An EOR becomes the legal employer of your hire in a country where you have no entity, and runs their contract, payroll, taxes and statutory benefits while you direct the work. The four platforms below publish their starting fees — but the fee is only one line of the real bill. This guide separates the service fee from salary, employer charges, deposits and contractor pricing, so the comparison is honest.
EOR service fee, month-to-month. Salary and employer costs are extra — see the cost section.
On annual billing. Monthly billing is $699. No setup fee; no routine deposit.
EOR service fee. Annual discounts are offered but the rate is not published.
Starting price — the final rate depends on country and scope, confirmed in a quote.
| Deel | Remote | Oyster | Papaya Global | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams hiring across many countries, fast | Buyers who want owned entities and flat, published terms | Distributed teams that weight benefits and employee experience | Finance-led companies consolidating payroll and payments |
| EOR fee (service fee only) | $599 / employee / mo | $599 / employee / mo on annual billing; $699 monthly | $699 / employee / mo (annual discounts not published) | From $499 / employee / mo |
| Contractor management fee — not EOR | $49 / contractor / mo | $29 / contractor / mo | $29 / contractor / mo, first 30 days free | From $5 / contractor / mo |
| EOR country coverage (vendor-published) | 130+ countries | 90+ countries, via its own entities | 120+ countries | 180+ countries |
| Deposit / upfront cash | Standard deposit of 1–1.5× total monthly charges per hire, refunded after exit and settlement | No setup fee and no routine deposit; a refundable reserve may be requested after a risk review | Refundable deposit required; amount not published (plan on roughly one month of total cost) | Deposit terms not published — get them in the quote |
| If you later open your own entity | Global Payroll from $29 / employee / mo | Global Payroll from $29 / employee / mo | Global Payroll from $290 / entity / mo + $29 / person / mo, plus an implementation fee | Payroll Plus from $29 / employee / mo |
| Hiring in Japan | Supported; publishes visa sponsorship process and fees. Says it owns its Japanese entity | Supported; says it owns its Japanese entity. Visa sponsorship not stated on its Japan page | Supported for people already able to work in Japan; its Japan page says it does not currently sponsor visas | Listed among its EOR countries, but Japan-specific details (entity, visas) are not published — ask before shortlisting |
| Trade-off to know | The deposit ties up real cash per hire even though it is refundable | The $599 headline needs annual billing; month-to-month is $699 | Highest EOR fee here, and the annual discount is quote-only | "From $499" is a floor, not a quote; FX and deposit terms are unpublished |
All figures are the vendors' published USD service fees, checked November 2026. None of these fees includes the employee's salary, employer-side statutory contributions (social security, pension, insurance), benefits premiums, or currency-conversion costs — those sit on top and vary far more by country than the fee does. "From" prices rise in higher-cost countries and are final only in a written quote. Confirm the current price for your specific country before you budget.
Search results for "EOR cost per employee" usually stop at the monthly fee. Run the published fees over 12 months and the ranking stays the same, but the gaps become real money:
| EOR service fees only (published rates) | 1 employee / year | 5 employees / year | 10 employees / year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deel ($599/mo) | $7,188 | $35,940 | $71,880 |
| Remote ($599/mo annual billing) | $7,188 | $35,940 | $71,880 |
| Remote ($699/mo monthly billing) | $8,388 | $41,940 | $83,880 |
| Oyster ($699/mo) | $8,388 | $41,940 | $83,880 |
| Papaya Global (from $499/mo) | from $5,988 | from $29,940 | from $59,880 |
Simple multiplication of the published monthly fee × 12 × headcount. No negotiated discounts, no mid-year changes. Papaya Global's figures are floors because its price is a starting rate.
Take one employee on a $5,000/month gross salary. The salary alone is $60,000 a year. Employer-side statutory contributions come on top — practical guides put them broadly in the range of about 13% to 40% of gross salary depending on the country, and the exact rate, caps and benefits rules are set by that country's law, not by the platform. Against that total, a $5,988–$8,388 annual EOR fee is a minority line. Choosing a platform only on a $100/month fee difference while ignoring how it handles the other 90% of the bill — benefits, payroll accuracy, country expertise — is the most common budgeting mistake in this category.
This is the single most expensive misreading in EOR research. The same pricing pages advertise contractor management at $5–$49 per person per month — Papaya Global's $5 contractor tier sits about 100× below its own $499 EOR starting price. Ten contractors cost $600–$5,880 a year in platform fees; ten employees cost $59,880–$83,880. The gap exists because a contractor has no employment relationship: no statutory benefits, no employer payroll taxes, no dismissal protection administered by the platform. If the person works like an employee — fixed hours, your tools, your direction, no other clients — classifying them as a contractor to save the fee creates misclassification risk that stays with your company. The cheap tier is for genuinely independent work.
