Data verified
Remote.com vs Remofirst
Remote charges $699 per employee per month. Remofirst starts at $199. Everything else on this page exists to tell you what that $500 gap buys.
What it buys is the identity of the company that legally employs your hire.
An employer of record puts your overseas hire on its own payroll in their country, so you never register a business there. That company signs the contract, carries the employment liability, and appears on the payslip instead of you.
Remote uses entities it owns in its main markets and publishes their registration numbers. Remofirst routes every hire through a local partner firm, and names that firm only after you engage.
We re-read both pricing pages on 6 August 2026 and re-priced this comparison against them. Remote has dropped its annual rate since June, so $699 is now the only number it shows.
Should you choose Remote or Remofirst?
Rates below come from both providers’ own pricing pages, read on 6 August 2026. Read the row on who legally employs your hire before you read either price.
| Compared |
RRemote
|
RfRemofirst
|
|---|---|---|
| Score (WhichPayroll disclosure index, /10) | 7.4The index measures what a provider publishes about itself. | 6.4Widest published country count of the two, 185+ against 90+. Held below Remote by shallow integrations and by how much of the price stays off the page. |
| Published EOR rate | $699One rate, month to month, the same per head at three hires or three hundred. The June annual option has gone from the page. | $199Remofirst calls this a fixed flat rate “no matter your company size”. The one public country quote we can point at lands well above it. See Best for Pricing. |
| Who legally employs your hire | An entity Remote owns in its main markets, with the registration number published. Vetted partners beyond them. | A local partner firm, in all 185+ countries. You cannot see which one until after you engage. |
| Deposit | None, and no setup fee. Remote’s pricing page states “No upfront deposits required”, read 6 August 2026. | No published position either way, read 6 August 2026. Get the answer in writing before Finance models the cash. |
| Country count | 90+ for EOR. 200+ for contractor payments. | 185+ for EOR, every one of them through a partner. |
| Support, as each provider states it | In-house teams, chat first. | Its employer-of-record page promises 24/5 in the feature list and 24/7 in the FAQ below it, on the same page, read 6 August 2026. A named account manager either way. |
| Security certifications | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and a GDPR data processing agreement, all on Remote’s trust page. | SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 badges on its own site, plus a GDPR agreement naming it as processor. |
| In the EOR market since | 2019 | 2021 |
The verdict
Choose Remote if
Legal wants a company name they can check in a public register before anyone signs, and Finance cannot spare working capital for a deposit.
Choose Remofirst if
The real alternative to $199 is leaving the role unfilled, or your target market sits outside the 90+ EOR markets Remote covers.
Pricing
Remote
$699/employee/month, no setup fee, no standing deposit. No volume discount is published at any headcount.
Remofirst
From $199/employee/month, no setup or termination fee. The floor moves by country, and the FX margin is unpublished.
Bottom line · The gap is $500 a month per person, $6,000 a year. Decide it on whether your legal team will sign a contract naming a company they cannot look up.
Open each provider to compare current pricing, plans, and setup details.
Remote
Official provider site
Check the $699 rate and the no-deposit terms for yourself.
Remofirst
Official provider site
Ask for the country quote and the deposit position in writing.
Provider links may be affiliate links where programmes are live.
Full Comparison Table: Remote.com vs Remofirst
Two rows here decide most procurement packs: who employs the person, and what the integration layer can carry. The rest of the table is detail you can skim.
We built it from both providers’ own published pages and our provider reviews, re-read on 6 August 2026. Where a provider states something we cannot verify, the cell says so.
| Service Component |
RRemote
|
RfRemofirst
|
|---|---|---|
| EOR service | $699 per employee per month, entities Remote owns in its main markets | From $199 per employee per month, partner entities everywhere |
| Employment contracts | Generated in-platform and localised by Remote | Drafted by the local partner, so accuracy tracks the partner |
| Benefits | Administered through Remote’s own entities | RemoHealth from $55 per person per month, underwritten via Unisure and Guardrisk |
| Deposit and setup | No setup fee, no minimum term, and no upfront deposit beyond a reserve in rare high-risk cases | No setup, onboarding or termination fee. Deposit position unpublished |
| Contractor management | $29 basic, $99 Plus (cover to $100,000 per contractor), $325 Contractor of Record (uncapped indemnity) | $25 per contractor per month, with free basic onboarding and contracts |
| Contractor reach | Payments across 200+ countries | Contractors supported alongside its 185+ EOR markets |
| Visas and work permits | Supported, no country count published | 110+ countries, which Remofirst calls the widest EOR visa coverage anywhere |
| Equity and stock options | Equity and RSU handling offered, country dependent | Not administered at all |
| Platform | Unified interface, live since 2019 | Functional and improving, live since 2021 |
| API access | Public REST API with published developer docs | No public API |
| HRIS integrations | Workday, BambooHR, HiBob and others | Two: ADP Workforce Now and BambooHR |
| UK payroll | Recognised by HMRC as a UK payroll provider | No HMRC recognition published |
| Security certifications | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR DPA | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR DPA naming Remofirst as processor |
What Are the Key Differences Between Remote.com and Remofirst?
