Global Payroll Solutions: 12 Compared for SMBs

Almost every comparison in this category makes the same omission, and it is expensive. They list providers and quote a per-employee rate without separating the two products those rates belong to. One of them costs $29 per employee per month. The other costs $599. They are both called global payroll.

The difference is whether your company already owns a legal entity in the country where the person works. If it does, you are buying payroll processing. If it does not, you are buying an employer of record, which means renting someone else's legal entity and transferring the employment liability that comes with it. Reading a table that mixes the two produces budgets that are wrong by a factor of twenty.

This comparison covers 12 providers with both figures stated separately, real cost modelled at a 15-person company with 5 people abroad, setup times, and the hidden charges that do not appear on pricing pages. It also answers a question most of these pages skip: whether a US company needs global payroll at all.

What is global payroll?

Global payroll is the process of paying employees in more than one country while meeting each country's tax, social contribution, and employment law requirements. A global payroll solution is the platform or service that does it.

The mechanics differ from domestic payroll in ways that compound. Pay frequencies are not standardised: monthly is the norm in most of Europe and Latin America while the United States runs biweekly and semi-monthly. Statutory contributions differ by country and often by employee category within a country. Payslip content is legally prescribed in many jurisdictions, down to which fields must appear and in what language. Filing calendars follow local tax years that do not align with each other or with yours.

What a global payroll provider actually does

The last row is the one buyers usually underestimate and finance teams care about most. Running four local providers in four countries is workable; reconciling four sets of reports in four formats and three currencies into a single view of employment cost is where the hours go.

Global payroll versus employer of record

This distinction decides your budget, and it is the thing most comparisons blur. Both are sold under the global payroll banner and the price difference is roughly twentyfold.

Reading this table backwards is the fastest way to work out which product you are shopping for. If your company does not have a registered subsidiary in the country where you want to hire, payroll-only pricing is irrelevant to you no matter how attractive $29 looks. If you do have entities, EOR pricing is money you do not need to spend.

Do you actually need global payroll?

Worth settling before comparing anything, because a meaningful share of people researching this category do not need it yet and will spend months evaluating platforms that solve a problem they do not have.

For a US-only team of 5 to 50 people, the honest answer is that this entire category is premature. The relevant purchase is domestic payroll plus a way to run onboarding and keep employee records, and our comparison of payroll software for small business covers the former with real cost modelling at 10, 25, and 50 employees.

12 global payroll providers at a glance

Both prices are stated separately because they are different products. The Countries column reflects vendor claims rather than verified counts, and coverage depth varies enormously between a market where a provider owns an entity and one where it relies on a local partner.

How we evaluated these providers

The 12 global payroll solutions compared

Deel is the market reference point, and its contractor product is the sharpest commercial weapon in the category: free contractor management against $29 to $49 elsewhere. For a team of 15 contractors and 5 EOR employees that difference alone is several hundred dollars a month.

Two things to price beyond the headline. Payroll-only setups carry an implementation fee of around $1,000 per entity, and complex markets including Brazil, France, and India can add $50 to $150 per month above the base EOR rate. Reported negotiated rates drop toward $400 to $500 at 20 or more employees, so the list price is a starting position rather than a fixed one.

Remote built its position on owning its entities rather than aggregating partners, which trades country count for consistency. Ninety-plus markets is narrower than Deel or Multiplier, but the compliance chain in those markets is shorter.

The billing structure is worth noting: $599 on annual commitment against $699 paying monthly is a $1,200 annual difference per employee, which is a meaningful lock-in decision for a company still validating a market.

Multiplier publishes $400 per employee per month against the $599 set by Deel and Remote, roughly a third less, and holds that rate country-agnostically rather than varying it by market. At 10 international employees that is about $23,880 a year saved; at 25 it approaches $60,000.

The counterweight is contractor pricing at $40 per person against Deel's free tier, so a contractor-heavy team can lose on the swings what it gains on the roundabouts. Model your actual employee-to-contractor mix rather than comparing headline EOR rates alone.

At $199 per employee per month, Remofirst makes the EOR model financially viable for a single hire in a way the $599 tier does not. For a seed-stage company hiring one engineer abroad, the difference against Deel is $4,800 a year on one person.