Published practical guides put foreign entity formation broadly at $2,000–$20,000+ one-off, with ongoing costs — registered office, accounting, filings, payroll operation — of roughly $15,000–$50,000+ per country per year, before any salary. The break-even is a formula, not a slogan:
Break-even headcount in one country ≈ the entity's annual running cost ÷ your EOR fee per employee per year.
Worked example with an assumed $30,000 annual running cost (an assumption inside the published range, not a quote): the crossover is about 4.2 employees at Deel's or Remote's annual rate ($7,188), about 5.0 at Papaya Global's starting rate ($5,988), and about 3.6 at Oyster's rate ($8,388). In a country where running an entity costs $15,000 a year the entity wins much earlier; at $80,000 a year — a figure cited for parts of Western Europe — the EOR wins far longer. Headcount per country, how long you will stay, and whether you need to invoice or hold contracts locally move the answer more than any headline fee. Treat this as a budgeting frame and confirm the legal and tax side with a qualified adviser in the specific country.
Deel is the largest platform here by footprint: EOR in 130+ countries on its pricing pages, plus contractor management, global payroll for companies that own entities, an HRIS layer and immigration support in one dashboard. Its EOR fee is a flat published $599 per employee per month on month-to-month terms — there is no annual commitment behind the headline number. The fee covers locally compliant contracts, payroll processing and tax filings, benefits administration, onboarding, and HR and legal support, per its pricing FAQ. What it does not cover is the money that makes up most of the invoice: gross salary, employer contributions and any benefit premiums above the statutory baseline sit on top. Deel also requires a refundable EOR deposit, standard at one to one-and-a-half times the total monthly charges for that hire — budget the cash flow, not just the fee. For Japan specifically, Deel publishes the most detailed public material of the four: it states it owns its Japanese entity and documents a visa-sponsorship process with timelines and fees. Deel also operates a Japanese subsidiary and a Japanese-language site, and actively markets to Japanese companies hiring abroad — the clearest "Japanese company as the client" story of the four.
Remote's pitch is structural: it employs people through entities it owns — it claims 100+ owned entities and no third parties in the employment chain — across 90+ EOR countries. That is fewer countries than Deel or Papaya Global advertise, and Remote presents it as a deliberate trade for control over payroll and compliance. Its pricing is the most explicitly published here: EOR from $599 per employee per month on annual contracts, or $699 month-to-month, with no setup or onboarding fees and no routine security deposit (a refundable reserve can be requested after a financial risk review). Contractor management is $29 per active contractor per month, with a Plus tier at $99 and Contractor of Record from $325 for buyers who want classification cover. Remote also publishes country-level employee cost calculators, which makes it the easiest of the four to sanity-check total cost — salary plus statutory employer contributions — before a sales call. For Japan, Remote states it operates its own Japanese entity; its Japan page does not state whether it sponsors work visas, so ask directly if your hire needs one.
Oyster positions itself around the person being hired: benefits packages, onboarding experience and making distributed employees feel like full team members, on top of compliant employment in 120+ countries and contractor contracts in 180+ countries. Its published EOR fee is $699 per employee per month — the joint-highest headline here — with "annual discounts available" but no published percentage, so any annual figure has to come from a quote. Contractor management is $29 per contractor per month after a free first 30 days. Two cost details need attention before signing: Oyster requires a refundable deposit for EOR hires without publishing a fixed amount, and its Global Payroll product for your own entities is priced per entity ($290/entity/month plus $29/person/month, plus an implementation fee) — a different structure from the per-person payroll pricing at Deel, Remote and Papaya Global. Oyster also sells People Services, human HR advisory at $300 per hour, for questions that go beyond the platform. On Japan, Oyster's own page is usefully blunt: it supports hiring people who can already work in Japan and states it does not currently offer visa sponsorship there.
Papaya Global comes at global employment from the money side: workforce payments, multi-country payroll, consolidated reporting and analytics, with EOR as one product on that platform. Its pricing page lists EOR from $499 per employee per month across 180+ countries — the lowest published starting price of the four — plus contractor management from $5 per contractor per month, Contractor of Record from $199, and Payroll Plus from $29 per employee per month for companies running their own entities. (Older reviews still quoting $599–$750 for Papaya Global's EOR are describing earlier pricing.) The conditions behind the $499 floor are the least published here: it is explicitly a starting rate that varies by country, and the pricing page does not publish its FX processing fee, EOR deposit terms or implementation costs. Papaya delivers EOR through a mix of its own entities and in-country partners and does not publish which model applies in which country — so for a specific country, including Japan, ask which entity would employ your hire and get the full fee schedule in writing before comparing its headline against Deel's or Remote's flat rates.