Three differences decide this, and we would rank them in this order: who employs your hire, what the real quote turns out to be, and whether your systems need an API. Everything below sits under one of those three.
Best for Pricing
Remofirst, on the headline: $199 against Remote’s $699. Across ten hires that is $60,000 a year in platform fees.
Remote’s $699 is genuinely flat. We could find no volume schedule at any size, so a 200-person deployment costs the same per head as a three-person one.
Remofirst calls its $199 a fixed flat rate that holds “no matter your company size”. The one public figure above it we can point at is a Trustpilot report of an Ireland quote near €399 a month, given after the demo call.
That is about $461 at 1.1554 dollars to the euro, the European Central Bank reference rate on 5 August 2026. One employee, one ordinary Western European market, more than twice the headline.
Treat $199 as a floor. Get a written quote for your own market before either number reaches a budget, and ask what margin Remofirst takes on the currency conversion, because it publishes none.
One correction we owe you. In June 2026 we recorded a $599 annual rate for Remote. On 6 August its pricing page showed $699 and nothing else, the annual option gone from the page entirely.
The $599 is still in that page’s source data with no visible element drawing it, so the rate lives in Remote’s systems and not in front of buyers. We have priced this comparison at what the page actually shows.
If a Remote salesperson offers you $599, ask for it in writing.
Best for Compliance
Remote, because you can check its work. Hire through Remote in Germany and your employee works for a German entity Remote owns, whose registration number Remote publishes.
Remofirst hands the employment to a local partner company. That firm becomes the legal employer, and Remofirst does not tell you which firm it will be until you have engaged.
This is the question your legal team will ask, and they are right to. Ask Remofirst to name the partner that will employ your hire in your target country, and ask before anyone gets attached to the price.
Remofirst’s certifications are stronger than the partner model suggests. SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 both appear on its own site, alongside a GDPR agreement naming it as data processor. Remote holds the same three.
On the UK, Remote’s payroll is recognised by HMRC, the UK tax authority, as a payroll provider in its own right. Remofirst publishes no equivalent recognition.
Neither model removes misclassification exposure by itself. Misclassification is a ruling that someone you treated as a contractor was legally your employee, and the bill is back taxes, unpaid contributions and usually penalties.
Best for Country Coverage
Remofirst, on raw reach: 185+ countries against Remote’s 90+ for EOR. If your hire is in Vietnam, Kenya or Egypt, Remofirst will often quote where Remote does not operate at all.
The two counts do not measure the same thing. Remote’s 90+ are markets where it employs through its own entities. Remofirst’s 185+ are markets where a partner does.
For contractors the order flips. Remote pays contractors across 200+ countries, further than its own EOR footprint reaches.
If your hiring sits in the UK, Germany, France, Spain or the US, this section is noise. Both providers cover those markets.
Best for Support
Remofirst promises more, and it cannot keep the promise straight. Its employer-of-record page offers “24/5 customer support” in the feature list, then answers its own FAQ further down the same page with support “available 24/7”.
Both statements sit on one page, read on 6 August 2026. Take the weaker answer into the contract discussion and make Remofirst write the real one down.
Remote runs in-house teams and leads with chat rather than a named manager. Remote answers about its own employment entity, while a Remofirst answer about local law may have to travel through the partner first.
Best for Platform and Integrations
Remote. It publishes a REST API with developer documentation and connects to Workday, BambooHR and HiBob. Remofirst has no public API and two HRIS connectors, ADP Workforce Now and BambooHR.