The tradeoffs are structural rather than incidental. Compliance delivery leans more heavily on in-country partners than owned entities, the support organisation is smaller, and the integration catalogue is thinner. In a straightforward market that rarely matters; in a complex one it can mean slower resolution.

Formerly Velocity Global's SMB-facing product and rebranded in September 2025, Pebl publishes a single $399 rate that bundles payroll, benefits, immigration support, and basic talent sourcing across 185 or more countries, with onboarding quoted in as little as 48 hours.

For a company that wants maximum geographic optionality without negotiating tiers, this is the cleanest structure on the list after Multiplier. The brand is newer than the coverage claim suggests, so reference checks at your headcount are worth the time.

Oyster competes on the experience rather than the price, carrying B Corp certification, publishing employment cost and equity assessment calculators, and consistently rating around 4.5 on G2 and 4.7 on Capterra with a named customer success manager on EOR contracts.

It sits at the same $599 as Deel and Remote without their coverage or platform breadth, so the case for it is specific: companies for whom fair-pay tooling and onboarding quality are decision criteria rather than nice-to-haves.

Papaya publishes the lowest payroll-only rate on this list at $25 and one of the highest EOR rates at $650 to $770. That spread reflects where the product is aimed: companies that already have entities and need consolidated reporting across them.

The premium over the $599 standard buys enterprise payroll analytics, workforce intelligence dashboards, and a licensed payments arm handling 130 or more currencies. If your finance team spends ten hours a month reconciling payroll across countries, that pays for itself. If you have five people in two countries, you are buying capability you will not use.

Rippling's argument is architectural: one employee record across payroll, HR, IT provisioning, and benefits, so hiring someone triggers payroll enrollment, account creation, and device shipment from a single action. Nothing else here does that.

Pricing is the weakness for a small buyer. The $8 headline applies to the core platform, several products require a base fee from $35 per month, and global payroll and EOR are quote-only with EOR reported around $499 to $599. Real configurations commonly land at $20 to $35 per employee per month before global modules.

Gusto Global exists so that a US company already running Gusto payroll can make an international hire without adding a vendor. Coverage is 11 to 12 countries delivered through a partnership rather than Gusto's own entities, which is far narrower than anything else on this list.

Pricing moved against buyers in March 2026 when the promotional $599 rate ended and the standard rate became $699, with India and the Philippines at $399. If your target country is on the list and you already use Gusto, the single-vendor convenience is real. If it is not, this is the wrong product.

Globalization Partners is one of the oldest names in the category and sells to organisations where employment risk carries board attention: formal documentation, audit support, and structured governance controls matching large-corporate norms.

That is genuine value for a 2,000-person company entering a regulated market. For a 15-person business making its first hire abroad it is a procurement process, not a purchase, and the pricing reflects the audience.

ADP's enterprise global product is built for companies consolidating payroll across many countries at scale, with the compliance engine that comes from processing payroll for roughly one in six American workers domestically.

The practical barrier for a small business is the entry threshold. GlobalView targets organisations with 500 or more employees in a country, implementation is measured in months, and there is no self-serve path. Companies below that scale should look at Celergo or elsewhere entirely.

Velocity Global serves organisations in the 500 to 2,000 employee range where global employment is managed as a formal programme with documentation, controls, and audit expectations rather than as a series of individual hires.

Its SMB-facing product was rebranded as Pebl in September 2025 at a flat $399, so a small company evaluating Velocity Global is usually being routed to the wrong tier and should look at Pebl instead.

What it actually costs at 15 employees

Comparisons in this category quote per-employee rates and stop, which hides the fact that global payroll is bought in small quantities. Most companies do not put 200 people through an EOR; they put three or five.

The model below assumes a 15-person US company that has hired 5 people abroad and keeps the other 10 on domestic payroll. That is the shape of the typical first international expansion.

Two observations that change decisions.

The spread is enormous at small headcounts. Five employees through Remofirst costs $11,940 a year in platform fees; the same five through Papaya Global costs $39,000. That $27,000 difference is a hire in itself, and at five people the depth advantages of the premium platforms are hard to justify.

