Which employer of record should you use for your first hire abroad?

Remote lists its EOR from $599 per employee per month on annual contracts. There is no monthly price on the page, so if you need to stop quickly, negotiate that first. In return, there is no setup fee and the platform is included.

Its main pitch is that it employs your people through entities it owns rather than through local partners. In practice, one company is accountable for the contract, and there is less finger-pointing when something goes wrong. Remote also offers EU data residency, which helps if your hire sits in Europe.

Two lines worth reading in the terms. There is no standard deposit, but Remote can ask for a refundable reserve depending on the country or your profile. And when your billing currency differs from the employee's, an exchange rate applies: ask which one.

Customers praise fast replies and a simple app for time off and expenses. Complaints point to slow resolution on complex cases and little proactive advice on local payroll compliance. Ask your questions up front.

Tip: if you also work with contractors, Remote's contractor management starts at $29 per month, so both can live in the same account.

Deel matches Remote's entry price, $599 per employee per month, but billed monthly with no long commitment and no stated minimum. Its Spanish pricing page also shows a $125 plan where you handle part of the work yourself; ask whether it exists for your country. Deel has the widest coverage in this ranking and promises onboarding in a few days, visas aside.

The catch is in the reviews. Customers like the interface and on-time pay. The same complaints keep coming back, though: support hard to reach after hours, tickets bounced between agents, fees nobody expected, one-off bonuses missed, and errors in severance calculations at offboarding. One employee paid through Deel wrote publicly about wrong documents and an overpaid tax bill that took months to fix, unblocked only after escalating very high.

Service quality depends heavily on the account manager you get. That variable is not on the pricing page.

Tip: at signing, ask for your account manager's name and a written escalation path. Before any employee leaves, have Deel confirm the final pay calculation in writing.

Oyster has the highest published entry price here: $699 per employee per month, with a discount for annual commitment (no percentage given). Its edge: you can be invoiced in US dollars, euros, pounds or Canadian dollars.

Watch the conversion: when your invoice currency differs from the employee's contract currency, Oyster adds conversion fees, so a hire paid in zloty and billed in dollars costs a bit more than the sticker price.

Oyster uses its own entities in some countries and local partners in others. Most negative reviews trace back to that: slow international transfers, disputed final pay or leave balances, and Oyster pointing to the local partner. The interface itself gets good marks.

Tip: for every country, ask in writing whether Oyster or a partner employs your hire, and who answers if there is a dispute.

Multiplier does not publish a price we could read on its official page, so plan on a quote. Customers mainly pick it for responsiveness, and several EOR customers in Spain and Italy say they are happy with local compliance.

The negative reviews are fewer but specific: invoice errors, slow offboarding, and above all a security deposit returned slowly after the employee leaves. One customer also reports a late salary that had to be chased. Proactive communication varies by country.

That deposit is why Multiplier gets a 3.8 here: strong on setup and small teams, weaker on value until the quote and deposit terms are clear.

Tip: negotiate the deposit before signing, both the amount and a written refund deadline. It is the line that hurts cash flow most in year one.

Skuad lists its EOR from $199 per employee per month, a third of Remote or Deel, with volume discounts. It also offers contractor management at $19 and an agent of record service at $99 per contractor, where Skuad holds the contractor agreement (useful if misclassification worries you).

The low price has a trade-off: Skuad scores lower on support and compliance than the leaders. For a simple country and a single hire, that is often enough. For a country with demanding labor law, compare with Remote.

Tip: "from" means the price changes by country. Get the exact figure for your hiring country before comparing with the $599 of the others.

Remofirst starts at $199 per employee per month and says the price may vary by country. What sets it apart are the terms: no setup fee, no onboarding fee, no termination fee, no annual contract, no minimum. Contractor management is free, with a Premium tier at $25.

It is the easiest provider to walk away from in this ranking. It gets its first score here, 3.7: excellent value for money, weaker on compliance and support because there is less track record than for the leaders.

Tip: for a first hire you are unsure about, it is the cheapest way out if things do not work. Still ask what terminating the local contract costs: statutory notice and severance stay on you.

Rippling has the top score in this list (4.2), but that score is for its US payroll and PEO offer, taken from our PEO services ranking. For EOR, it publishes no price: everything goes through a quote, and the service sits on top of its platform.

Feedback on its EOR is more reserved than on its core product: seen as a secondary service, slower support on EOR cases, narrower country coverage than Deel or Remote, and a US-centric design that fits European HR less well.

If your whole company already runs on Rippling, the appeal is real: one tool, one employee directory. Otherwise, buying Rippling only for EOR makes little sense.

Tip: ask for the list of countries where Rippling employs directly, and benchmark the quote against $599, Remote's and Deel's published price.