Oyster vs Remofirst

Oyster is the pick when you are granting equity to international hires, or when you have written confirmation that Oyster owns the entity in your particular markets. Remofirst is the pick when the platform fee decides whether the hire gets approved. Read the deposit row before you use either price.

Best for Pricing

Remofirst, on every published number. Its $199 starting rate sits $500 a month below Oyster’s $699 list price. Across ten seats that is a full-time hire’s worth of budget.

Both numbers move once you ask about a specific country. Oyster’s terms say the $699 varies and Remofirst says the same of the $199, and we could find no published rate card for either.

Statutory employer costs and benefits sit on top of both fees, and in most European markets they are larger than the fee itself. We work a German example through in euros and dollars under hidden fees below.

Best for Compliance

Oyster, on the entity model alone. In the markets where it employs through its own subsidiary, one company holds the employment relationship and answers for a termination. Remofirst owns no entities anywhere, which some procurement teams bar outright.

On published security certificates Remofirst is ahead, and this page had that the wrong way round until August 2026. Section seven sets out what each company states and where.

Expect your security reviewer and your legal team to arrive at different providers, and to have to reconcile them yourself.

Best for Country Coverage

Remofirst on the raw total, with one thing to check. It reaches 185+ countries, all through partners. Oyster employs in 120+ and runs contractors in 180+, so establish which of its two numbers a salesperson is quoting.

No headline count tells you about your market. We would ask both providers in writing whether your specific country is served by an owned entity or a partner, because that answer decides what happens when a termination goes wrong.

Best for Support

Too close to call on what either publishes. Oyster gives every new account a named Hiring Success Manager and states no response time we could verify. Remofirst advertises live chat 24/5 and a commitment to answer email within 24 hours.

A service level agreement is a response time the provider commits to contractually. Remofirst’s 24-hour line is the only figure either company puts in writing, and it is published as a promise rather than as a contract term.

Best for Equity Compensation

Oyster, and it is not close. It integrates with Carta, the cap-table system most venture-backed companies already run, and handles the cross-border tax side of a grant in the markets where it employs directly.

Remofirst offers no equity workflow at all. You can still grant through Carta or Pulley yourself, but the tax and legal coordination in each country lands on your team. Price those adviser hours before you call Remofirst the cheaper option.

How Oyster Approaches Hybrid-Entity Global Employment

Oyster employs through its own subsidiaries in some markets and through vetted local partners across the rest of its 120+ countries. Where it owns the entity, the contract, statutory benefits and terminations all run through Oyster.

An employer of record is the company that legally employs your hire on your behalf. Where a partner does that job, your commercial contract is with Oyster and the employment sits with somebody else.

Oyster does not publish which countries are which. We looked for that map and it is not on the site, so put the question in your RFP and get the answer per country in writing.

Where Oyster Has an Edge

Equity, and it is the one capability here that money cannot buy from Remofirst at any price. We set out how it works in the key differences above.

Its contractor product is also wider than its employment product: 180+ countries at $29 per contractor a month, free for the first 30 days. That is 60 more countries than Oyster will employ in.

Users rate the platform well. G2 showed 4.4 out of 5 from about 1,464 reviews and Trustpilot 3.9 from 270, both read on 29 July 2026. If your team lives in the tool daily, that matters.

Where Oyster Falls Short

Price and the deposit. At $699 it is the dearer option before anything else happens, and Oyster’s customer terms take roughly one month of each hire’s total cost of service up front.

Total cost of service is the fully loaded number: pay, employer taxes and social contributions, plus the fee. At $10,000 loaded per hire, ten hires park about $100,000 with Oyster before anyone is paid. It is refundable and it is still cash out of the bank in month one.

One more, because we got it wrong ourselves. This page used to say Oyster supports visas in 60-plus countries, and we removed that in August 2026.

The figure comes from Oyster’s media kit and describes where Oyster’s own staff live. Oyster publishes no visa country list at all.

How Remofirst Approaches Partner-Network Global Employment

Remofirst owns no entities. A vetted local partner becomes the legal employer in each of its 185+ countries, and that is how it holds the lowest published starting rate in this market.

The partner layer is the thing you are buying. It reaches places Oyster does not, and it puts a third company between you and the person you hired when something needs fixing.

Around it Remofirst adds multi-currency payroll and visa support published across 110+ countries. Teams that convert contractors to employees also get a route through.

Where Remofirst Has an Edge

Price, plainly. $199 a month against $699 is the widest published gap in this comparison, and for a company on tight runway it decides whether an international hire is approved at all.

Contractors are cheap too: a free basic tier, and $25 a month per contractor on premium. If you run 50 contractors, that free tier is worth more to you than most platform features either provider sells.

It also discloses more than Oyster does. Remofirst publishes its country count and both of its security certificates, which is why our disclosure index puts it at 6.4 against Oyster’s 6.1. Its price floor is no longer part of that: the index now scores six pricing facts rather than one, and Oyster publishes more of them.

Where Remofirst Falls Short

Two absences do most of the damage. Remofirst owns no entities anywhere, which some regulated buyers rule out before they open the pricing, and it runs no equity workflow at all.

