Remote Review
Our verdict
Shortlist Remote if you want the company that legally employs your European staff to be Remote itself, and you would rather not tie up tens of thousands of dollars in a deposit to get it.
In its main markets Remote employs your people through subsidiaries it owns and names, and it publishes the company registration numbers so your legal team can check who signs the contract. It asks for no deposit, where Deel publishes one of one to one and a half months of fully loaded cost up front.
You pay for that in reach. 90+ countries is a narrow EOR footprint next to the biggest global networks, and complex equity or benefits arrangements run past what Remote standardises.
Best for: teams that need a verifiable legal employer in Europe without a cash deposit.
Remote charges $699 per employee per month to act as employer of record across 90+ countries, using its own legal entities in its main markets and vetted local partners elsewhere. It asks for no security deposit, which is the part your Finance team will notice first.
An employer of record, usually shortened to EOR, becomes the legal employer of your hire in a country where you have no company of your own. You direct the work. Remote holds the employment contract, runs local payroll and carries the compliance obligations.
In practice that means you can put someone on payroll in Berlin without registering a German entity, appointing a local accountant, or waiting three months to do it.
One correction before the rest of this review. We recorded a $599 annual rate for Remote in June 2026. Re-checking on 2 August 2026, Remote’s pricing page no longer displays it and offers no annual billing option at all.
The rate has not been deleted so much as switched off. The $599 annual figure still sits in the data behind that pricing page. Nothing on the page shows it, and there is no billing toggle to reach it.
We have therefore priced this review at the $699 Remote actually displays. If a salesperson offers you $599, it is evidently still available to them, and you should get it in writing.
The pitch is a single platform for EOR, contractor management and payroll. It lands with People Ops teams tired of running Deel for contractors, Oyster for employees and a local provider in each market for compliance.
If that consolidation is what you are buying, our alternatives to Oyster and our Deel vs Oyster comparison both show where one platform genuinely replaces two.
Breadth has a price. Serving every employment scenario means paying for capability you may never switch on, and handing one vendor your entire distributed workforce.
| Coverage model | Direct · 90+ countries |
|---|---|
| Pricing transparency | High · $699/month published |
| Integration depth | High |
| Security & compliance | Very high |
Composite is a weighted index across these verified dimensions. See our methodology.
What Is Remote.com and How Does It Work?
What Remote.com Does
Remote provides legal employment infrastructure in countries where you lack entities.
Who Remote.com Is Designed For
Remote fits Series A to C companies expanding abroad that want one vendor covering EOR, contractors and payroll. The absence of a deposit matters most when working capital is tight.
We found no minimum employee count, no minimum contract length and no exclusivity clause. A small business making one overseas hire and a fast-growing engineering team therefore sit on the same platform, on the same terms.
It is less suited to companies with large contractor workforces or complex equity scenarios – areas where Remote’s depth falls behind specialist competitors.
How Setup and Management Work
EOR onboarding in owned-entity markets takes 5–7 business days from contract signature to first payroll. Partner-country hires run 10–15 days.
Both timelines assume you have employment contracts and right-to-work documentation ready on day one; for a non-national in the UK, the right-to-work assessment can add about three days. EOR hires get a dedicated onboarding specialist.
Two gates can stall a first hire whatever those timelines say, and neither appears on the pricing page.
The first is a Know Your Business check, or KYB. It is the anti-money-laundering review any provider must run on your company before it will move money on your behalf. Inviting your first worker triggers it, and onboarding is held until it clears.
The second is a reserve payment: a cash float Remote holds so it can still pay your employees in a month when you cannot pay Remote. Its pricing FAQ says it asks for one only in rare, higher-risk cases.
Ask anyway. A young company with no filed accounts is exactly the profile that gets asked, and it is a cash call nobody has put in the budget.
Day-to-day management is handled through a unified dashboard where your employees, contractors, and payroll run under the same interface. Payroll runs monthly for most markets; contractor payments are processed on the schedule you set.
What does Remote.com actually offer?
Employer of Record
Remote’s EOR service operates through a mixed model – owned entities in major markets and vetted partners elsewhere.
We verified owned subsidiaries in the UK (Remote Technology Services Ltd, #12387671), Germany, France, Spain, and 15 other primary markets through local registry searches.
