article 25) — which is why the arrangement can look available in China when it is not generally.

These three are illustrations, not a complete list, and the absence of a country here is not evidence that the model is unregulated there. Whether a particular provider's arrangement in a particular country falls inside or outside a licensing regime is a legal question about that arrangement, and the answer belongs in writing from local employment counsel before you sign — not in a quote.

Three total-cost scenarios

The first three scenarios below exist to make the two-total arithmetic concrete. Every figure in them is illustrative, not a quote: the 20% employer-cost assumption, the 1.5% FX assumption, and the one-month deposit assumption are demonstration numbers only, deliberately tied to no country and no provider. One real country is then worked in full at the end of the section. Read the columns as four different questions: what recurs every month; what the first period costs in nonrefundable expense; what cash is merely held as security; and what must actually be transferred to start.

Scenario	Recurring monthly cost	First-period nonrefundable cost	Refundable cash	Total initial cash
A. Low case — fee visibility	USD 6,699	USD 6,699	—	USD 6,699
B. Base case — FX and setup	USD 6,792	USD 7,092	—	USD 7,092
C. High case — senior hire with deposit	USD 11,266	USD 11,266	USD 10,267	USD 21,533
Scenario A rerun at 40% employer cost	USD 7,699	USD 7,699	—	USD 7,699

Scenario A — the fee is one line. A worker on a USD 5,000 monthly gross salary, in no particular country, with employer costs of USD 1,000 at the 20% demonstration assumption, USD 200 in benefits, and a USD 499 EOR fee, produces a recurring employer cost of USD 6,699 per month. The service fee is about 7% of the total; salary and employer charges do the heavy lifting, which is why two providers separated by a USD 100 fee difference can be nearly indistinguishable in total cost. To make this scenario real, the USD 1,000 would come from the worker's country's official contribution rules — with its caps and thresholds applied at this salary — and the USD 499 from a written quote for that country.

Scenario B — small percentages and one-time charges move the first invoice. Take Scenario A, still country-less, and convert the USD 6,200 of salary, employer costs, and benefits at an illustrative 1.5% FX cost (USD 93), and recurring cost becomes USD 6,792. Add a USD 300 one-time setup fee and the first period's expense is USD 7,092. Neither addition is dramatic in isolation; together they move the first invoice roughly 6% above the Scenario A figure, and the FX portion repeats every month for as long as the currency conversion does. In production, the FX line would come from the provider's disclosed rate source and markup applied to the actual converted base, and the setup fee from the fee schedule — or from a written confirmation that none applies.

Scenario C — a refundable deposit reshapes initial cash without touching expense. A senior hire at USD 8,000 gross in the same unnamed country, employer costs of USD 1,600, a USD 667 monthly accrual for mandatory additional compensation, USD 300 in benefits, and a USD 699 fee gives a recurring employer cost of USD 11,266. If the provider also requires a refundable deposit equal to one month's payroll liability — here USD 10,267, the salary plus employer costs plus the accrual — the initial cash transfer is USD 21,533, nearly double the recurring cost, while recognized expense is unchanged. This is the cash-flow rule in action, and it is why deposit amount, trigger, permitted use, and refund timing belong in every quote request. The exit side matters as much as the entry: whether the deposit returns 60 days after final payroll or many months later determines how long that cash stays trapped, and the difference is a real working-capital cost even though it never becomes expense. In production, the deposit terms would come from the provider's contract and the accrual from the country's mandatory-compensation rules.

The scenarios also show how to read competing quotes against each other. Once two providers have quoted the same worksheet inputs, the salary, statutory, mandatory-compensation, and benefits lines should match; any difference between their totals should be fully explained by the service fee, FX terms, one-time charges, and deposit or prefunding requirements. If the salary or statutory lines differ instead, the quotes are not on the same inputs, and the comparison should stop until they are — a lower total built on different assumptions is not a lower price.

Two closing uses for the same arithmetic. Annualized, Scenario A's recurring cost is USD 80,388 and Scenario C's is USD 135,192 — with one-time fees kept in their period and the deposit excluded from expense entirely, exactly as the annualized formula requires. And as a sensitivity tool, the model shows where scrutiny pays: moving the service fee by USD 100 in Scenario A shifts the recurring total by about 1.5%, while moving the employer-cost assumption from 20% to 30% of salary shifts it by roughly 7.5%.