Integrations are thin. Our index scores its integration depth low against Oyster’s moderate, and its published list runs to BambooHR with an hourly sync, GoCardless and ADP Workforce Now.

The published floor needs a caveat Remofirst does not supply. It prints no country rate card, and the one real-world figure we could source is a Trustpilot reviewer’s Ireland quote of about €399 a month.

That is roughly $461 at 1.1554 dollars to the euro on 5 August 2026, more than double the published floor. One reviewer is not a rate card, which is the point: nobody outside Remofirst has one.

We also could not settle whether Remofirst holds a deposit. Nothing on its pricing page or in the help-centre articles we read mentions one. Ask, and get the answer into the contract.

Employer of Record Services

Both do the whole job: compliant contracts, payroll, statutory benefits and terminations handled in country. On capability alone there is nothing to choose between them.

What differs is who holds the entity and what you pay for it. Oyster from $699 a month with owned entities in some markets; Remofirst from $199 a month through partners everywhere. We would not decide this on the EOR feature list.

Contractor Management

Oyster charges $29 per contractor a month across 180+ countries, free for the first 30 days. Remofirst runs a free basic tier and charges $25 a month on premium, with a conversion path to employment.

Neither is a Contractor of Record. That is the arrangement where the provider becomes the contractor’s legal counterparty and takes misclassification risk onto its own books.

Deel sells that product. Oyster and Remofirst do not, so on both platforms the classification call stays yours.

Misclassification is a ruling that somebody you paid as a contractor was your employee all along. The bill is back taxes, unpaid contributions and usually penalties, and with both of these providers it stays with you.

Global Payroll for Own Entities

Look elsewhere for this one. Oyster has retired its standalone Global Payroll product, and its own link for it redirects to the homepage, checked 3 August 2026.

Remofirst never sold one. Its multi-currency payroll runs inside the EOR, so it does nothing for entities you already own.

If you have your own entities and want one payroll running across them, we would send you to Remote or Deel instead of either provider on this page.

HR Tools and Integrations

Oyster exposes an API and syncs with mainstream HR information systems and payroll tools. An HRIS is your system of record for employee data, usually BambooHR, Workday or HiBob.

Remofirst publishes a shorter list: BambooHR on an hourly sync, GoCardless and ADP Workforce Now. Our index scores its integration depth low and Oyster’s moderate.

Check the live connector list against your own stack before committing. A missing connector is a manual export every payroll run, which is a recurring cost in somebody’s time rather than a one-off integration project.

Onboarding and User Experience

Both target 5 to 10 business days in established markets. Oyster tends to be faster where it employs directly, because that removes a handoff to a partner.

Oyster’s platform walks you through the steps. Remofirst’s assumes you already know them, which suits a team that has done this before and slows down one that has not.

Oyster Pricing Model

$699 per employee a month, published, with annual discounts available on request. Contractors cost $29 a month after a 30-day free trial. HR advisory is billed at $300 an hour.

A refundable deposit is required, and it is set on fully loaded cost rather than on the fee. Get the figure and the top-up terms in writing before you sign.

Oyster’s own terms also say the $699 varies by country, so the published figure behaves as a list price and your real rate arrives with the quote.

Remofirst Pricing Model

$199 per employee a month as a starting rate, with Remofirst stating that pricing varies with local requirements. Contractors are free on basic and $25 on premium. RemoHealth cover starts at $55 per person a month.

Remofirst states no setup, onboarding or termination fees, no annual contract and no minimums. It does not mention a deposit anywhere on that page, and we could not confirm one either way.

Hidden Fees and Add-Ons

Statutory employer costs and benefits pass through on top of both fees. On a €60,000 German salary, employer social contributions at 21.3% of gross add about €1,065 a month.

That is roughly $1,230 at 1.1554 dollars to the euro on 5 August 2026: six times Remofirst’s platform fee and nearly twice Oyster’s. The 21.3% is our own employer-burden figure and excludes work-accident insurance, which is set by industry.

On Oyster, watch the deposit and the currency spread on cross-border pay. On Remofirst, watch the country quote and the add-ons, because visas, background checks and health cover are all separate line items.

We would ask both for a written schedule of every chargeable event before comparing them at all. Add-ons are the point at which a $199 quote and a $699 quote stop describing the same thing.

Which Offers Better Value?

For a team of ten in mainstream markets with no equity to grant, Remofirst. The published gap is $500 per employee a month and nothing Oyster adds is worth that to you.

For a company granting equity, or hiring into a market where your legal team wants Oyster’s own entity on the contract, Oyster. The premium buys two things Remofirst does not sell at any price.

If neither describes you, we would take Remofirst and put the difference into the salary. Procurement will ask what the $500 buys, and on that profile there is no answer you can write down.

Compliance Certifications

Remofirst states SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 on its own site. Oyster states SOC 2 Type II, available on request, and no ISO 27001 anywhere on its security or trust pages.

SOC 2 Type II is an auditor’s finding that security controls actually operated over a period of months, not a self-assessment. ISO 27001 certifies the management system around those controls.