Platform fees are the small number. Five employees at, say, $70,000 each is $350,000 in salary before employer contributions of 13 to 40 percent, which adds $45,500 to $140,000 depending on country. Against a total employment cost between $395,000 and $490,000, the platform fee difference between the cheapest and most expensive provider is roughly 5 percent of the bill.

The costs that are not on the pricing page

Six charges recur across providers and none of them appear in the headline rate.

Currency spread is the one most often missed because it is invisible. A 1.5 percent markup on $350,000 of annual salary payments is $5,250 a year that never appears as a line item on an invoice. Ask each provider what their conversion margin is and whether it is disclosed; the answers vary and a provider unwilling to state it is telling you something.

Termination costs deserve equal attention because they arrive at the worst moment. Many countries mandate notice periods measured in months and statutory severance calculated on tenure. An EOR administers that process but you fund it, and a redundancy in France or Brazil can cost several times the annual platform fee for that employee.

How long setup actually takes

The variable most likely to matter when you have a signed candidate and a competing offer on the table, and the one least covered in vendor marketing.

The pattern across providers is that document readiness on your side, not vendor speed, sets the real timeline. Passport copies, addresses, bank details, and signed contracts move at the pace of the slowest person in the chain, and that is usually not the provider.

The comparison that matters strategically is the last two rows against the first two. An EOR turns a three to six month entity project into a one to two week onboarding, which is the actual product being sold. The fee buys speed and transferred liability, not payroll processing.

When to stop using an EOR and open an entity

Every EOR relationship has a crossover point, and knowing roughly where it sits prevents both premature entity setup and years of overpaying.

The arithmetic behind the crossover is straightforward. Twenty employees in one country at $599 per employee per month is roughly $143,760 a year in EOR fees. Running the same payroll through an entity you own costs perhaps $80 per employee per month, or about $19,200. The $124,000 difference has to cover formation, ongoing accounting, local filings, and the management attention an entity requires, which it comfortably does at that headcount and does not at five people.

One practical note: build the transition into your evaluation early. Providers differ in how gracefully they support moving employees from their EOR onto your own entity, and a provider that also sells payroll-only makes that migration considerably easier than one that does not.

Contractors, employees, and the classification line

A large share of first international hires are engaged as contractors, sometimes correctly and sometimes as an attempt to avoid EOR fees. The second version is the most expensive mistake available in this category.

The classification test differs by country but the pattern is consistent: control, exclusivity, integration into your organisation, and who supplies the tools. Someone working full time under your direction, on your schedule, using your systems, with no other clients, is an employee in most jurisdictions regardless of what the contract says.

The consequences of getting it wrong land on you rather than the platform. Back taxes, social contributions, penalties, and in some countries automatic reclassification with retroactive employment rights. Our guide to employee versus contractor classification covers the US framework, and the same logic applies abroad with stricter tests in most of Europe and Latin America.

What hiring costs by country

The country you hire in moves your budget more than the provider you pick. Employer contributions vary by a factor of three across common hiring destinations, and several markets carry statutory obligations that have no US equivalent and surprise first-time buyers.

Ranges are indicative and vary by salary band, industry, and applicable collective agreement. Treat them as a planning input rather than a quote, and get a country-specific breakdown from any provider before committing to a hire.

The obligations that catch US employers

Three patterns recur, and none of them exist in US employment.

Mandatory extra payments. A 13th month payment is legally required in Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, and much of Latin America, and Spain and Portugal commonly run 14 payments through collective agreements. A salary quoted as an annual figure therefore costs roughly 8 percent more than a US-trained instinct expects, before any contribution.

Dismissal is not at will. Every country on that list requires cause, notice, or both, with notice periods running one to three months and statutory severance calculated on tenure. Germany and France sit at the strict end, where dismissal without a recognised ground can be reversed. Budget for termination cost at hire rather than at exit.

Collective agreements override contracts. In France, Italy, and Spain, sector-level agreements set minimum terms on pay, hours, and leave that your employment contract cannot undercut. Which agreement applies depends on the work performed, and getting it wrong is a compliance failure rather than a negotiation outcome.

How to check a provider before signing

Country coverage claims are marketing numbers. Eight questions separate a provider that can genuinely employ someone in your target market from one that will find a partner after you sign.

