Deel vs Remote vs Oyster: Real Employer of Record Cost per Employee
Short answer
All three publish genuinely transparent EOR pricing, a rarity in this category. Deel and Remote are tied at $599/employee/month on annual billing. Oyster lists $100 higher at $699/employee/month — but drops to $499/employee/month on its own annual Scale plan, which actually undercuts Deel's and Remote's annual rate once that discount is applied. Oyster is the only one of the three that is B Corp certified and operates entirely through partner entities rather than a mix of owned and partner entities, a structural trade-off worth understanding alongside the price comparison.
Pricing at a glance
| Deel | Remote | Oyster | |
|---|---|---|---|
| EOR (monthly billing) | Not the primary published rate; Enterprise tier from $899/month | $699/employee/month | $699/employee/month |
| EOR (annual billing) | $599/employee/month (Standard) | $599/employee/month | $499/employee/month — the lowest of the three once this discount is applied |
| Contractor management | $49/contractor/month, confirmed on Deel's own pricing page | Reported around $29/contractor/month | $29/contractor/month, published; at least one source describes the first two contractor seats as free before this rate applies |
| Global Payroll (employees on your own entity) | $29/employee/month | Not confirmed as a distinctly named product in available sources | $29/employee/month, plus a separate base fee of roughly $290/entity/month and a one-time implementation fee of roughly $500/entity — a genuinely different structure than a flat per-employee rate |
| US PEO | $125/employee/month | Not confirmed | $114/employee/month |
| Entity model | Mix of owned and partner entities across its country coverage | Mix of owned and partner entities | 100% partner-led entities — no owned entities, per its own positioning |
| Notable differentiator | Broadest product breadth (EOR, payroll, contractor management, immigration, equity) | Positioned on simplicity and a clean employee experience | B Corp certified — the only major EOR provider with this certification; strong benefits quality and employee portal, reported to matter most for hiring in Western Europe specifically |
| Country coverage | Broad, exact figure not confirmed in available sources | Broad, exact figure not confirmed in available sources | 116–120+ countries, reported as somewhat narrower than some competitors |
What headline pricing excludes
None of the three platform fees include salary, employer tax contributions, or benefits — the per-employee EOR rate is the service charge for the platform acting as legal employer, not the employee's total cost, and this is by far the larger part of the real bill for any of the three.
Oyster's Global Payroll product is billed per entity plus per employee, not as a flat per-head rate — a company with several entities each employing a small number of people will pay meaningfully more under this structure than a company with fewer entities and larger headcounts per entity, even at an identical total employee count. This is a genuinely different mechanic from Deel's flat $29/employee/month Global Payroll rate, which doesn't carry a separate entity-level base fee.
Oyster's $699 monthly list price is not the number most annual buyers will actually pay — its own Scale plan drops the effective rate to $499/employee/month on annual commitment, a discount steep enough to make Oyster the cheapest of the three once applied, despite having the highest monthly sticker price.
Add-ons like visa sponsorship and benefits setup are reported to add 30–40% to Oyster's advertised rate — a real, substantial addition for any hire requiring sponsorship, and a cost category not unique to Oyster but worth confirming across all three providers.
Hidden costs
- FX conversion margins, reported at 2–5%, apply when payment currency differs from the employment contract's currency — a real, recurring cost for any company paying in a currency other than the employee's local one, applicable across this category generally and specifically confirmed for Oyster.
- Deel's contractor management fee is confirmed at $49/contractor/month directly from Deel's own pricing page — a company assuming this feature is free, based on older or secondhand information, should confirm the current rate directly, since this figure has been a point of genuine confusion across secondary sources.
- Oyster's entity-based Global Payroll pricing includes a one-time per-entity implementation fee (roughly $500) on top of the ongoing per-entity and per-employee charges — a cost easy to miss when comparing only the recurring monthly rate against Deel's simpler flat per-employee structure.
- Statutory employer contributions vary enormously by country and are a pass-through cost on all three platforms, not a platform fee — Oyster specifically offers an employee cost calculator to estimate this before committing, a useful tool given how unpredictable this component can be across a distributed team spanning several countries.
