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The global employment platform for startups

You don't need to endure the headaches of building new legal entities or juggling multiple payroll providers. Whether you're pre-seed with grand plans, a pre-series C startup, or scaling up to list – Remote takes the chaos out of compliance so you can pay and manage a global team with speed.

Loved by thousands of today’s top globally-distributed organizations

Hire, pay, and retain the best talent in the world

Remote handles international onboarding, payroll, taxes, contract generation, compliance, and more so your startup can reach across borders for the perfect hire. You focus on finding the best people while Remote makes managing global HR easy.

  • Hire the best global talent with speed and security

  • Banish your HR burden and refocus on your business

  • Manage all employees and contractors in one intuitive platform

Go from startup to scale-up with the speed of Remote

You can't afford to waste time and our global employment platform is designed to smash bottlenecks. Remote owns entities in every country we operate. You get a comprehensive hub with neat integrations, automated contracts, and compliant payroll management for all your employees and contractors.

  • Hire and pay international employees and independent contractors with ease

    Avoid the steep and costly learning curve of navigating HR, benefits, tax, and payroll compliance in multiple countries. Remote powers international hiring with all the tools needed to hire quickly, while avoiding the costs and risks of going global alone.

  • Consolidated payroll with or without your own entities

    Don't go through the pain and costs of building and maintaining your own legal entities just to start hiring abroad. Remote eliminates administrative errors and keeps you globally compliant so you can focus your HR efforts on sourcing and retaining great talent regardless of where they call home.

  • Get all your employment data in one comprehensive hub

    Easily onboard, manage, and pay both direct employees and individual contractors with just a few clicks on our self-serve platform. Remote also integrates with top HR software systems like BambooHR, Greenhouse, and Bob streamline your HR processes. You get clean visibility of all employee data in one intuitive platform.

  • Give your employees a superior experience with unmatched support

    Remote is purpose-built to streamline HR processes for administrators and employees. Your team get simple access to all important employment information and Remote's expert global support team is always on-hand for admins, employees, and independent contractors to provide specific localized advice.

Make global hiring just as easy as local hiring

Remote acts as your true global employment partner. You get one comprehensive platform to handle onboarding, payroll, and compliance with ease.

  • Offer stock options with expert tax advice

    Foster ownership and morale with your team by offering stock options or equity incentives to international employees. Our global equity expertise keeps you compliant every step of the way, from equity planning to tax withholding and reporting.

  • Rapid onboarding for quick team growth

    Stop spending time responding to employee and contractor queries thanks to our guided onboarding process, intuitive platform (including time off and reimbursement management), and strong self-serve support resources.

  • Manage taxes and compliance across the globe

    Leverage Remote's 100% owned-entity model in 60+ countries, giving you a global footprint without the burden, risk, and cost. Stay compliant during every step of the hiring and employment process with built-in security and proactive monitoring that covers right to hire, payroll, taxes, benefits, and more.

  • Competitive, localized benefits to boost employee retention

    Access country-specific benefits packages at highly-negotiated prices so you can offer equitable, best-in-class benefits to your employees for a fraction of the usual cost. That means you can compete locally for talent on a global scale.

World-leading global businesses choose Remote

  • Managed relocation, work permits, and visas

    Keep your talent no matter where they go with Remote's in-built relocation expertise. Remote ensures the correct right-to-work permissions are in place to keep employment agreements globally compliant during cross-border moves.

  • Easily convert independent contractors to employees

    Stay ahead of investor scrutiny, avoid misclassification penalties, and retain top talent with Remote's in-built guidance on converting contractors to employees.

  • Ironclad IP protection to maintain ownership

    Protect your startup's IP and invention rights with Remote's rock-solid security provisions. We monitor changes in IP law and update agreements and protections constantly to keep your business protected.

  • Best-in-class service from Remote's global HR experts

    Our team of Remote customer support experts are on-hand right across the world to offer you the help and support you need at any stage of the employment process.

Attract, employ, and retain a team, from inception to IPO

Questions startups should ask before outsourcing payroll

Startups use payroll software not only to ensure their growing teams receive accurate, reliable pay, but also as an essential growth tool. Because startups grow so quickly, their needs in payroll software may be different from the needs of other businesses or enterprises. For example, startups often hire lots of new people very quickly. A payroll software solution with slow onboarding or a limited footprint may not be able to handle a startup’s needs, causing the company to miss out on key talent.