Two red flags worth weighting heavily. A provider unwilling to name its entity model in your specific country is usually relying on a partner it has not yet secured. And a provider that will not put the all-in monthly cost in writing before signature will not become more transparent afterwards.

Switching providers and moving off an EOR

Two different transitions, both more constrained than domestic payroll switching, because employment contracts and statutory registrations are involved rather than just data.

Moving between EOR providers

The employee is legally employed by the outgoing provider, so this is not a data migration but a termination and rehire in most jurisdictions. That has consequences the sales conversation rarely covers.

In some countries, notably across the European Union, transfer-of-undertaking rules may apply and preserve continuity automatically, which is better for the employee and more complex to execute. Ask both providers how the transfer works in that specific jurisdiction before committing to a date, and expect the process to take four to eight weeks rather than the one to two weeks an initial onboarding takes.

Moving from an EOR to your own entity

The transition every growing company eventually faces, and the one worth planning before you need it.

The total is commonly six to nine months from decision to clean cutover, which is why the crossover analysis matters before you reach 30 people in a country rather than after. Starting entity formation at 25 employees means you are still paying EOR fees at 35 while the process completes.

One structural point in favour of providers that sell both products: moving from a vendor's EOR onto that same vendor's payroll-only service is a commercial change rather than a full migration, and it avoids the termination-and-rehire mechanics entirely. Deel, Remote, and Papaya Global all support that path, which is worth weighting at selection time even if entity ownership is years away.

Compliance basics you stay responsible for

An EOR takes on the employment relationship, and buyers reasonably assume that means compliance is handled. Most of it is. Some of it never transfers.

Two rows deserve emphasis. Classification stays with you because it is a determination about how you work with someone, not a data-entry task, and no provider can override the facts of the relationship. Termination decisions stay with you along with their cost, which in mandatory-severance jurisdictions can be substantial and arrives with little notice.

The other thing worth knowing is that permanent establishment risk does not vanish with an EOR. If someone abroad is negotiating and concluding contracts in your name, tax authorities in that country may treat your company as having a taxable presence regardless of who signs the payslip. That is a tax question rather than an employment one, and it belongs with your accountant rather than your EOR.

Which should you choose

Routing by situation rather than declaring one winner, because the right answer changes completely with headcount, geography, and whether you hold entities.

Two of those rows route away from every product on this page, which is deliberate. A US-only team and a company that needs contractor management rather than employment are both better served outside this category, and a comparison that cannot say so is not much use.

Before you choose

FirstHR does not process payroll of any kind, domestic or international, and does not act as an employer of record. Every provider above does something we do not. If you are paying people abroad, one of them is your answer.

The reason this section exists is that a meaningful share of people researching global payroll turn out to have entirely US-based teams. They arrive here because the category markets itself broadly, not because they have an international hiring problem. For that reader the sequence is domestic payroll from the payroll software comparison plus a way to run onboarding and hold employee records, and global payroll becomes relevant the day someone actually starts work in another country.

The second layer is what we handle: onboarding workflows, e-signature on offer letters and I-9s, employee records, document management, and training with completion tracking, for 5 to 50 employee US teams at a flat $98 to $198 per month regardless of headcount. It sits alongside whichever payroll arrangement you use rather than replacing it. If your real bottleneck is paperwork and process around new hires rather than paying someone in another country, that is the gap we built for.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is global payroll?

Paying employees in more than one country while meeting each country's tax, social contribution, and employment law requirements. The term covers two arrangements at very different prices: payroll-only at $25 to $29 per employee per month when you already own a local entity, and employer of record at $199 to $770 when you do not.

What is the difference between global payroll and an employer of record?

Who legally employs the worker. With global payroll you remain the employer through an entity you own and the provider runs the mechanics. With an EOR the provider becomes the legal employer, holds the contract, and carries the compliance liability while you direct the work. That difference is why one costs $29 and the other $599.

How much does global payroll cost?

