Contractor Payments
Deel or Remote: which is cheaper for paying contractors?
Remote, at $29 a contractor a month against $49 — $1,200 a year cheaper for a team of 5. The order reverses if you also employ someone: Deel's employer-of-record fee is $599 a month to Remote's $699. Checked September 2026.
Revised against the dataset Sep 2026. Every figure below is dated where it stands, and the dataset behind it is rechecked at least every 90 days.
Disclosure Links to providers on this page earn this site nothing. They go to the provider’s own site unmodified, with no tracking parameters. If that ever changes, this notice changes with it. Full disclosure.
For contractors only
Remote charges $29 per contractor per month and Deel $49, both quoted month to month. The $20 difference per seat is small on one contractor and adds up on several: $1,740 against $2,940 for 5 contractors over a year.
Both prices cover the platform managing contracts and sending payments. Neither includes taking on the legal risk that a contractor is really an employee; both sell that separately as a contractor-of-record service at a much higher monthly price, which is not what this comparison prices.
- 5 contractors, one year
- $1,740
- One EOR employee, one year
- $8,388
- Per contractor / month
- $29
- Per EOR employee / month
- $699
- 5 contractors, one year
- $2,940
- One EOR employee, one year
- $7,188
- Per contractor / month
- $49
- Per EOR employee / month
- $599
Every figure here was checked against the provider’s own page in Sep 2026. Figures are rechecked at least every 90 days; one past that is marked “Recheck due”.
Segments show the tier reached, not the score:BasicStandardStrongExcellent
If you also employ someone abroad
The employer-of-record fee is what a platform charges to be the legal employer of someone in a country where you have no company. Here the order flips: Deel charges $599 a month and Remote $699, a gap of $1,200 a year per employee.
The two effects pull in opposite directions, so the cheaper platform depends on the mix. Each contractor costs $240 a year less at Remote; each employee costs $1,200 a year less at Deel. They balance at 5 contractors per employee — with 5 contractors and one employee, both come to exactly $10,128 a year in platform fees. More contractors per employee than that favours Remote; fewer favours Deel. Salary, employer taxes and benefits come on top at either, and are the same whichever you use.
Neither is the cheapest option
Deel and Remote are the two names most people compare, but the full table has cheaper published prices on both services. Oyster matches Remote's contractor price, Multiplier publishes a lower EOR fee on annual billing, and Papaya Global's contractor price starts far lower for larger payrolls. Read the price-basis column before comparing: annual-only and starting-from prices are not like-for-like with a monthly one.
Related questions
- Does either charge the contractor to be paid?
- Neither pricing page states a fee charged to the contractor for receiving payment, so it is not part of this comparison. Payout fees and exchange rates vary by country and method; check them for the countries you pay into.
- Are there setup fees?
- Remote's pricing page states it charges no platform, onboarding or setup fees as standard. Deel's pricing page does not list one for the contractor plan.
- Which covers more countries?
- Each counts differently, so the figures are shown but not compared: Deel publishes 150+, Remote 90+ (EOR). Check that the specific countries you hire in are supported.
Sources
Rules and deadlines above are read from these primary sources. Prices come from the comparison dataset and are dated where they stand.
- Deel: pricingRead Sep 2026
- Remote: pricingRead Sep 2026