Deel vs Remote vs Oyster Global Payroll Pricing Playbook

Deel, Remote, and Oyster all sell the same promise — hire anywhere, pay compliantly, no local entity required — and all three print prices on a public page. The prices look close until you sort them by what you are buying: an employer of record (EOR) hire, an own-entity payroll seat, and a contractor are three different products, and the cheapest vendor changes with the mix. Priced here from their own pricing pages as read on November 15, 2026.

The three price ladders

The holes in the table are the story. Only Remote publishes an own-entity payroll rate: $19 a seat, gross-to-net calculated locally, filings and statutory contributions remitted. Deel's page carries no standalone Global Payroll rate — the phrase does not appear in the page. Oyster publishes no own-entity rate either; its payroll lives inside the EOR tier. The EOR column is the only one where all three compete: Deel and Remote tie at $599, Oyster is $100 a month dearer.

Deel's EOR covers 130+ countries with managed payroll, tax filings, and benefits including healthcare, dental, vision, mental health, fertility support, and a 401(k). Remote's covers 90+ countries with a dedicated onboarding specialist and the Remote Platform included at no base fee. Oyster's covers 120+ countries with onboarding and offboarding specialists. Coverage is not a price, but it is a cost.

What each rail actually buys

An EOR hire is the most expensive rail because the vendor is the legal employer. The vendor holds the contract, runs local payroll, files local taxes, administers benefits, and carries the compliance risk. You direct the work. That is what $599 or $699 a month buys.

Own-entity payroll is the cheapest rail because you are already the employer. You hold the contract and own the entity; the vendor runs the arithmetic — gross-to-net, contributions remitted, filings made, reports cut by country and cost center. Remote prices that at $19 a seat.

Contractor management is the third rail. At $29 or $49 a month the vendor supplies the contract template, the payment rail, and the paperwork — in Remote's case, 1099-NEC generation for US contractors, the form that reports contractor pay against your EIN. The contract is with you. Contractor of Record, at $325 a month on Deel and Remote, moves the contract to the vendor: the vendor contracts with and pays the worker, carries the misclassification risk, and transfers IP cleanly. The $276 to $296 a month gap between the two rails is the price of that transfer of risk.

The US PEO column is a fourth rail only two vendors publish: Deel at $125 a US employee a month, Remote at $99. A PEO is not an EOR — the worker is co-employed, the PEO handles payroll, taxes, and benefits across all 50 states, and Remote requires payment from a US bank account. For a US hire, the PEO rail is the analogue of the EOR rail abroad.

Ten contractors: the cheapest line on the page

Contractors are where the vendors differ most in percentage terms, and where most teams start — a contractor is the first hire a cross-border team makes. The arithmetic is worth doing in full, because $20 a month per contractor is invisible on an invoice and $2,400 a year on a team is not.

At ten contractors Deel costs $2,400 a year more than either rival for the same paperwork. Remote charges only for contractors actively worked with that month, so an idle bench costs nothing. Oyster's tier is free for 30 days and includes an in-app misclassification analyzer — the one contractor feature here that prevents a cost rather than processing one.

Ten EOR hires: where the $100 gap lives

The EOR tier is where the annual money sits, because $100 a month per hire compounds faster than any contractor rate. Ten EOR hires on Deel or Remote cost $71,880 a year; ten on Oyster cost $83,880 — a $12,000 gap, every year, for the same legal employment.

Our editorial analysis found no feature on Oyster's page that carries a $12,000-a-year price tag. Oyster publishes two mitigations: annual billing at a reduced fee — the reduction is not published — and up to $1,200 in EOR savings for startups, a one-off against a $12,000 annual gap. Five years: ten EOR hires cost $359,400 on Deel or Remote and $419,400 on Oyster, a $60,000 gap before salary, benefits, or tax.

The mixed team: five EOR hires and ten contractors

No real team is all EOR or all contractors. A typical cross-border team is five full-timers in two or three countries and ten contractors across five more, and that mix is where the ranking flips. Run it as one bill.

Annualised: $39,420 on Remote, $41,820 on Deel, $45,420 on Oyster. Remote wins because it wins the contractor column and ties the EOR column. Twenty EOR hires and two contractors flips it: Deel ties Remote on EOR and loses only $40 a month on contractors; Oyster loses $2,000 a month on EOR. Count the mix first.