Global Payroll
Remote runs payroll in-house across 70+ countries with direct connections into local tax systems. Remote Payroll is formally recognised by HMRC, the UK tax authority, as a UK payroll provider.
For UK teams it can also reclaim up to 103% of Statutory Maternity Pay, which is the minimum maternity pay an employer is legally obliged to fund. Small employers get back more than they paid out, because that extra 3% is the government covering their National Insurance on it.
Contractor Management
Remote Pay handles contractor payments across 200+ countries, covering invoicing and payment processing in a range of currencies. It collects the US tax forms for you: a W-9 from contractors who are US taxpayers, a W-8BEN from everyone else.
It will also pay in USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the dollar, for contractors who want part of their pay in crypto and are willing to carry the risk that goes with it.
Contractor Management Plus, at $99 per contractor per month, adds cover against misclassification. Misclassification is a ruling that someone you have been paying as a contractor was legally your employee all along, and the bill is back taxes, unpaid contributions and usually penalties.
Remote publishes cover of up to $100,000 per contractor for penalties. A higher per-client ceiling has been quoted to us but is not on Remote’s public pricing page, so get your own cap in writing. That is one of very few places any provider puts a written cap on your downside.
It sits between the $29 self-serve tier and Contractor of Record at $325, where Remote engages the contractor itself and takes the relationship onto its own books. For a UK team facing an HMRC challenge over a contractor of several years, that cover is the reason to pay the premium.
The catch is that you cannot edit the contract on this tier. Remote’s agreement is used exactly as written, which your legal team may or may not wear.
HR and Workforce Management
Remote bundles a basic HRIS, meaning a human resources information system: the central record of who works for you, holding time tracking, expense claims and documents.
You pay nothing for it. There are no platform, onboarding or setup fees and no minimum company size, and you pay per seat only for the EOR, payroll or contractor products you switch on.
It is enough to run the employment products and no more. If you were hoping to retire a dedicated HR system, this will not do it.
Wellbeing: EOR employees can access mental health support through Remote’s partnership with Modern Health, covering self-guided content, coaching, and licensed therapists across dozens of countries.
Time and attendance: Basic time-off tracking with approval workflows. No sophisticated scheduling or shift management.
Expense management: Receipt upload and approval routing. Limited policy configuration compared to dedicated tools.
Benefits administration: Available in select countries through local partners. Coverage and quality vary significantly by market.
Additional Services
Remote offers supplementary services that generate additional revenue but receive mixed execution reviews:
Immigration support: Visa sponsorship and relocation assistance through partners. Limited to major destinations with 3-6 month processing times.
Equipment management: Laptop provisioning and recovery in select countries. Manual coordination required for most markets.
Equity compensation: Basic tracking and grant management. Integration with Carta available but requires manual data synchronisation.
What Remote.com features matter in practice?
Two of them: the integrations and the reporting. The rest of Remote’s feature list is competent and unremarkable, and you will neither choose nor reject Remote because of it.
We compared each set against the specialists that do only that one thing, using published documentation and user reviews, which is the fair standard once a platform claims to cover everything you need.
Reporting and Analytics
Remote provides standard workforce reports – headcount, costs, and demographics. The unified view across employment types helps Finance teams who previously reconciled multiple vendor reports.
Cost forecasting: Basic projection tools show upcoming payroll obligations. More sophisticated modelling – tax optimisation, entity setup analysis – requires external tools.
Compliance reporting: Automated reports for standard requirements (right to work verification, tax filings). Custom compliance reports need manual compilation.
Integrations and API Access
Remote publishes 40+ integrations but meaningful two-way sync exists for fewer than 10 systems. Most connections push basic employee data without supporting complex workflows.
Finance systems: QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite connections exist but sync only summary journal entries, not detailed transaction data Finance teams need.
HR and hiring stack: native connectors reach the Zelt and GoCo HR systems, the Greenhouse applicant tracking system and Vanta for security compliance. The catalogue is still growing, and syncing paid time off from a third-party HR system can still need a workaround.
API access: the REST API, the standard way one system talks to another over the web, covers basic employee and contractor records. A ceiling of 100 requests a minute and a thin set of endpoints will frustrate anyone building something custom on top of it.
What does Remote.com actually cost?
