Multiplier vs Oyster

Feature by feature the split is clean. Multiplier sells more products on one contract, and prices most of them: contractor management at $40 a month, payroll over entities you already hold from $20 a person, immigration in 140+ countries.

Oyster sells fewer, and the two you cannot get from Multiplier are cross-border stock options and Oyster Embedded, its white-label product. Oyster is also the only B Corp-certified provider in this bracket, which is worth a line in a board pack and nothing in a compliance review.

Neither will tell you which countries it employs in through its own entity. Oyster at least says it uses partners in some markets; Multiplier claims owned entities everywhere and then contradicts itself, which the next section sets out.

We could not confirm the complex-market surcharge Multiplier is often said to charge. One guide reports $450 to $500 in harder jurisdictions; another states the rate is flat regardless of country. Until Multiplier publishes it, treat the headline as a floor.

Price is the largest single difference. Multiplier’s headline sits 29 to 34% below Oyster’s, and the annual gap on a team of ten is the figure at the top of this page.

Before it goes in the board pack, check whether the cheaper rate survives the commitment your Finance team is willing to sign. The $459 rate is the annual one. The month-to-month rate is $499, and Multiplier’s order-form terms bill the full term whether or not you use the seats.

Geography is the second difference, and here we have to be careful. Multiplier’s EOR page claims 150+ countries through its own entities with no partner dependency. Its pricing page counts 100+ in-house legal and tax experts, which is a different thing entirely.

Our own March 2026 provider dossier records owned entities in five markets, with partners across most of Europe, Latin America and Africa. Those three accounts cannot all be true, and Multiplier publishes no entity register that would settle it.

Oyster is no better placed. It publishes no country-by-country ownership map either. Ask both providers, in writing, which legal entity will employ your hire in each country you are targeting.

Platform experience is the difference we can say least about. On G2, Oyster sits at 4.4 from about 1,040 reviews and Multiplier at 4.7 from somewhere between 1,868 and 2,095, depending on which round-up you read.

Oyster’s interface gets praised in review write-ups, but we have not counted those mentions and we cannot tell you it is the nicer tool to work in. Put both in front of the person who will live in it every day, and give their answer more weight than either rating.

Equity is the clearest Oyster win, and the verdict card above states the product difference. What that difference costs you is the part worth spelling out.

On Multiplier’s administration model, the country-by-country tax treatment of each grant stays with you and your advisers to work out. Its EOR terms also add fees and taxes if equity is granted without telling Multiplier first, which is the kind of clause that surfaces after the grant, not before it.

Ask your equity counsel which of those two models they are expecting before you sign, because moving a live option plan between providers afterwards is not a migration anyone enjoys.

Global payroll is the clearest Multiplier win. Its pricing card puts payroll in the same 150+ countries as its EOR, from $20 per person a month on annual billing. Oyster publishes neither a country list nor a price for a standalone payroll product.

At ten employees on standard EOR, Multiplier costs $55,080 a year on annual terms and $59,880 month to month. Oyster costs $83,880. That is where the gap at the top of this page comes from, and it is before benefits, currency conversion or deposits.

One of those numbers moved this year. Multiplier’s EOR headline sat at $400 a head a month for most of the past year, and several third-party guides still print it. Its own pricing page now lists $459 on annual terms.

We cannot tell you why the stale figure has held on, only that it has. If a comparison you are reading still quotes $400 for Multiplier EOR, treat every other number on it as equally unchecked, including the contractor rate, which is $40 a month and not the $29 some guides carry.

We also deleted the currency figure this page used to carry. It stated that Multiplier takes 0.5 to 1.5% over the mid-market rate on conversions, and costed that at $6,000 to $18,000 on a $1.2M annual payroll.

The sources disagree too sharply to publish. Multiplier’s own materials imply no markup, one guide reports 0.5 to 1.5%, and a third reports up to 8% in some corridors. On a $1.2M payroll the distance between those readings is about $90,000 a year.

Get the corridor-specific rate in writing from both providers before you model anything. Oyster confirms a conversion fee exists and publishes no percentage either, so this is a question for both of them.

Both hold a deposit, and neither will tell you the number in advance. A deposit is cash handed over at the start as a buffer against unpaid invoices. It is refundable, and it is out of your working capital until you leave.

Multiplier’s EOR terms, effective 1 June 2026, are unusually explicit and unusually unhelpful. The deposit is “calculated by Multiplier based on the Resource Costs, Service Fees, termination notice periods” and the client’s credit standing, “as determined by Multiplier from time to time at its sole discretion”.

So there is no formula you can model against, and Multiplier may revise the figure later and ask you to top it up. It is refunded within 60 days of the worker’s last day, and withheld while any claim is threatened or filed.

Oyster requires a deposit too, publishes no amount, and returns the unused balance within 30 days. Ask both for a worked figure on your actual headcount before Finance sees a total.

Neither list price is final. $699 is Oyster’s public rate and its annual and negotiated deals are quote-dependent, so a buyer committing to several hires should get a discounted rate in writing before modelling anything off the monthly number.

One thing not to do with the saving: present it as a headcount. It does not fund a hire in the markets this page is about, and it is a platform line, not an employment cost. Present it as the platform bill falling by roughly a third while everything underneath it stays exactly the same.

Both run hybrid entity models, and we could not document either one from public sources. The practical consequence for you is that compliance quality tracks whoever holds the employment contract in your country, and the headline coverage count tells you nothing about that.