Test this against your own stack before anything else. If your people data has to land in Workday every month, the $500 saving buys you a manual export, and the person doing it will be on your team.
Equity is the other gap worth checking early. Remote handles equity and RSU payroll where the country allows it. Remofirst states that equity sits outside the EOR agreement and it does not administer it.
What Do Remote.com and Remofirst Actually Deliver?
Remote delivers a legal employer you can verify and an invoice with nothing hiding in it. Remofirst delivers the lowest entry cost among the providers we assess, and a partner layer you inherit along with the saving.
Remote takes no setup fee. Its pricing page says “No upfront deposits required”, and its own FAQ adds that it collects reserve payments “in rare, high risk circumstances”. That is the narrowest deposit position of any provider we assess.
Finance will feel the difference against a provider that does hold cash. Deel publishes a deposit formula of one to one and a half times all monthly charges per hire, counting salary, employer costs and its own fee.
On ten German hires at $6,600 all in, that is $66,000 to $99,000 of your money sitting with a vendor for the length of the contract.
Remote’s contractor ladder is unusually explicit. $29 buys the self-serve tier, $99 adds cover of up to $100,000 per contractor against misclassification, and $325 is Contractor of Record, where Remote engages the contractor itself with uncapped indemnity.
Remofirst charges no setup, onboarding or termination fee, and sets no minimum term. Onboarding a standard hire runs 5 to 10 business days.
The word deposit appears nowhere on its pricing page, read 6 August 2026. We are not saying a deposit exists.
We are saying nobody outside Remofirst can tell you. A one-month deposit on twenty hires, at the $6,600 fully loaded German figure above, would tie up $132,000 before the first payslip runs, so get the position in writing at quote stage.
Which Should You Choose: Remote.com or Remofirst?
These are the conditions we would act on. If none of them describes your situation, the third column says where else to look.
Choose Remote.com If
- Legal will ask for the employing entity’s registration number and will not sign without it. Remote publishes them in its owned markets, so that document exists and you can attach it to the pack.
- Your hiring sits in Western Europe, the US or Canada, where Remote’s own entities are, and where the coverage gap against Remofirst costs you nothing.
- Working capital is tight. No setup fee and no standing deposit means the first invoice is the fee and the payroll, with no cash locked up behind it.
- Your HR data has to reach Workday or HiBob automatically. Remote’s API is the reason procurement will wave this through.
Choose Remofirst If
- The role does not get filled at $699. At twenty hires the platform-fee gap against Remote is $120,000 a year, which is a headcount in its own right.
- Your target market is one Remote does not serve. That reach is what the partner layer buys you.
- You run more contractors than employees. $25 against Remote’s $29 is small, but Remofirst’s basic contractor onboarding is free.
- You have somebody who can own the partner relationship. Not a policy, a person, with time in their week for it.
Consider an Alternative If
- You want owned entities and cannot pay Remote’s rate. Multiplier is the first name to check, and the alternatives section below says what it will not show you.
- You need one vendor for EOR, contractors and IT. That is Deel’s pitch, and the alternatives section gives the price and the catch.
What Is Our Verdict on Remote.com vs Remofirst?
Buy Remote at $699 when Legal has to name the employing company before anyone signs. Buy Remofirst at $199 when the honest alternative is leaving the role unfilled.
Those are answers to two different questions, and most shortlists are only asking one of them. Work out which one you are asking before you compare the numbers.
One number on this page needs reading carefully. Remote scores 7.4 on our index and Remofirst 6.4, and that gap is not a verdict on either service.
The WhichPayroll disclosure index scores what a provider publishes: how many countries it discloses, how much of its pricing is public, how deep its integrations go, what security certifications it evidences. Remofirst still publishes the wider country count, 185+ against 90+, and it still lists the lower rate. What puts it below Remote is the rest of the measurement: integrations we score 3.0 against Remote’s 8.0, and a $199 that arrives without the deposit, the currency margin, or any statement that the rate holds.
Who employs your staff sits outside that measurement. A provider can publish 185 countries and still leave you unable to name the company on your hire’s contract, which is what Remofirst does.
Read both numbers as disclosure, because disclosure is all they measure. We would not want a procurement pack quoting either as a finding about the partner model.
So take this to Legal before you take it to Finance. If Legal will sign on an employer Remofirst names only after you engage, the saving is real money: $6,000 a year per person, $60,000 across ten hires.
