What does an EOR's monthly fee actually pay for?

Summary

It pays for the paperwork of being the employer: the contract, payroll processing, tax and social security filings, benefits administration, and an HR team you can ask questions. It does not pay for the salary, the employer's social contributions, or the premiums on any benefits. Visas and background checks are usually billed on top.

One line out of ten

Remote attaches a CSV to each monthly EOR invoice. The line items are base monthly salary, employer contributions, on-payslip benefits, incentives, expenses, off-payslip costs, other benefits, ad-hoc service costs, the management fee, and tax gross-up. The $699 on Remote's pricing page is the management fee line. Someone earning €70,000 a year draws about €5,833 a month in salary alone, before contributions and benefits, so the fee is a small slice of what you actually pay.

What's in the fee

Providers describe the package in slightly different words, and the contents line up closely:

• Deel: employee onboarding and local compliance, payroll processing and tax filings, benefits administration (healthcare, pensions, and so on), and ongoing HR and legal support.
• Multiplier: compliant employment, locally compliant contracts, payroll processing, tax and statutory filings, benefits administration, onboarding, and ongoing HR support.
• Hire with Columbus: contracts, payroll processing, tax compliance, HR support, and legal protection.
• Remote: onboarding with a dedicated specialist, local payroll, localized benefits, and HR Essentials as standard. ID verification and right-to-work checks are part of onboarding "at no additional cost."

What sits outside it

• Setup and add-ons. Multiplier prints "+ Compliance mandated add-ons" and "+ Implementation fee as applicable" under every plan, with no amounts. Columbus says there are no setup fees, no onboarding costs, and no contract termination fees.
• Country costs. Atlas quotes a platform fee starting at $599 and a separate Local Employer Services rate, a blended charge for mandatory employment costs and the cost of doing business in the country. Multiplier adjusts pricing in about 11% of the countries it supports.
• Benefit premiums. Atlas bills premiums for additional benefits coverage separately.
• Visas. Columbus sells expedited visa processing as a separate service. Deel says immigration prices vary between visa types.
• Background checks. Remote adds them to the monthly invoice after the report is delivered. Columbus offers them separately.

Currency conversion

If you pay a salary in euros and settle the invoice in dollars, the exchange rate is part of the price, and none of these providers publishes its markup as a number. Atlas says its FX rates are based on the OANDA spot rate "with a clearly disclosed markup based on currency type," and that wire and transfer fees are included in the FX fee. Remote locks a fixed rate for each month and says that rate varies with transaction volume, currency volatility, and conversion costs. Columbus says it adds no FX markups.

Sources

• https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/5342270813965-What-s-included-in-your-monthly-EOR-invoice-and-CSV-breakdown
• https://remote.com/pricing
• https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/34566185236237-What-are-Remote-s-Background-Check-Services
• https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/33271144977421-Remote-FX-rate
• https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407227685005
• https://www.deel.com/pricing/
• https://www.deel.com/hr-services/employee-immigration/
• https://www.usemultiplier.com/pricing
• https://hirewithcolumbus.com/pricing/
• https://www.atlashxm.com/pricing

Related on this site

• What an employer of record charges
• What does an employer of record actually take off your hands?
• What does an EOR charge you on top of the monthly fee?
• Is the price on an EOR pricing page the price you'll actually pay?
• How do you add up what one EOR hire really costs in a year?