There is one compliance risk both providers leave with you, and Multiplier writes it down. Its EOR terms say the client “acknowledges and accepts responsibility for any permanent establishment (PE) risk” and will indemnify Multiplier against it.

Permanent establishment is a tax authority deciding your company is trading in that country in its own right, which brings corporation tax and local filing duties with it.

Multiplier’s marketing says an EOR lets you “operate risk-free”. Its contract says the opposite about the one exposure most likely to reach your finance director. Read the terms, not the landing page, and ask Oyster for its equivalent clause.

Multiplier’s NRE Payroll is the one genuinely distinctive product on either side. NRE stands for Non-Resident Employer: you employ and pay people in a market without holding a company there and without paying EOR rates on top.

It launched in October 2025 across ten European markets, and Oyster has no equivalent product. Multiplier publishes no price for it.

A 40% saving against full EOR is widely quoted for NRE Payroll. We have not found that figure in anything Multiplier publishes, so get it in writing before it reaches a business case.

On coverage, Multiplier leads employment at 150+ countries against 120+, though its own pricing FAQ says 160+ in two places. Oyster leads contractor reach at 180+ against Multiplier’s 150+.

Map your hires by country before you weigh either number. Asia-Pacific concentration points to Multiplier. Western European concentration may point to Oyster in the markets where it owns the entity, which is the part you have to ask about.

On assurance, Multiplier holds SOC 2 Type I and II, a SOC 3 public report and ISO 27001:2022, and offers a Contractor of Record with misclassification indemnity. Misclassification is a ruling that a contractor was legally your employee all along.

The bill for that ruling is back taxes, unpaid contributions and usually penalties, and it lands on whoever engaged the worker. Indemnity moves some of that exposure to the provider, so the wording matters more than its presence on a feature list.

Oyster answers with SOC 2 Type II across all five trust criteria and employment-practices liability cover it states exceeds $8,000,000. Its Oyster Shell add-on costs $49 per contractor for misclassification protection up to $500,000 in aggregate, a figure only Oyster publishes.

Take both cover figures to your insurer as well as to Legal. An aggregate cap applies across every claim in the period rather than per claim, and on a workforce of fifty contractors that distinction decides whether the cover is worth buying.

Onboarding speed is where this page was previously wrong. It said Multiplier took five to seven business days against Oyster’s 48 hours. Multiplier’s own EOR page says 72 hours or less in most countries once documents are submitted.

Read both as best cases. Oyster claims 48 hours across 180+ locations and Multiplier claims 72 hours or fewer. Neither commits to it contractually, and in practice the variable is how quickly your hire returns their paperwork.

On support hours, Multiplier’s pricing page carries “24x7 Dedicated Customer support” in its stats band. The contractor cards on that same page say 24/5, and the EOR card gives no support line at all.

Ask which of those your contract actually commits to before you treat round-the-clock cover as a differentiator. A site-wide marketing band is not a service level.

Oyster runs one named point of contact per hire, email and help-centre led, with live channels and resolution times set by plan. Its support core is fully distributed, while Multiplier’s sits in Singapore, which helps if your hires are in Asia-Pacific.

We have not tested either service. Nothing on this page is a first-hand account of a support queue, and you should treat any review that reads like one with the same caution.

If price leads, take Multiplier, and the argument usually ends there. The annual gap set out in the pricing section is not one Finance talks itself out of.

If your hiring is weighted to Asia-Pacific, Multiplier again, on owned entities and a Singapore support core. If you need payroll running over entities you already hold, only Multiplier publishes a product and a price for it.

If you grant equity to international hires, take Oyster. Its stock-option product is the mature one, and retrofitting equity onto an EOR contract afterwards is the expensive order to do it in.

If you are reselling employment under your own brand, Oyster Embedded is the only option of the two.

For everyone else, we would take Multiplier unless you can name what the extra $240 a head buys your team. If you can name it, it is usually equity, and then it is Oyster.

You leave Multiplier when the entity question will not resolve. Remote publishes owned entities in its main markets and vetted partners beyond them, with EOR in 90+ countries at $699 a head a month, the only rate it publishes.

That is Multiplier’s saving handed straight back, so the trade only makes sense once Legal has written owned-entity assurance into the requirements.

You leave Oyster when the price stops being defensible but you still want breadth. Deel is $599 per employee a month, serves 150+ countries and publishes full legal employment in 130+, with contractors at $49. It is the heavier platform of the two.

You leave both when global mobility is the actual problem. Pebl, which rebranded from Velocity Global, prices by quote with a promotional rate from $399 a head a month and covers immigration and harder regulatory environments.

You leave both again when the problem is payroll across entities you already own. Papaya Global runs own-entity payroll across 160+ countries from $499 per employee a month. For the wider field, see our best EOR platforms roundup.

Our view is that this is a budget decision wearing a product decision’s clothes. The saving recurs every year you keep the headcount, and little in Oyster’s feature set is worth that to a company watching its runway.

Equity is the exception, and it is a real one. If international option grants are part of how you pay people, Oyster’s product is the one built for it, and the saving becomes the wrong thing to optimise for.

One caution about our own score. Multiplier’s 8.5 is carried in part by pricing transparency, and its published prices genuinely are transparent. Its entity disclosure is not, and its own pages give three incompatible accounts of it.

Neither provider will hand you the ownership map on request, so build it yourself during procurement, country by country, and get every answer written into the contract.