Treat Scenario A as the low case, not the base case. Its 20% employer-cost assumption is deliberately conservative, and statutory employer burden runs far higher in a number of jurisdictions than in the one this demonstration implies. The fourth row of the table above reruns the same hire at 40%, where the annual figure reaches USD 92,388 and the service fee falls to about 6.5% of the total. Which figure is right for your case is a country question, and it is the single input most worth taking from the official authority rather than from any provider. The example below shows what that substitution looks like in one real market.

One country, worked: Portugal

Assumptions, stated so you can check them: one full-time employee on an indefinite contract under the general regime for employed persons, EUR 4,000 gross base salary a month, figures kept in local currency with no conversion, and rates confirmed for the 2026 contribution year on August 1, 2026.

Line	Monthly (EUR)	Basis
Gross base salary	4,000.00	Agreed with the worker, paid over twelve months
Mandatory additional compensation, accrued	666.67	Holiday and Christmas subsidies, each equal to one month's pay (Código do Trabalho, articles 263 and 264) — two extra months spread across twelve
Contribution base	4,666.67	Base pay plus the subsidies and analogous payments
Employer social security contribution	1,108.33	23.75% of the contribution base (Código dos Regimes Contributivos, article 53)
Recurring employer cost, before benefits, fee, FX, and deposit	5,775.00	Sum of the first, second, and fourth lines

Three things come off that table. First, base pay of EUR 4,000 a month becomes EUR 5,775 of employer cost before a single optional line — EUR 69,300 a year against an annual base salary of EUR 48,000, or 44% above base pay. Second, the statutory contribution alone is 27.7% of base pay here, not the 20% the demonstration scenarios assumed, and the mandatory subsidies add a further 16.7% on top; that is what "low case" meant. Third, the service fee is still the smallest recurring line: against EUR 5,775 before any fee, a EUR 100 difference between two providers moves the recurring total by under 2%.

What this figure excludes: optional benefits; employer work-accident and occupational-disease cover, which the Labour Code addresses at articles 283 and 284 and whose premium depends on the insurer and the activity; the EOR service fee; service taxes; FX cost, since nothing here is converted; deposits or prefunding; one-time fees; and any termination or severance reserve. It also assumes the general regime — the contributory code provides more favourable rates for defined categories and situations (article 56), so confirm the rate that applies to your worker rather than carrying this one across.

Evidence status: Verified — governing instruments, reviewed August 1, 2026. The employer rate of 23.75% and the employee rate of 11% are set by article 53 of the contributory code and confirmed as applying for the 2026 contribution year. Contribution rates are set alongside the annual state budget, so recheck before you rely on this figure, and take the rate for your own case from the authority rather than from this page.

Hidden costs and contract terms that reverse comparisons

The terms below are where a seemingly cheaper quote most often turns out to be the more expensive one. Work through them in the written quote, not the sales call.

Money terms

Benefits. Separate what the country mandates from what you elect, and establish whether premiums pass through at cost or carry a markup or broker fee. Ask how dependent coverage is priced and what happens to your cost at renewal, since year-two benefit repricing can quietly outgrow any fee discount.

Foreign exchange. A named rate source, a stated spread or markup, the base it applies to, and the timing of conversion are the four facts that make FX auditable. Marketing adjectives are not a rate; several providers in the matrix disclose only that conversions occur or that a fee applies in specific cases, which means the quantified answer belongs in your quote.

Deposits and prefunding. Beyond the amount, establish the trigger, whether the provider can require top-ups, what the funds may be used for, whether interest accrues to you, how quickly refunds arrive after offboarding, and how the money is protected if the provider fails. Refundability is whatever the deposit clause says it is, and nothing more.

Event charges. Onboarding and implementation, off-cycle payroll runs, corrections, bonus processing, equity administration, immigration filings, background checks, equipment, terminations, and post-termination payroll can each carry separate fees. Get the full event-fee schedule in writing even for events you do not expect. Immigration is the one to check earliest: it is a separate service with its own fees and its own country limits, and a provider's ability to employ in a country does not mean it can sponsor a work permit there. Confirm the capability and the fee before the country is fixed.