The working reality decides the category, not the fee. Ongoing role, your direction, your tools → employee, and therefore EOR pricing ($499–$699/mo). A defined, independent project → contractor pricing ($5–$49/mo) may be legitimate. If you are unsure how a role classifies in that country, that question goes to a qualified adviser before any platform choice.
For each country on your list, add: gross salary + employer statutory contributions + benefits + the EOR fee + any FX cost. Use Remote's public calculators or each vendor's quote to get the country number in writing. A $100/mo fee gap is $1,200 a year per person; a wrong assumption about employer contributions can be several times that.
Deposit: how much, when refunded? Billing: monthly or prepaid annually? Entity: does the vendor employ through its own entity in your country or a partner, and who is the legal employer on the contract? Visas: does it sponsor them in that country (in Japan, Deel publishes that it does; Oyster publishes that it does not)? Get answers in the quote, not from a comparison site — including this one.
If you expect to stay in one country and grow past roughly 4–5 people there, price the entity route — formation plus annual running costs — against the EOR fees using the formula above, and plan the migration path (all four vendors sell payroll for your own entity, at the rates in the comparison table). An EOR is a way to start compliantly now, not necessarily the permanent structure.
Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice. EOR platforms administer employment; they do not remove your need to confirm classification, permanent-establishment exposure, equity treatment and country-specific obligations with qualified legal and tax advisers for your situation.
On published service fees: from $499 (Papaya Global, starting rate) to $699 (Oyster; Remote on monthly billing) per employee per month — $5,988 to $8,388 per employee per year for the platform's work alone. The total cost of employing the person is that fee plus their gross salary, employer-side statutory contributions and benefits in their country, which together are usually several times the fee. Any figure that presents the service fee as the total cost of the hire is incomplete.
On EOR fees they tie at the headline: Deel is $599 per employee per month month-to-month, and Remote is $599 on annual billing or $699 month-to-month. The differences are around the fee: Deel requires a refundable deposit of 1–1.5× monthly charges per hire, while Remote charges no setup fee and no routine deposit; Remote is cheaper for contractors ($29 vs $49 per month) and covers fewer EOR countries (90+ vs 130+) through owned entities only. At 10 employees the annual-billing fee totals are identical ($71,880/year) — decide on coverage, entity model and cash terms, not the sticker.
Because it is a different legal product. A contractor is self-employed: no employment contract with the platform, no statutory benefits, no employer payroll taxes administered, no dismissal rules. Contractor tiers here run $5–$49 per person per month versus $499–$699 for EOR. Using the contractor tier for someone who works as an employee in substance is misclassification, and the liability for back taxes and penalties generally remains with the hiring company.
All four list Japan within their EOR coverage, but the details differ in ways that matter. Deel states it owns its Japanese entity and publishes a visa-sponsorship process with fees and timelines. Remote states it owns its Japanese entity but does not state visa sponsorship on its Japan page. Oyster states it does not currently sponsor visas in Japan, so it fits hires who already have the right to work there. Papaya Global does not publish Japan-specific entity or visa details. If your hire needs a Japanese work visa, confirm sponsorship, the sponsoring entity and the fees with the vendor before shortlisting — and note that from March 2026, EOR-related visa applications in Japan involve additional filing requirements, so timelines need confirming too.
Yes, that is a standard EOR use case — the vendor's entity in the hire's country employs them while your Japanese company directs the work and pays one invoice. Deel is the most explicit about serving Japanese clients: it has a Japanese subsidiary, a Japanese-language site and Japanese-market material on hiring abroad without local entities. For Remote, Oyster and Papaya Global, Japanese-language support, invoicing currency and the contracting entity are not fully documented in public material — confirm them during the quote process. Cross-border tax and permanent-establishment questions for your company should be checked with your own advisers.
Run the formula in the cost section: when the annual EOR fees for everyone in one country exceed the annual cost of running an entity there (broadly $15,000–$50,000+ per year in published guides, plus formation), the entity starts to win on cost — typically somewhere in the mid-single-digit headcount per country at these fee levels. Control, local invoicing, equity plans and long-term commitment can move the decision earlier than pure cost. All four vendors sell payroll services for your own entity, so a migration path exists with the same provider.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published pricing and product information, not from hands-on testing — we state that at the top and repeat it here so it isn't missed. Where a judgment appears, such as calling a deposit a cash-flow trade-off, it follows from the published terms shown next to it. Prices and country coverage change; verify the current terms for your country in a written quote before signing.