If Legal will not sign on a partner model, the $699 is simply what this purchase costs you, because it is the only version your own approval process will clear.
What Are the Best Alternatives to Remote.com and Remofirst?
Multiplier is the one we would check first: $459 on annual billing, $240 a head under Remote, with owned entities claimed across 150+ countries. Rippling and Deel answer different reasons for leaving this pair, and each heading below names the reason.
If $699 is too much but a partner model is unacceptable
- Multiplier lists $459 per employee per month on annual billing, $499 month to month, and claims owned entities across 150+ countries.
- It publishes no entity register, so the claim stays a claim until they put it in writing. Compare Remote and Multiplier in detail.
If you are buying an HR system anyway
- Rippling bundles EOR into its HR and IT platform and quotes rather than publishes an EOR rate, so you cannot compare it on price until you are in a sales conversation.
- It publishes 80 EOR countries, fewer than either provider here. Compare Remote and Rippling in detail.
If you want one vendor for everything
- Deel publishes $599 for EOR across 130+ countries and covers contractors, immigration and IT in the same platform.
- It also holds a deposit of up to 1.5 months of fully loaded cost per hire, which Remote does not charge at all. See what Deel actually costs.
What Do People Ask About Remote.com vs Remofirst?
Which provider is better for hiring in emerging markets?
Remofirst. It lists 185+ countries against Remote’s 90+ EOR markets, so for Vietnam, Egypt or Kenya it will usually quote where Remote does not operate.
Ask what the wider map costs you. In an emerging market the partner firm does the local compliance work, and we could not assess a single one of those firms from published sources.
How do the platforms handle employee equity compensation?
Remote runs equity and RSU payroll in-platform, subject to what the employee’s country allows. Remofirst leaves it out of the EOR agreement.
With Remofirst that puts the grants, the paperwork and the local tax treatment back with you and your advisers. If you give options to overseas staff as standard, budget for someone to run that piece.
What happens if I need to terminate an employee?
With Remote in its owned markets, the entity that employs your hire is the entity that runs the exit, so notice periods and severance come from one place.
With Remofirst the local partner runs it, and Remofirst states there is no termination fee.
Get the local notice period and severance formula in writing at contract stage, whichever you choose.
Can I switch between providers later?
Yes, and it is more disruptive than either sales team will suggest. Switching means terminating each employee with one provider and rehiring them with the other, under local law each time.
For fifteen people across three countries, budget two to three months, expect benefits to lapse in the gap, and check whether anyone’s work permit is tied to the employing entity. It usually is.
Methodology
Corrections and updates
6 August 2026. We re-priced Remote from $599 to the $699 its pricing page displays, and removed a claim that Remote gives volume discounts at 50 or more employees. We found no such schedule published.
We removed an unsourced estimate that Remofirst add-ons roughly double the real per-employee cost. We could not evidence it, and the published adders we can evidence do not come close to it.
We corrected Remofirst’s security position. The page had stated only GDPR compliance while crediting Remote with SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Remofirst states both on its own site.
We corrected Remofirst’s onboarding from one to three days to the 5 to 10 business days it publishes, its API from limited to none, and Multiplier’s EOR rate from $400 to $459. Remofirst’s visa coverage of 110+ countries checked out and stays.
WhichPayroll is an independent comparison site for global payroll, EOR, and contractor management platforms. We do not sell these services and 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 produced by our editorial team and was not reviewed or approved by either provider before publication.
Data Sources
- Remote pricing and trust pages, read 6 August 2026
- Remofirst pricing, employer-of-record and homepage certification badges, read 6 August 2026
- G2 and Capterra reviews for both brands (Jan–Apr 2026)
- WhichPayroll provider score composite data (see sources & data)
Research Approach
- Published pricing, and what the published number leaves out
- Who legally employs the worker, and whether that can be verified
- Country coverage depth, split by EOR and contractor
- Integration surface and API availability
- Support model as each provider states it
- Verified user feedback from G2 and Capterra
Both providers were assessed on the same six dimensions listed above. Neither was engaged for a paid pilot or contract as part of this comparison, and neither saw this page before it went live.
WhichPayroll Research used in this comparison
- EOR Cost Benchmark: published EOR fee ranges and pricing model disclosure across providers
- EOR vs Entity Break-Even Benchmark: 40-country cost crossover analysis: when EOR becomes more expensive than entity setup