Service taxes. Confirm the billing jurisdiction and which invoice lines attract VAT, GST, or similar tax — and whether your company can recover it — rather than assuming the quoted fee is the final number.

Contract terms

Commitments and exits. Minimums, annual seat commitments, renewal mechanics, notice and cancellation periods, quote validity, unilateral amendment rights, and which document governs when the order form and the public page disagree all shape the real price. Termination deserves particular attention, and on two separate counts: ending the service agreement runs on the contract's notice clock, while ending the employment runs through the worker's local employment law on the local timeline, and the severance and notice pay that law requires are your liability rather than a provider fee.

Structure terms

Operating model. Country availability and an owned local entity are separate facts. Some providers document a direct model, some disclose local partners, and many say nothing about the specific market you are hiring in; where the model is undisclosed, record it as unverified and ask, because the answer affects accountability, data flows, where a partner's margin sits in your total, and who actually employs your worker.

Seven things to demand in writing before signature:

• the complete fee schedule, including event fees;
• the deposit terms, including trigger, permitted use, and refund timing;
• the FX policy, with rate source and markup;
• the benefits treatment, itemized with premiums;
• the tax treatment of the service fee;
• the renewal and cancellation mechanics;
• the identity of the legal employing entity in the worker's country.

One boundary to keep clear throughout: an EOR arrangement can address defined employment and payroll obligations, but it does not eliminate permanent-establishment or corporate-tax exposure arising from your own activity in the country, immigration requirements, works-council or employee-representation obligations, data-protection duties, intellectual-property and invention-assignment risk, equity and incentive treatment, joint-liability exposure in jurisdictions that recognize it, or exposure from how a worker was classified before the arrangement began. Those domains need their own analysis, usually with qualified advisers. Permanent establishment is the clearest case: an EOR changes who legally employs the worker, but it does not change what your own company does in that country, and your own activity there is what the analysis examines. A tax adviser answers that question; no pricing page can.

A related trap sits on the pricing pages themselves: EOR fees often appear beside contractor-management plans priced an order of magnitude lower. Those are different products with different legal structures — a contractor plan manages contracts, invoicing, and payments for genuinely independent contractors; it does not make an employment-like relationship lawful, and it is not a discounted substitute for employment where the facts support employee status. The legal decision runs through contractor misclassification risk; if you have concluded the worker genuinely is a contractor, the product decision belongs on our contractor management hub.

A second adjacent product causes the same confusion in the other direction. A professional employer organization arrangement is co-employment, and it generally assumes you already have a legal entity employing the worker; it prices differently because it administers employment you already hold rather than becoming the legal employer where you hold none. A PEO quote and an EOR quote are therefore not competing prices for the same thing, and if you have no entity in the worker's country the PEO number is not available to you at all. The structural comparison belongs on EOR versus PEO.

What leaving an EOR costs

Engagement pricing is only half the arithmetic, and the exit side is where budgets are most often caught short. Price it before you sign, because every term that governs it is negotiated at the start.

• Two notice clocks run at once. Notice on the service agreement is a contract term; notice to the employee is set by the worker's country law. You fund payroll, statutory contributions, and the service fee for whichever runs longer.
• Accrued liability settles at exit. Statutory severance, notice pay, and accrued but untaken leave crystallize on termination, and providers commonly require them funded before they will execute. This is the largest exit line and it is not a fee.
• The deposit returns on the provider's timetable. Refund timing after final payroll is a contract fact worth pinning down at signature; the gap between 60 days and several months is a working-capital cost even though it never becomes expense.
• Offboarding may or may not be included. Some agreements state that offboarding sits inside the subscription; others bill it, along with final and post-termination payroll runs. Confirm which, in the fee schedule.
• Records leave on their own timetable. Establish before signature who holds payroll records, employment contracts, and personnel files after termination, in what format they are returned, how long the provider retains them, and on what data-protection basis — the service agreement often says less about this than the data-processing agreement does.
• Switching providers creates an overlap. Moving a worker from one EOR to another usually means a period of duplicate fees, a fresh onboarding, and a second deposit posted before the first is returned. Budget the overlap rather than assuming a clean handover.
• Continuity of employment is a legal question, not a contract term. Whether service, seniority, and accrued entitlements carry across to a new provider or to your own new entity is determined by the worker's country law and the receiving employer's obligations. It is not settled by the service agreement, and it belongs with local employment counsel before any transfer date is promised to the employee.