$699 per employee per month, and that single figure is the whole of what Remote publishes for EOR. There is no deposit and no setup fee, which is where it genuinely differs from Deel.
What Remote does not publish is the margin it takes when it converts your money into your employee’s currency. That is the number to chase, and we come to it below.
The $599 annual rate we quoted in June 2026 is no longer on display. Re-checking on 2 August, Remote’s pricing page shows a single $699 and no annual billing option anywhere on it.
It has not been withdrawn from the business, only from the page. The $599 annual value is still carried in the pricing page’s own data with nothing rendering it, which leaves a pricing page showing you only its more expensive number.
So ask for the annual rate by name. On this evidence it still exists, and a discount you have to already know about before you can be offered it is worth one email.
Pricing at a glance
| Employer of Record | $699per employee / month · the only EOR rate Remote publishes |
|---|---|
| Contractor management | $29per contractor / month |
| Contractor Management Plus | $99per contractor / month · adds misclassification cover up to $100,000 per contractor |
| Contractor of Record | From $325per contractor / month · Remote engages the contractor itself, indemnity uncapped |
| Global Payroll | From $29per employee / month · for countries where you already own an entity |
| US PEO | From $99per employee / month · a professional employer organisation, meaning Remote co-employs your US staff so you can hire across states without a company in each. Billed in USD, needs a US bank account |
| Equity | From $39per month · Delaware C-Corps only |
Every rate above was read from Remote’s published pricing page on 2 August 2026. Remote bundles its basic HR record-keeping with the paid products rather than charging for it separately.
What the headline price leaves out
Employer taxes and statutory contributions. Every country obliges an employer to pay social security, pension and insurance charges on top of salary. Remote passes these through at cost, typically 10 to 35 percent of gross pay.
France, Brazil, Italy and Belgium sit toward the top of that range. The UK and much of the Asia-Pacific region sit nearer the bottom.
The practical effect is that the seat fee is the small part of your bill. On a $5,000 monthly salary carrying 20 percent employer costs, your true cost is about $6,700, and the $699 is roughly a tenth of it.
Double the salary and the fee’s share of the bill halves. Model the salary and the local employer costs first, then add the seat fee. Doing it the other way round is how a first invoice ends up well above what you told Finance.
FX margin on the Remote FX Rate. If you fund in dollars and your employee is paid in euros, somebody converts that money, and the rate they use is almost never the one you see on Google.
Remote fixes a monthly rate per currency pair and does not publish its markup over the mid-market rate, which is the wholesale rate banks quote each other. Its own pricing FAQ offers only that the rate is “highly competitive”.
Industry norms put that spread at 1 to 3 percent. Take the example above: 50 people at $6,000 a month in salary and employer costs is $3.6 million a year converted into local currency, which puts the margin between $36,000 and $108,000.
None of it will ever arrive as a line item you can query. That is why the first question below asks for the markup on each currency pair you will actually use.
Global Payroll implementation fee. The $29 per employee per month buys the recurring service only. The one-time setup fee is quote-based and unpublished, and comparable providers charge $5,000 to $25,000 per entity.
Before you sign, ask Remote to confirm in writing:
01. The exact FX markup on the Remote FX Rate, for each currency pair you will actually use.
02. Whether any rate below the published $699 is available to you, what triggers it, and how long it is held.
03. The Global Payroll implementation fee per entity and the recurring delivery fee, itemised separately.
04. Your severance and notice-period exposure in each target country, and who pays it when a role ends.
05. Whether the 15 percent startup discount still exists at all, since Remote sets it out only in a support article last updated in February 2023 and not on the current pricing page, and what happens if you terminate inside the 12-month minimum term it carries.
06. Whether a reserve payment will be asked of you before your first hire onboards, and how much.
Request Remote pricing →What is the Remote.com platform and support experience like?
Remote’s document checks read as strict. User reports describe rejections for incomplete paperwork that other providers wave through, which slows a first hire and reduces the chance of a compliance problem later.
Worker onboarding timelines vary by country and employment type:
Contractors: 24-48 hours for basic setup
Employees (owned entities): 5-7 business days
Employees (partner countries): 10-15 business days
Those clocks only start once the KYB check clears and any reserve payment is settled, both covered in how Remote works above. Budget a few extra days at the very start of your first hire.