This page previously gave Oyster the stronger certification evidence. On published certificates that was wrong, and we corrected it on 6 August 2026.

Local Employment Law Handling

Where Oyster employs directly, its own subsidiary administers terminations, disputes and statutory benefits, and there is a single company to hold to account.

Where either provider uses a partner, a third company is the employer. Every escalation gains a handoff, and neither Oyster nor Remofirst publishes how it holds a partner to a standard.

Oyster does not publish which of its 120+ countries it owns. Until you have that confirmed for your markets, treat the owned-entity advantage as a maybe.

On UK contractors, neither provider spells out IR35 handling. IR35 is the UK rule deciding whether a contractor is really an employee for tax purposes.

Putting a UK worker on either EOR removes your exposure, because the provider is the employer. A contractor you engage directly stays your risk, and neither platform changes that. Take advice on your own structure.

Where the Compliance Gap Matters Most

In regulated industries, and in your own procurement matrix. If yours bars partner-only providers, Remofirst is out before anybody opens the pricing, and no discount will reopen it.

For a non-regulated software or services company hiring into mainstream markets, both are compliant and the gap is largely theoretical. We would not pay $500 a month per head for a theoretical gap.

Total Country Coverage

Remofirst publishes 185+ countries, every one partner-served. Oyster publishes 120+ for employment and 180+ for contractors, which are different products and easy to conflate in a sales call.

A headline count tells you where a provider can transact. It says nothing about how well it operates in your market, so we treat it as the opening question in an RFP.

Strength in Key Hiring Markets

Oyster is strongest where it owns the entity: faster onboarding, cleaner terminations, one accountable party. It will not tell you where those markets are, which blunts the advantage considerably.

Remofirst is strongest in the long tail, the frontier markets Oyster reaches only through partners, with visa and work-permit support published across 110+ countries.

Where Coverage Quality Differs

Quality tracks ownership. Ask both providers for two client references in the markets you are actually hiring into.

That request is also a test. If a provider cannot produce a client in your target country, you are its pilot there, and you should price that into the decision.

Customer Support Hours

Oyster runs ticket and email support with a named Hiring Success Manager on every account. We could find no response-time commitment on its site or in its customer terms, so there is nothing published to hold it to.

Remofirst advertises live chat 24/5 and a commitment to answer email and webform queries within 24 hours. Ask both how a hard case escalates and to whom, and get the name of the person above the first responder.

Implementation and Onboarding Support

Oyster assigns an implementation manager above a seat threshold, with a formal kickoff and per-market playbooks. Employee onboarding runs 5 to 10 business days where it employs directly, longer through partners.

Remofirst matches that timeline in established markets with much less hand-holding. Its interface is simpler, which suits a team that already knows what it needs.

On a first expansion the named owner earns the money. By your fifth you will be waiting on guidance you no longer need.

Where Each Support Model Wins

Pick on how much hand-holding your team needs: Oyster puts a named person on a structured rollout, and Remofirst answers a simple question faster.

We would not pick between these two on support. It is the least differentiated part of the comparison, and neither publishes enough for you to hold them to anything.

Each heading below is a trigger that sends buyers off this page. If none of the three describes you, stay with the two you came for.

If You Want Remofirst’s Price and Oyster’s Entities, Consider Multiplier

Multiplier lists $459 per employee a month on annual billing and $499 month to month, which sits between Remofirst’s floor and Oyster’s list price.

It claims owned entities across 150+ countries but publishes no register of them, so the claim carries exactly the caveat Oyster’s does. For APAC-weighted hiring we would still shortlist it.

If Owned-Entity Compliance Is the Constraint, Consider Remote

Remote employs through its own entities in 90+ countries, the strongest owned-chain position in this category, and it publishes the entity map Oyster does not.

It displays a single $699 per employee a month, and the $599 annual rate it used to carry is no longer selectable on its pricing page. That puts it level with Oyster on price, so if Legal is driving this decision it is the better trade.

If You Want the EOR to Double as Your HR System, Consider Deel or Rippling

Deel publishes EOR from $599 across 130+ countries, and it publishes its deposit formula: 1 to 1.5 times fully loaded monthly cost. Neither Oyster nor Remofirst gives you that number in advance.

Rippling bundles native HR and IT systems with EOR. It publishes 80 EOR countries on its own blog, and every one of them runs through a third-party in-country partner. It publishes no price at all.

You will need a quote before you can compare it with anything on this page.

WhichPayroll is an independent comparison site for global payroll, EOR, and contractor management platforms. We do not sell these services and we do not accept payment for editorial placement.

We may earn a commission if you book a demo or request a quote through links on this page. This comparison was written by our editorial team and was not shown to either provider before publication.

Both providers were assessed on the same six dimensions: published pricing and what it excludes, entity model, country coverage and its basis, platform and integration depth, support commitments, and user-reported evidence. Neither was engaged for a paid pilot.

Our disclosure index measures how much a provider publishes about itself. It is a transparency score and says nothing about how well the software works.

That is why Remofirst scores 6.4 against Oyster’s 6.1 while this page still sends equity-granting buyers to Oyster. Do not quote the index in a procurement pack as a quality ranking.