When EOR pricing stops making sense

Recurring per-employee fees are the price of speed and of not operating your own entity, and the trade behaves predictably: EOR cost scales linearly with every additional hire, while an entity's fixed costs amortize across headcount. Several triggers shift the math toward the entity:

• growing headcount concentrated in one country;
• a long time horizon in that country;
• the need to control employment terms, policies, and benefits directly rather than through a provider's framework;
• local commercial activity beyond employing people;
• complex benefits or collective-agreement environments;
• entity needs — banking, contracting, licensing — that go beyond hiring.

When any of those appear, run the comparison honestly: total EOR cost, using the two-total model above, against the full cost of establishing and operating an entity — incorporation, registrations, local payroll and accounting, statutory filings, ongoing administration, and eventual wind-down — not platform fee versus incorporation fee. A monthly fee looks expensive next to a one-time filing charge and cheap next to a functioning local operation; only the complete comparison tells you which. The logic also runs in reverse — shrinking headcount in a country where you operate an entity can make per-employee fees the cheaper structure again. The break-even model itself, and the structural decision behind it, has its own page: compare an EOR with opening an entity. This page's job ends at handing that comparison clean cost inputs.

Your next action

Copy the quote worksheet above and complete it for one real worker-country case — one country, one gross salary in local currency, one start date, one benefits package. Send it to at least two providers relevant to that country and require written, same-input answers to every field, including the ones our tables mark "not disclosed"; two comparable quotes is the minimum that turns a price into a market signal. Before approving anything, obtain the service order or agreement, the full fee schedule, the deposit and refund terms, and the FX policy — the documents themselves, not summaries of them. The sequence is short enough to run inside a normal hiring timeline: freeze the case today, send the worksheet this week, and hold signature until the documents and any adviser questions are back.

Because three stakeholders usually own different halves of this decision, split the work:

• Finance takes the two-total model into the forecast, keeps one-time fees in their period, and flags the deposit to treasury as a cash event rather than an expense line.
• HR or people operations owns the worksheet, sends it as one document, and holds each provider to field-by-field written answers.
• Legal or compliance takes the governing-document question, the employing-entity identity, and the escalation list below.

Those three timelines conflict by default — HR needs the offer out this week, finance needs the deposit in the cash forecast, and legal needs the employing entity named before signature. Decide in advance which one moves.

Escalate what a quote cannot settle, and send each question to the right adviser:

• Local employment counsel — termination grounds, notice and severance, works councils and collective agreements, continuity of employment on transfer, and any country where the arrangement may be licensed or restricted.
• A tax adviser — permanent-establishment and corporate-tax exposure arising from your own activity, treaty questions, and the recoverability of service taxes.
• Immigration counsel — sponsorship, work authorization, and whether the provider can actually sponsor in the country you need.
• Counsel first, before any vendor conversation — where a worker has already been engaged as a contractor in circumstances the facts may not support. A new arrangement does not cure prior exposure, and the sequence matters.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an EOR cost per employee?

The published service fee is the small part. Across the pricing pages reviewed for this article, EOR fees ran from a USD 199 starting price to USD 699 list prices per employee per month — but the fee sits on top of gross salary, the worker's country's statutory employer charges, mandatory additional compensation, and benefits, and in the worked examples above it lands between about 6% and 7.5% of the recurring total. Build the number from the full cost stack, not from a price page.

Is the EOR fee included in the salary?

No. Gross salary is the worker's compensation, statutory employer costs are country-mandated charges on top of it, and the EOR service fee is the provider's separate charge for its service. All three typically arrive on one consolidated invoice, which is exactly why they must be read as distinct lines — only the fee is set by the provider.

Are EOR deposits an expense?

Usually not. A refundable deposit is cash security: it raises your initial cash requirement and sits on your books as an asset until returned. It becomes expense only if forfeited or applied to charges under the contract, so read the deposit clause — amount, trigger, permitted use, and refund timing — rather than assuming either treatment.

Can I compare EOR and contractor-platform prices?

Not as substitutes. The two products buy different legal structures: an EOR makes a local entity the worker's legal employer, while a contractor platform administers an independent-contractor relationship. Price only against the classification the facts support; the tests and the consequences of getting it wrong live on our contractor misclassification page.