In the era of remote work, many startups are turning to international hires to fill key roles. In these situations, traditional payroll service providers typically cannot help, leaving startups frustrated while they burn cash waiting for the right hire. An employer of record, or EOR, can allow a startup to hire employees in any number of countries, freeing founders from the restrictions of slower payroll services.

Startups can even find special deals on payroll software if they look in the right places. Many payroll providers offer unique discounts for startups to help them grow.

In most cases, startups cannot run their own payroll for a local team, let alone payroll for a remote team with workers in multiple countries. Managing payroll manually might work for a short time and a small team, but as the company grows, it does not make sense for the leadership team to spend time managing the details of payroll administration. Payroll is a tricky process that can take a long time to complete without the assistance of outside help. Even for the smallest teams, outsourced payroll usually makes good financial sense.

In short: because not outsourcing HR services is more expensive for startups. Small, quickly growing companies cannot spare the resources or the time necessary to manage every HR function in house. This is not to say startups should not have HR teams — on the contrary, great HR leaders are invaluable for startups looking to scale past a certain point. However, building an entire HR team to handle payroll, benefits, taxes, compliance, and stock options does not make financial or operational sense, especially when services exist to handle all of these tasks for startups specifically.

Even the largest enterprises outsource many of their HR services. Want to hire someone in a new country? An employer of record is a type of outsourced HR that can help. Need to run a compensation review? There are companies and resources for that, too. For startups, where every resource is best dedicated toward the company’s central mission, outsourcing HR services is the most sensible course of action.

Outsourcing payroll allows startups to save time, conserve budget for more mission-critical uses, and ensure that everyone who works for the company has a great experience. Nothing can kill a team’s momentum like a round of missed payroll or benefits that don’t actually work. As much as startup employees want to build something great, they also want to be paid on time, access their health insurance, save for retirement, and take time off. Keeping these functions in house not only takes up valuable time for startup leaders, but can even create animosity between team members and the leadership team if something goes wrong.

By outsourcing payroll, startups can offload a time-consuming and sensitive process while greatly reducing the number of errors and frustrations employees experience. Which is more likely to succeed: a team of people who are constantly battling to get their salary payments corrected, or a team of people who can rely on regular deposits and are free to focus on the startup’s core goals?

Of course, every company and situation is unique. That’s why it’s important for startups to consider all the reasons to outsource payroll before deciding on a course of action or specific provider.

Startups face different payroll challenges than small businesses do. Startups tend to grow quickly and in spurts, especially after new rounds of funding. A startup’s core focus may even pivot from one product or service area to a new one, leading the company to consider a whole new range of hires than previously anticipated. Small businesses grow too, of course, but they do not face the same unpredictability that startups deal with, especially in early phases of growth.

Startups and small businesses both need payroll that is reliable, but startups also need more flexibility and speed. An established small business may be able to wait a long time to fill a key role, but for a startup, every week that goes by without a key position filled is a week with slower growth and more cash burn. Because of this, startups need to be able to onboard new people quickly, even when those people come with unusual challenges — for example, international hires. A startup handling payroll in house does not have the legal resources or the infrastructure to handle international hiring. But, by working with a payroll service provider with startups in mind, growing businesses can bring in the talent they need quickly, easily, and affordably.

Payroll services for startups vary in cost, but there are several ways startups can minimize expense while maximizing growth. First, startups should see if there are any payroll providers offering special discounts for startups. These discounts might include onboarding a certain number of employees for a free or reduced rate, as well as additional services, like help managing an employee stock options plan.

When the time comes to compare payroll service providers, startups should prioritize transparency in pricing. Most startups can’t afford to pay hefty deposits. They also require predictable expenses, which means payroll services that have hidden fees or charge a percentage of employee salaries are not ideal for startups. Remote’s Fair Price Guarantee helps startups keep costs predictable by guaranteeing no hidden fees, or unpleasant surprises. For startups looking to hire workers in other countries, Remote offers low flat-rate pricing, making it easy for growing companies to scale their global teams.

An EOR, or employer of record, is a type of payroll service that allows startups to hire workers in other countries legally, quickly, and easily. However, not all EORs offer the same services or provide the same experience. Many older EORs charge exorbitant fees and cater exclusively to enterprise companies, giving startups the impression they cannot access global talent without paying high rates. Fortunately, that is not the case. EORs like Remote allow startups to access the same great global talent as the world’s largest companies at startup-friendly prices.