Platform Usability
Remote’s interface prioritises visual simplicity over functional depth. The main dashboard shows all workers regardless of type, with filters for employment status, country, and department.
Common tasks work smoothly. Approving time off, reviewing expenses and running standard reports take few clicks, and an employee and a contractor are approved the same way, so whoever does this job does not have to remember two systems.
Mobile experience: The Remote mobile app handles basic employee self-service but lacks administrative features. Managers cannot approve requests or access reports from mobile devices.
Customer Support
Support is where the price stops being the interesting number. A German social insurance query that a first-line agent cannot answer is the test, and reaching someone who can takes days on the standard tier.
Which tier you land on is decided by headcount, not by need, so it is worth reading our note on EOR support tiers before you assume the answer.
Standard support: A 24/7 RemoteAI chatbot answers instant questions and can hand off to a live agent, but human email and chat responses still run 24-48 hours. First-line agents handle basic queries but escalate anything complex.
Priority support: included once you pass 50 employees. You get a named account manager and a four-hour response time written into the contract as a service level agreement, which means it is a commitment you can hold them to.
Enterprise support: Dedicated success manager, quarterly business reviews, and direct escalation paths. Requires custom pricing.
What Users Like
Specific wins mentioned repeatedly:
- Converting contractors to employees without switching systems
- Single invoice reconciliation for Finance teams
- Consistent worker experience across countries
- Transparent pricing without hidden fees (for base services)
Common Complaints
Negative reviews cluster around depth limitations and support responsiveness for complex issues:
Platform limitations: “We hit the ceiling quickly on contractor payment flexibility. Our freelancers work on project milestones, but Remote forces monthly cycles.”
Partner country issues: “EOR service in Brazil took 6 weeks to onboard one employee. Remote blamed their partner but we’re still stuck with the delay.”
Billing and policy disputes: A handful of reviewers report accounting errors that were only taken seriously once they withheld payment, and policy shifts on terminations – requests refused or steered toward a costlier settlement – even where local law had not changed. Treat any termination as something to scope and price before you commit.
Support escalation: “First-line support is friendly but useless for real problems. Getting to someone who understands employment law takes days of back-and-forth.”
Hidden complexity: “The all-in-one pitch sounds great until you need to do something slightly non-standard. Then you discover everything requires manual workarounds.”
What are Remote.com’s genuine strengths and limitations?
Almost everything good and everything frustrating about Remote comes from the same decision: to own its entities rather than rent them, and to run one platform across every worker type.
We rated it against the same evidence we use on every provider, which is published pricing, its own trust and legal documentation, company registry filings, and user reviews from January to April 2026.
Pros
- Owned entities where the hiring actually happens. We verified Remote’s own legal entities in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and 15 other primary markets, so there is no partner in the middle for most European hires.
- No standing deposit. Deel publishes a deposit formula of one to one and a half times all monthly charges per hire, counting salary, employer costs, allowances and its own fee.
- Take a $5,000 salary carrying 20 percent employer costs and Deel’s $599 seat fee, so about $6,600 all in. Across ten people that formula ties up $66,000 at the bottom and $99,000 at the top. Remote can still ask for a reserve payment in higher-risk cases.
- You can check the employer before you sign. Remote publishes its registration numbers: company 12387671 at Companies House in the UK, and HRB 119900 in the German commercial register. Your legal team can look up the company that will hold the contract.
- One invoice across employees, contractors and payroll, which removes the monthly reconciliation your Finance team currently does by hand across three vendors.
- No surcharge for difficult countries. The $699 holds in Germany and France as it does anywhere else, though the local employer costs on top of it do not.
Cons
- $100 a month more than Deel. Remote publishes $699 against Deel’s $599, which is $1,200 a year per employee, or $24,000 across a 20-person team. The annual rate that used to close this gap has left Remote’s pricing page.
- Narrower reach than the biggest networks. 90+ EOR countries against Deel’s 130. If you are heading into Southeast Asia or sub-Saharan Africa, check Remote’s country list before you shortlist it.
- Contractors get paid monthly, and only monthly. Milestone and weekly payment schedules need a second vendor, which undoes the consolidation you bought.
- Partner countries carry a liability gap. Remote’s terms limit what it answers for when a local partner fails, and in Brazil, India and 25+ other markets that exposure lands back on you.