Payroll-only runs $25 to $29 per employee monthly at the published end. EOR spans $199 at Remofirst, $399 at Pebl, $400 at Multiplier, $599 at Deel, Remote, and Oyster, $650 to $770 at Papaya Global, and $699 at Gusto Global. Rippling, G-P, ADP, and Velocity Global do not publish rates. None include salary or employer taxes.

Do I need global payroll for a US-only team?

No. Payroll obligations follow where the work is performed, so a US-only team creates US-only obligations. What you need is US payroll at roughly $29 to $80 base plus $4 to $12 per employee. The question is geography rather than company size: one person outside the US changes the answer.

How long does it take to set up global payroll?

EOR onboarding typically runs 5 to 10 business days, as fast as 48 hours in straightforward markets and 2 to 12 weeks where visa sponsorship is involved. Payroll-only on existing entities takes several weeks. Setting up your own entity runs 8 to 12 weeks at fastest and 3 to 6 months typically.

What is global payroll processing?

The operational side: collecting pay data across countries, calculating gross-to-net under each jurisdiction's rules, converting currency, funding local accounts, remitting taxes on each authority's schedule, and producing compliant local payslips. The complexity is that none of these steps are standardised across borders.

When should I set up my own entity instead of using an EOR?

Usually between 10 and 30 employees in one country. Twenty people at $599 monthly is about $143,760 a year against roughly $19,200 running payroll through your own entity. That saving has to cover formation, which takes 3 to 6 months, plus ongoing accounting and filing obligations.

Can I use an EOR to hire contractors?

You can, but they solve different problems. Contractor management at free to $49 per person handles contracts, invoicing, and cross-border payment for genuinely independent workers. Paying a real contractor through an EOR is unnecessary cost; treating an employee as a contractor to avoid EOR fees is where penalties come from.

Which global payroll provider is cheapest?

Remofirst at $199 per employee monthly for EOR, then Pebl at $399 and Multiplier at $400. For payroll-only, Papaya Global publishes $25 and Deel and Remote publish $29. The tradeoff at the low end is smaller support organisations and more reliance on in-country partners rather than owned entities.

What hidden costs come with global payroll platforms?

Currency conversion spread of 0.6 to 2 percent, salary deposits of one to one and a half times monthly cost, country surcharges of $50 to $150 in complex markets, implementation fees around $1,000 per entity, benefits markups, and termination costs that fall to you rather than the provider.

What is multi-country payroll software?

The same category as global payroll software: a platform consolidating payroll across several jurisdictions into one system and one set of reports rather than separate local providers reconciled by hand. The commercial distinction that matters is whether the vendor owns entities in each market or aggregates local partners behind one interface.

Which countries are most expensive to hire in?

France sits highest at roughly 35 to 45 percent employer cost on top of salary, then Brazil at 35 to 40, Italy and Spain around 30 to 35, and Mexico at 25 to 35. Lower end: India at 12 to 16, the Philippines at 11 to 14, and the UK at 15 to 18. Several countries also mandate a 13th month payment, which adds roughly 8 percent before contributions.

How do I check whether a provider really operates in my target country?

Ask whether they own an entity in that specific country or use a local partner, and how many employees they currently run there. Coverage of 180 markets does not mean active operations in all of them. A provider with hundreds of employees in a market has solved most of its problems; one that has never run payroll there is learning on your hire.

Can I switch from one EOR provider to another?

Yes, but it is a termination and rehire rather than a data migration, since the outgoing provider is the legal employer. Continuity of service may reset, probation can restart, benefits need re-enrollment, and the employee signs a new contract they can decline. Budget four to eight weeks. EU transfer-of-undertaking rules may preserve continuity in some cases.

How long does moving from an EOR to my own entity take?

Commonly six to nine months: 8 weeks to 6 months for entity formation, 2 to 6 weeks for payroll registration, 4 to 8 weeks to transfer employees, plus parallel cycles before cutover. Start the analysis before 30 employees in a country, because beginning formation at 25 means still paying EOR fees at 35.

Does global payroll handle employer taxes and statutory benefits?

Providers calculate and remit them, but you fund them and they are excluded from the advertised fee. Employer contributions commonly add 13 to 40 percent on top of gross salary, with France, Brazil, and Italy at the high end and Singapore and the UK lower. Any budget built on platform fees alone will understate the real cost substantially.