The own-entity break: Remote Global Payroll at $19

The largest number here is not a vendor price. It is the gap between two ways of employing the same person. Twenty-five employees on Remote's EOR cost $179,700 a year; the same twenty-five on Remote's own-entity payroll cost $5,700. The difference is $174,000 a year — $580 a month per hire — the cost of not owning an entity where the team works.

Oyster's pricing page above: EOR at USD 699 per employee per month, Global Contractors at USD 29 — against our first evidence image, Remote's Global Payroll card at $19 a seat.

That $174,000 gap is the budget for incorporating. If opening and running an entity costs less than $14,500 a month, it pays for itself at twenty-five hires — and the break-even falls with every hire, because EOR grows at $599 a hire while payroll grows at $19. At five hires the gap is $2,900 a month; at fifty it is $29,000. EOR is a bridge, not a destination: right for the first hire in a new country, wrong for the fiftieth. Deel and Oyster publish no own-entity rate, so a team on either vendor that reaches the break-even must negotiate the next step or move.

The US side: PEO at $125 against $99

For US hires the comparison is smaller and cleaner. Ten US employees on Deel's PEO cost $15,000 a year; the same ten on Remote's PEO cost $11,880 — a $3,120 gap, $26 a month per employee, the only head-to-head column where Deel is the dearer vendor by a published figure.

Deel's page carries one mitigation: qualifying PEO order forms executed between July 15 and December 31, 2026, on minimum two-year terms, receive three months of complimentary platform fees — $375 per employee, $3,750 on ten hires, enough to erase the first-year gap. The credit is repayable in full on early termination: a discount for staying, not for trying.

The lines that are not on the rate card

The published rate is the floor of the bill, not the bill. First, the deposit: Remote charges no standard deposit and states so plainly, though it may require a refundable reserve in certain circumstances, disclosed before payment. Oyster requires a refundable deposit for EOR team members and publishes no amount. Deel's page is silent. A deposit comes back, but it is cash out in the month of hire.

Second, FX. Remote's rule is the clearest: one rate per monthly billing cycle, locked, shown in the invoice before payment. Oyster charges a conversion fee only when the payment currency differs from the contract currency and publishes no rate. Deel's page is silent. A team paying in 70+ currencies should treat FX as a second price list.

Third, indemnity — the line that separates the contractor rails. Remote's Plus tier carries $100,000 of indemnity per contractor, up to $1,000,000 per company; Remote's Contractor of Record carries uncapped indemnity. Oyster's Shell carries aggregate protection up to $500,000. Deel publishes no indemnity figure. Indemnity is the only number on the page that measures what happens when a classification is wrong.

Misclassification: what $325 actually buys

The premium for Contractor of Record is $296 a month on Remote and $276 on Deel — $3,552 and $3,312 a year per contractor. But the premium is capped and the exposure is not. Remote's Plus tier at $99 is the compromise: $70 over plain management buys a Remote-held contract and $100,000 of indemnity. Oyster's $29 tier plus Shell is the other: the same base rate, with aggregate protection to $500,000.

Who should use each — and who should not

The buying checklist

• [x] Step 1: Count the mix, not the headcount. Split the team into EOR hires, own-entity employees, and contractors, by country.
• [x] Step 2: Price the mix on all three vendors at your own numbers; the cheapest vendor changes with the mix.
• [x] Step 3: Price the entity. With five or more hires in one country, compare incorporating against $580 a month per hire.
• [x] Step 4: Decide the contractor risk tier: plain management for genuine contractors; Plus or Shell for the grey zone; Contractor of Record for full-time hours under your direction.
• [x] Step 5: Ask for the FX rate in writing. Remote publishes its rule; Oyster and Deel do not publish a rate.
• [x] Step 6: Ask for the deposit amount in writing. Remote charges none as standard; Oyster requires one and publishes no amount.
• [x] Step 7: Run the numbers in the pricing calculator. Our IRS Form 941 quarterly payroll tax filing playbook covers the US filing the EOR and PEO rails handle.

The verdict in one paragraph: Remote wins the mixed team at $3,285 a month and the only published own-entity rate at $19 a seat; Deel ties Remote on EOR at $599 and wins on coverage at 130+ countries; Oyster ties Remote on contractors at $29 and adds the misclassification analyzer, but its $699 EOR rate costs $12,000 a year on ten hires with no published feature to carry it. Our Deel vs Remote vs Oyster EOR pricing playbook prices the EOR tier alone; our Gusto vs Deel US payroll vs global EOR playbook covers the US side of the same decision.