Worked scenarios
5 international hires (assume EOR employees, no existing local entities)
| Estimated monthly cost | |
|---|---|
| Deel (annual billing) | 5 × $599 = $2,995/month |
| Remote (annual billing) | 5 × $599 = $2,995/month |
| Oyster (annual billing, Scale plan) | 5 × $499 = $2,495/month — the cheapest of the three at this scale, once annual billing is applied |
| Oyster (monthly billing) | 5 × $699 = $3,495/month — the most expensive of the three on a month-to-month basis |
Oyster's positioning shifts entirely depending on billing cadence — a company only comparing month-to-month rates would conclude Oyster is the most expensive, while a company committing to annual billing would find it the cheapest.
20 international employees, no existing local entities
| Estimated annual cost | |
|---|---|
| Deel (annual) | 20 × $599 × 12 = $143,760/year, before salary, tax, and benefits |
| Remote (annual) | 20 × $599 × 12 = $143,760/year, before salary, tax, and benefits |
| Oyster (annual, Scale plan) | 20 × $499 × 12 = $119,760/year, before salary, tax, and benefits — roughly $24,000/year cheaper than Deel or Remote at this scale |
| Oyster (monthly) | 20 × $699 × 12 = $167,760/year — the most expensive of the three if billed monthly rather than annually |
At this scale, the gap between Oyster's annual and monthly rate is large enough that billing cadence alone determines whether Oyster is the cheapest or most expensive of the three — a company evaluating Oyster should treat the annual commitment as close to mandatory to realize its actual competitive pricing.
100 distributed employees (mix of EOR and employees on owned entities)
For employees on entities the company already owns, Deel's Global Payroll ($29/employee/month flat) and Oyster's Global Payroll (roughly $290/entity/month plus $29/employee/month) diverge based on how many entities are involved: a company with few entities and many employees per entity will find Oyster's structure competitive with Deel's, while a company with many entities and modest headcount per entity will find Deel's flat per-employee rate cheaper, since it carries no separate entity-level base fee. For the portion of the 100-person workforce needing genuine EOR coverage (no existing entity), the same per-employee comparison from the 20-employee scenario applies proportionally — Oyster's annual Scale rate remains the cheapest of the three per EOR employee, Deel and Remote remain tied.
Normalizing across billing units
Oyster's entity-based Global Payroll pricing and Deel's flat per-employee Global Payroll pricing are not directly comparable without knowing a specific company's entity count and employees-per-entity ratio — a "per employee" comparison between the two products in isolation would understate Oyster's real cost for a many-entities, few-employees-per-entity company, and overstate it for the reverse case.
Break-even and crossover
The clearest calculable crossover in this article is billing cadence, not company size: Oyster's EOR rate crosses from being the most expensive of the three (at $699/month) to being the cheapest (at $499/month) purely based on whether a company commits to annual billing. This is a genuinely actionable, quantifiable decision point — any company seriously evaluating Oyster should model both billing cadences explicitly rather than comparing only the headline monthly rate against Deel's and Remote's own annual figures.
Who pays more, and when
- A company prioritizing lowest EOR cost and willing to commit annually should look hardest at Oyster, whose $499/employee/month annual rate undercuts Deel's and Remote's tied $599/employee/month.
- A company needing month-to-month flexibility without an annual commitment will find Oyster the most expensive of the three at $699/employee/month, making Deel or Remote the more attractive choice in that specific scenario.
- A company for which B Corp certification or benefits quality is a genuine procurement or employer-branding requirement has a real, structural reason to choose Oyster regardless of the pure price comparison, since it's the only major EOR provider with this certification among the three.
- A company hiring predominantly in Western Europe, where benefits quality is reported to matter more for closing senior candidates, may find Oyster's regional depth and employee-experience strengths worth its relative cost position.
- A company with several small legal entities rather than a few large ones should model Oyster's entity-based Global Payroll pricing carefully against Deel's flat per-employee rate, since the per-entity base fee can make Oyster meaningfully more expensive in this specific configuration.
Limitations and uncertainty
Deel's, Remote's, and Oyster's EOR and contractor pricing are all confirmed directly from each vendor's own published pricing pages, making this one of the more transparent software categories for comparing public rates. Remote's Global Payroll product was not confirmed as a distinctly named, separately priced offering in available sources, unlike Deel's and Oyster's. The claim that Deel's contractor management is free, which circulates in some older or secondary sources, is superseded by the current confirmed $49/contractor/month rate on Deel's own page. Oyster's exact country-coverage figure varies slightly across sources (116 vs. 120+) and was not resolved to a single confirmed number.
Official sources
- deel.com/pricing
- remote.com/pricing
- oysterhr.com/pricing, oysterhr.com/library/employer-of-record-pricing