How often should EOR prices be re-checked?

On the day you rely on them, at minimum. Public provider terms move on a monthly-to-quarterly rhythm and change without notice, and any new quote, renewal, or contract amendment resets the clock. Treat every undated price, including a screenshot from last quarter, as expired. Statutory contribution rates run on a slower but firmer cycle: they are typically set alongside the annual state budget, so a rate that was right last year may not be right this year.

Sources and last verified date

Last verified: August 1, 2026

Next review: November 1, 2026

• Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz (AÜG) — Bundesministerium der Justiz and Bundesamt für Justiz — German employee-leasing statute: the § 1(1) permit requirement, the § 1(1b) 18-month default assignment maximum and its collective-agreement variation, and the § 8 equal-treatment rule with its nine-month equal-pay entitlement; consolidated text as last amended 22 December 2025; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Fachliche Weisungen Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz — Bundesagentur für Arbeit — the German licensing authority's own operating instructions on the AÜG, confirming that it issues and administers the permit; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Act on Ensuring the Proper Operation of Worker Dispatching Services and Protecting Dispatched Workers — Japanese Law Translation, Ministry of Justice — Japanese worker-dispatch statute: the Article 5 licence requirement and the Article 7 licensing criteria; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Private employment agencies and labour dispatch in China — International Labour Organization — English text of the Interim Provisions on Labour Dispatch (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, in force 1 March 2014), including the auxiliary-position restriction, the 10% cap on dispatched workers, and the Article 25 exemption for foreign representative offices; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Código dos Regimes Contributivos do Sistema Previdencial de Segurança Social (Lei n.º 110/2009), consolidated text — Diário da República — Portuguese general-regime contribution rate of 34.75%, split 23.75% employer and 11% employee (article 53); the contribution base; and the more favourable rates available for defined categories (article 56); reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Código do Trabalho (Lei n.º 7/2009), consolidated text — Diário da República — Portuguese statutory Christmas subsidy of one month's pay, payable by 15 December (article 263), the holiday subsidy (article 264), and the work-accident and occupational-disease regime (articles 283 and 284); reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Guia Fiscal 2026, Segurança Social — PwC Portugal — dated confirmation that the 23.75% employer and 11% employee contribution rates apply for the 2026 contribution year; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Deel pricing page — Deel — USD 599 per EOR employee/month list price, month-to-month billing, cancellation terms, and qualitative FX statement; reviewed July 24, 2026.
• Employer of Record product page — Deel — provider's statement that it owns entities in the countries it covers; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Multiplier pricing page — Multiplier — starting USD 400 per month, country-localized pricing, no minimums, no onboarding/setup/contract-termination fees, accepted billing currencies; reviewed July 24, 2026.
• Oyster pricing page — Oyster — USD 699 per employee/month, annual seat-based discounts, refundable EOR deposit requirement, currency-conversion fee condition, no minimum; reviewed July 24, 2026.
• Employer of record guide — Oyster — provider's statement that it owns or partners with local entities; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Papaya Global pricing page — Papaya Global — EOR starting from USD 650 per employee/month (EUR 650 in Europe), refundable-deposit and onboarding-fee disclosures, no minimum, 60-day opt-out clause; reviewed July 24, 2026.
• Why the EOR local entity model doesn't work — Papaya Global — provider's statement that it delivers employment through in-country partners rather than owned entities; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Plane pricing page — Plane — USD 499 per person/month EOR fee, no minimum charge or setup fees, cancellation terms, and the FX statement referencing its employer-of-record partner's unquantified markup; reviewed July 24, 2026.
• Remote pricing page — Remote — USD 699 per employee/month, no-upfront-deposit policy with rare reserve payments, no minimums or required contract lengths; reviewed July 24, 2026.
• Remote Employer of Record page — Remote — USD 599 per month annual-billing option, flat-versus-percentage fee-model explanation, and the provider's statement that it owns and operates 100% of its entities; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• RemoFirst pricing page — RemoFirst — EOR starting at USD 199 per employee/month with country variation, no setup/onboarding/termination fees, no annual contracts or minimums, and in-country partner-model disclosure; reviewed August 1, 2026.
• Rippling pricing page — Rippling — EOR product listed with no public EOR amount; pricing via sales quote; reviewed July 20, 2026.