Employer of record pricing: what an EOR really costs in 2026

Every published EOR price

Lowest list price

$199Payoneer WFM (Skuad)

Most common

$599Deel, Remote, Atlas, Justworks

Highest flat price

$699Oyster

No price on pricing page

2Rippling and G-P

Two providers show different prices on their own sites. Remote lists $599 on its pricing page and $699 in a support article from March 2026. G-P says “contact us” on its pricing page and $599 on an information page updated in July 2026. Ask for the price in writing on the order form.

Cheapest EOR pricing, and what the low price leaves out

The yearly fee for one employee at each list price:

Math: monthly list price x 12. Source: provider pricing pages, checked Oct 16, 2026.

• Payoneer Workforce Management (Skuad), from $199. It publishes no deposit, FX or termination terms, and its FAQ describes “own and partner entities.” One Trustpilot reviewer (Oct 8, 2025) alleged hidden fees and deposits.
• Rivermate, $319 to $639. The price depends on the country. Rivermate says it owns 38 entities while covering 180+ countries, so most countries run through partners. Its Trustpilot rating was withheld for a guideline breach when we checked.
• Pebl, $399. Its Employee Term model ties each worker to 12 months before converting to pay-as-you-go.
• Playroll, from $399. No minimum commitment and no onboarding or offboarding fees, but a deposit of one month’s salary per employee, and statutory and country charges are billed separately.
• Atlas, $399 for eligible nonprofits. Everyone else pays from $599 plus the country LES rate.

If price is the deciding factor, compare these against the scored list in the best employer of record services, where support, entity ownership and exit terms count too.

Monthly vs annual EOR billing

Multiplier is the only provider that publishes both. Its Core plan is $459 per employee per month billed annually or $499 billed monthly, a saving of $480 per employee per year. Growth is $519 or $559. Oyster says annual discounts exist but gives no figure. Every other provider shows a single price.

An annual plan can lock you in. Remote’s default terms run 12 months whichever way you pay, so the saving matters less than the notice date. Before you take an annual price, check whether you can remove a seat when an employee leaves mid-year. Multiplier’s terms say seat fees are non-refundable and billed in whole months.

EOR deposits

A deposit protects the EOR if you stop paying while it still owes the worker wages, notice and severance. It is refundable, but it ties up cash for every hire.

On a USD 40,000 salary, a one-month salary deposit is about $3,333 per employee. For five hires that is about $16,667 held until each job ends. Some EORs ask for more where severance must be funded in advance: one founder hiring in Mexico through Deel wrote on Hacker News in January 2023 (an older, anecdotal report) that the mandatory severance had to be put up front.

Termination and offboarding costs

Most EORs say they charge no offboarding fee. The real exit costs are in the contract and in local law.

On top of the contract, you pay what the country requires when a job ends. Three examples from official sources:

• United Kingdom: statutory redundancy pay after 2 years, capped at GBP 751 a week and 20 years, a maximum of GBP 22,530 (from April 6, 2026). See employing someone in the UK.
• Brazil: a fine of 40% of all FGTS deposits on dismissal without cause, plus notice pay and the other final pay items. See Brazil employer costs.
• India: retrenchment pay of 15 days’ average pay per year of service, plus gratuity of 15 days’ wages per year after 5 years (1 year for fixed-term staff). See India employer costs.

FX: the currency cost nobody prices

You are usually invoiced in USD and the worker is paid in local currency. None of the providers we checked publishes an EOR currency markup percentage.

• Multiplier says it uses the mid-market rate “without adding a markup.” A Trustpilot reviewer (Aug 5, 2026) disputes that.
• Atlas uses the OANDA spot rate “with a clearly disclosed markup based on currency type,” but the percent is not on its pricing page.
• Remote invoices at the “Remote FX Rate,” and its terms allow “a transaction fee or margin.”
• Oyster charges a conversion fee only if you pay in a currency other than the contract currency; the rate is behind its login.
• Pebl charges contractors 3% to take pay in a different currency; its EOR FX terms were not published.
• Deel says it offers “competitive exchange rates,” with no figure.

Ask for the rate source and markup in writing. A 1% markup on a USD 40,000 salary is $400 a year, so the FX line can matter as much as a $40 fee difference.

What “from $599” excludes

• Salary and employer contributions, which run from 3.4% of pay in India to 50.9% in Brazil on a salary of about USD 40,000. See the employer cost index by country.
• Mandatory bonuses, such as Brazil’s 13th salary and one-third vacation bonus or Mexico’s aguinaldo.
• Country uplifts. Multiplier prices about 11% of countries higher; Atlas adds an LES rate by country; Rivermate’s fee spans $319 to $639.
• Setup and add-on fees. Papaya Global names a setup fee per location, a cycle fee per employee, a year-end tax filing fee and a “small fee” for onboarding, all without amounts. Multiplier lists “compliance mandated add-ons” and an “implementation fee as applicable.”
• Benefits beyond the legal minimum, such as private health insurance.
• Visa sponsorship. Atlas charges extra per visa; the amount is not published.
• Deposits, FX and late fees. Remote’s terms charge 0.1% a day on late payments. Oyster’s customer terms, as read by an automated reader, charge 1.5% a day on overdue invoices; we could not confirm that figure by hand.

Total cost of one employee per year at three salary levels

The fee is flat, so it weighs most on lower salaries:

Now the full employer side for one UK employee, using the 2026 to 2027 rates published by GOV.UK. We show the fee in USD next to the GBP costs rather than converting, because the EOR bills it that way and the exchange rate on your invoice will set the final figure.

At GBP 30,000, the employer pays GBP 34,462.80 to the EOR for salary and contributions, plus the $7,188 fee. At Pebl’s or Playroll’s $399, the fee would be $4,788; at Oyster’s $699, $8,388. Try other countries and salaries in the international employee cost calculator.

EOR cost for a team of 5, 10 or 25

Remote offers startups 15% off EOR and contractor management for 12 months, with no deposit or setup fee. At $599 that is $509.15 a month for the first year. Past roughly 10 people in one country, compare the fee with running your own entity and paying global payroll from $10 to $29 per employee; the break-even is worked through in EOR vs your own entity.

Billing complaints from EOR customers

• Accruals charged upfront, a currency markup and a full year of health insurance billed after a resignation: a Multiplier client on Trustpilot, Aug 5, 2026. Another said Multiplier refused a refund (Aug 19, 2026).
• Incorrect invoices and slow deposit returns: a Playroll client on Trustpilot, Apr 27, 2026.
• Hidden fees and deposits: a Skuad reviewer on Trustpilot, Oct 8, 2025.
• “The fees are very high”: a Velocity Global (now Pebl) reviewer, Sep 17, 2025.
• EORs bill “the employee’s fully loaded cost, plus their service fee”: a Hacker News commenter, which is the right way to budget.

Provider-by-provider detail is in our Deel review, Remote review, Oyster review and Multiplier review, and the two biggest names go head to head in Deel vs Remote.

How to get a real EOR quote

1. Give each provider the country, the gross salary and the start date. A quote without a country is a list price, not a quote.
2. Ask for the monthly invoice broken into salary, each employer contribution, mandatory bonuses, benefits and the fee.
3. Ask for the deposit amount, what it is based on and the refund timeline.
4. Ask for the FX rate source and markup percentage.
5. Ask whether the entity in that country is owned or a partner’s.
6. Read the term, auto-renewal, price increase and early exit clauses on the order form.