Price is not the only factor when evaluating EORs, however. Startups should also ask the following questions to ensure they work with the right EOR partner:

  • Does this EOR actually own entities in other countries or just resell the services of a third-party provider?

  • Can the EOR guarantee protection for the startup’s mission-critical intellectual property and invention rights?

  • Does the EOR have the security features necessary to protect company and employee information?

  • For startups offering equity to employees, can the EOR help manage that equity plan across international borders, including tax withholding?

  • Can the EOR also handle international contractor management?

  • Does the EOR charge extra for basic services like benefits administration?

  • Are there any special discounts for startups available?

Don’t just take our word for it

See how we help customers simply hire, pay and manage their team

  • “We’re a publicly listed company, so we needed the stability and reliability of a well-known brand to help us scale; with the support, the roadmap, and the ability to support multiple countries — and handle all the compliance wherever we wanted to hire. Remote immediately ticked all those boxes."
  • "Remote is a very strong partner for us. Onboarding is easy and everything is compliant, from their benefits, payroll, contract and other nuances specific to that particular country. The platform is very easy and straightforward for the new joiners, which wasn't the case with our previous provider. It’s a better experience for our global workforce."
  • “Remote has been instrumental in our growth. It would have been impossible to manage such a high volume of hires internally without their support. They provide the whole package, combined with great account management.”

How to compare the best global HR and payroll software for your company

  • Pricing

  • EOR Capabilities

  • Global Payroll Capabilities

  • Contractor Capabilities

  • Security

  • Integrations

Remote
Rippling

Employees

$599 per employee per month

Starts at $500 per employee per month, up to $600

Additional fees for employees

No additional fees

Unknown

Contractors

$29 per contractor per month: only pay for the contractors you actually work with

No public pricing

Additional fees for contractors

3.5% credit card processing fee

Unknown

Global Payroll

$50 per employee per month

No public pricing

Additional fees for global payroll

Implementation: 1 month of payroll

Year-end closing: 1 month of payroll

Optional country-specific services apply separately

Unknown

Startups

15% discount on Remote service fees for an unlimited number of hires for 12 months with the code RFS15OFF

No startup program

Social Purpose Organizations (nonprofits, charities, social enterprises, benefit corporations)

15% discount on Remote service fees for an unlimited number of hires for 12 months with the code RFG15OFF

No social purpose organization program

Hiring Refugee Talent

Free for any full-time refugee talent hired

No refugee talent program

Owned entities

100% fully owned entities

Country Explorer

Limited country availability

Localized benefits package and administration

Ironclad IP and invention rights protection

Equity incentive planning support

Employee mobile app

Transparent service metrics

None

Number of countries supported

21 coming soon

Not public

Government / Labor authority declarations

Tax authority declarations

Reporting

Payroll support

Global payments

Exchange fees

Mid-market rate plus 1%

Unknown

Locally compliant contracts

Tax document management

Localized guidance for hiring contractors in each country

Contractor payment methods

Wire transfer, Wise, Payoneer

Unknown

Contractor payment card

Contractor health benefits

GDPR Compliant

SOC 2 Compliant

ISO 27001 Certified

Customizable API

Greenhouse

BambooHR

HiBob

Personio

Coming soon

See our detailed comparison of Rippling vs Remote

* Competitive data on this page was collected as of June 24th, 2021 and is subject to change or update. Remote does not make any representations as to the completeness or accuracy of the information on this page.

Detailed comparison

Unlock global talent the smart way with Remote's rock-solid compliance record

Remote's Fair Price Guarantee means no commitments, hidden fees, or surprises. Flat, transparent pricing of $599 per employee per month. Simple.

Exclusive offer

Take advantage of Remote's exclusive startup offer

Enroll your startup now and get 15% off Remote's Employer of Record and Contractor Management services for 12 months.

Modern benefits
  • Get 15% off Remote employer of record services on all full-time hires made in your first year with Remote. Available for annual plans only.

  • Get 15% off Contractor Management during your first year with Remote.

Is your startup eligible?

To qualify, you must have raised pre-seed, seed, or Series A funding from a venture capital firm, accelerator, incubator, or other startup-enabling organization.

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