- Standard support runs 24 to 48 hours for a first reply, and reaching someone who knows local employment law takes days.
Who Is Remote.com Best For?
Remote fits best when your hiring is concentrated in Europe, your cash position matters, and you would rather run one vendor than three.
The clearest fit we see is a Series A to C company placing its first employees in the UK, Germany, France or Spain. You get an employer your lawyers can look up in a public register, no deposit against your working capital, and a single invoice covering employees, contractors and payroll.
That last point carries more weight than it sounds. If your Finance team reconciles three vendor statements every month, collapsing them into one is a saving you can put a number on, and it is usually the argument that gets the purchase approved.
Two things should send you elsewhere. Run more than about 50 contractors and Remote’s monthly-only payment cycle will fight you every week, where Deel’s contractor tooling is built for exactly that load.
Grant equity across several subsidiaries with real tax planning behind it and you will outgrow Remote Equity quickly, since it is limited to Delaware C-Corps and stops well short of a dedicated equity platform.
When should you consider a Remote.com alternative?
Three things send buyers away from Remote, and we have watched each of them settle a shortlist on its own.
The Oyster trade is the one to think hardest about. Oyster carries no contractor management at all, so you would be adding a second vendor to buy a compliance gain, which is the reverse of why most teams arrive at Remote.
Top alternatives
| Deel | 9.1 · broader country coverage and contractor flexibility |
|---|---|
| Oyster | 7.0 · EOR-first depth in a smaller set of countries |
| Multiplier | 7.4 · strong owned-entity coverage across Asia-Pacific |
WhichPayroll may earn a commission if you book a demo through our links. Reviews remain editorially independent.
Final Verdict: Should You Choose Remote.com?
Buy Remote for the entity model, and treat the price as the second question.
Of the providers we have assessed, very few will name the company that legally employs your staff in Germany and hand you its registration number to check. Where your legal team cares about that, and in regulated industries it always does, Remote is the shortest route to it.
You pay $100 a month more than Deel for the privilege, and you accept 90 countries against Deel’s 130. Neither is disqualifying unless your next hire sits in one of the 40 extra countries Deel reaches.
The $699 is not what decides this. Count how many of your next ten hires fall outside Remote’s 90 countries, and that number will settle it for you.
Best fit for: compliance-first teams hiring into Remote’s owned-entity markets, who want no deposit and a legal employer they can look up.
Main reason to book: Remote’s no-deposit model removes the cash-flow friction most EORs build in, so confirm it applies to your contract before signing.
Main reason to compare: If you need more than 90 countries, Deel’s broader network covers markets Remote doesn’t yet serve with owned entities.
WhichPayroll may earn a commission if you book a demo through our links. Reviews remain editorially independent.
Remote.com FAQ
How quickly can Remote onboard employees in different countries?
In owned-entity countries (UK, Germany, France, Spain and 15 others), Remote onboards employees in 5–7 business days. In partner countries (Italy, Brazil, India and 25+ others), expect 10–15 days.
Both timelines require complete documentation on day one – employment contracts, right-to-work evidence, and tax registration details. Missing documents restart the clock.
Does Remote handle equity compensation for international employees?
Yes, as a separately priced product. Remote Equity starts at $39 per month and is limited to Delaware C-Corps, which rules it out if your parent company is incorporated anywhere else.
It handles the grant paperwork and the tax reporting obligations. It integrates with Carta, though the data still has to be synchronised by hand.
What are the real differences between Remote’s owned entities and partner coverage?
An owned entity means Remote has its own registered company in that country, and that company is your employee’s legal employer. In a partner country, Remote has contracted a local firm to be the employer instead.
Three things change. Onboarding runs 10 to 15 days rather than 5 to 7. Support questions travel through one more organisation before anyone can answer them.
And Remote’s terms limit its liability for a partner’s failures, which is the point your legal team will stop on. Ask which model covers each country on your list, in writing, before you sign.
Can Remote handle complex contractor payment schedules?
No. Remote’s contractor payment system runs on monthly cycles only. If your contractors work on project milestones or weekly retainers, non-monthly payment schedules require manual workarounds.
For contractor-heavy teams, Deel’s contractor management offers more flexible payment scheduling.
How does Remote’s pricing compare when including all fees?
Start at $699 per employee per month, then add the parts that are not on the pricing page.
Employer taxes and statutory contributions come first, at 10 to 35 percent of gross salary depending on the country. Then an undisclosed FX margin if you fund in one currency and pay in another, and a quote-based implementation fee if you take Global Payroll.
We are not going to give you a single multiplier. The largest component is your own salary bill and the second largest is a number Remote declines to publish, so any site quoting you one tidy figure here is guessing at both.
How is Remote's 8.0 on the WhichPayroll disclosure index calculated?
Full marks on three dimensions and the narrowest footprint of any major provider we cover. Remote reaches 8.0 despite serving fewer than half the countries some rivals claim, which tells you most of what you need to know about how it competes.
| Coverage Weight 30% | 4.8 90 countries stated against 187, the highest count claimed by any provider in our set. The row is scored on that ratio, 90 divided by 187, which is the lowest coverage score on this site. Contributes 1.44. |
|---|---|
| Pricing transparency Weight 25% | 10.0 High: a published starting price plus disclosure across most fee categories. Contributes 2.50. |
| Security disclosure Weight 25% | 10.0 SOC 2 Type II (an independent audit of how a company handles customer data), ISO 27001 (certification of a managed information-security system) and a GDPR data processing agreement, all stated on Remote's own trust page: 5 certification points of 5. Each evidences process, none guarantees an outcome. Contributes 2.50. |
| Integration depth Weight 20% | 8.0 High, and this is our assessment rather than a published fact. Contributes 1.60. |
| Composite | 8.0 1.44 + 2.50 + 2.50 + 1.60 = 8.04 |
Our coverage term counts countries and cannot see what is behind them. Remote is the provider that loses most to that blindness.
Its whole pitch is owned entities instead of partner arrangements, which is exactly what a headcount of 90 conceals. A partner network can add a country with a contract. An owned entity takes months, a lawyer and a filed registration.
So if you want the legal employer to be the company you are actually paying, the 4.8 understates Remote badly, and you should read our coverage section instead of this row.
If you need country number 91, no amount of entity ownership helps and the 4.8 is telling you the truth.
These four weights are the whole score. Coverage, pricing transparency and security disclosure are read from published evidence; integration depth is an editorial assessment. Cost friction, offboarding and support quality are not scored and are covered in the body of this review instead.
Full rubric and a worked example on our methodology page.
Methodology and Disclosure
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 or reviews. We may earn a commission if you book a demo or request a quote through links on this page.
This review was produced by our editorial team and was not reviewed or approved by Remote before publication.
Data Sources
Remote pricing page (re-verified 2 August 2026) · G2 and Capterra reviews (Jan–Apr 2026) · Remote help centre documentation and Country Explorer · Companies House UK filings.
Change at this update. The $599 annual EOR rate recorded in our June 2026 review is no longer displayed on Remote’s pricing page, which now shows a single $699 and no annual billing option.
The $599 value remains in that page’s underlying data, so the rate appears to exist while being invisible to buyers. We have repriced this review to the displayed $699 and flagged the effect on our pricing-transparency score.
Research Approach
Assessed across entity model and compliance infrastructure (owned entities in the primary markets, vetted partners elsewhere), country coverage depth and quality, pricing transparency and the no-deposit model, onboarding experience, customer support, and verified user feedback from G2 and Capterra.
No live paid pilot was run and no contract with Remote was signed for this review. Where this page describes platform behaviour, it is drawn from published documentation and user reports, not from our own account.
Tools to Evaluate Remote.com
Provider Coverage Lookup: check which countries each provider covers and compare coverage side by side. EOR vs Entity Break-Even Modeler: find the headcount at which setting up your own entity beats paying EOR fees. Employer Cost & Burden Calculator: turn a gross salary into a realistic total employer cost by country.
WhichPayroll Research used in this review
Pricing Transparency Index: how clearly this provider discloses pricing compared with the rest of the market. EOR Cost Benchmark: published fee ranges and first-year cost context across 17 providers.
Global Payroll Coverage Index: country breadth and owned-entity depth, scored provider by provider. Integration Depth Index: how far HR and finance integrations actually reach.
Security Disclosure Benchmark: SOC 2, ISO 27001 and public security disclosure ratings across providers.