An Employer of Record (EOR) lets a company hire someone in a country where it has no legal entity. The EOR becomes the legal employer on paper, runs payroll, withholds tax and carries the compliance risk, while you direct the day-to-day work.

Published US EOR fees run from $199 to $699 per employee per month. That is a 3.5x spread for what is, on paper, the same service, and the vendor lists never explain which end of it you belong at.

Here is the part most comparisons skip: most people shopping for a "US EOR" do not need one. An EOR exists to employ people where you have no entity. If you are a US company that already has a US entity, you have the entity, and what you actually want is a PEO or plain payroll. The same vendors sell you that for roughly a fifth of the price. Deel publishes $599 per EOR employee per month and $125 per US PEO employee per month - Deel pricing. Oyster publishes $699 and $114. Remote publishes $699 and $99. Buying the wrong one of the two costs about $5,700 per employee per year for nothing.

So the real US EOR buyer is almost always a foreign company (a UK, EU, Indian or Australian business hiring its first American) or a US company placing one hire in a state where registering an entity is not yet worth the paperwork. This guide is written for that buyer.

Two things also changed under the market's feet. Velocity Global, which topped lists like this one for years, rebranded to Pebl in September 2025. Skuad was acquired by Payoneer and is now sold as Payoneer Workforce Management. Any comparison written before late 2025 is quoting brands that no longer answer to those names.

1. Do You Actually Need an EOR, or a PEO?

This is the only question on the page that can save you five figures, so answer it first. The distinction is not marketing: it is a difference in who legally employs the person.

An EOR is the legal employer. It owns the entity, the payroll registration and the liability, and it hires your worker on your behalf. You need no US presence at all, which is exactly why a Berlin or Bangalore company can put an American on payroll in a couple of weeks. A PEO is a co-employer. You keep your own entity and your own FEIN, and the PEO administers payroll, benefits and HR alongside you. You cannot use a PEO without a US entity, and the co-employment model does not travel outside the US at all.

The practical test is one line: if you have a US entity, you want a PEO. Deel's $125, Oyster's $114 and Remote's $99 per employee per month are all PEO prices, against EOR prices of $599, $699 and $699 at the same three vendors.

What the US EOR fee is actually absorbing is worth knowing, because it explains why the cheap tier can be cheap. On top of gross salary, a US employer owes the 7.65% employer share of FICA (6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base, plus 1.45% Medicare) - IRS Topic 751. It owes FUTA, which is 6.0% on the first $7,000 of wages but nets down to roughly 0.6% (about $42 a year) once the standard state credit applies. It owes state unemployment insurance, which is priced per state and per employer history. And in every state except Texas, where private employers may opt out, it must carry workers' compensation insurance.

Each of those obligations is registered per state, not once nationally. That is the real product you are buying: an EOR that already holds registrations, SUI accounts and workers' comp coverage in the state your candidate lives in. Ask any vendor which states it is already registered in before you sign, because "we cover the US" and "we are registered in Washington" are not the same claim.

2. How We Evaluated These Providers

We looked at the EOR providers a US-bound buyer will actually be quoted by, and judged them on what is checkable rather than what is claimed. Every price below was read off the vendor's own published pricing page in July 2026, or is marked as unpublished where the vendor does not publish one.

We dropped the G2 star ratings that lists like this one usually carry. Across this whole category they cluster between 4.0 and 4.7, they are heavily shaped by vendor-run review programs, and a 4.6 versus a 4.4 tells you nothing about whether a provider is registered in Oregon. We replaced that field with the caveat that actually matters for each vendor.

• Introduction: what the service is and who runs it.
• Published US price: the rate on the vendor's own page, not an estimate.
• Key feature: the genuine differentiator.
• Watch out for: the honest limitation.
• Best for: the buyer it actually fits.

The order below is not a leaderboard, because "best" depends entirely on whether you are optimising for coverage, for price, or for a specific product like immigration or global payroll. Instead the providers are grouped by the job they are the right answer to. Start with the group that matches your situation and ignore the rest.

3. The Two Default Choices

If you have no strong constraint and you just want a large, well-capitalised EOR that will be registered in whichever state your hire lives in, these two are the shortlist. They are also the two most expensive of the transparent providers, and that is not a coincidence: you are paying for owned entities, in-house counsel and a support bench.

1. Deel

Deel is the largest player in the category and the most complete US offering, covering EOR, US PEO, contractors and payroll on one platform in 150+ countries.

Published US price

$599 per EOR employee per month. US PEO is $125 per employee per month, contractors start at $49 per contractor per month, and Contractor of Record is $325 per contractor per month - Deel pricing.

Key feature

It publishes the EOR price and the US PEO price side by side, so you can see which product you actually need before a sales call. Very few competitors do this.

Watch out for

It is roughly 3x the published price of the budget tier for the same US EOR job. There is no free trial, so you are booking a demo to get a per-state quote.

Best for

Foreign companies making their first few US hires who want the safest default and can absorb the premium.

2. Remote

Remote is Deel's closest peer, built on owned entities rather than partner networks, with a strong reputation for IP and equity handling.

Published US price

$699 per employee per month for EOR. US PEO starts at $99 per employee per month, contractor management is $29 per contractor per month, and global payroll is $29 per employee per month - Remote pricing.

Key feature

The cheapest published US PEO rate of the major providers at $99, and unusually clear handling of stock options for employees hired through the EOR.

Watch out for

At $699 it is the most expensive published US EOR fee on this list, $100 a month above Deel for a broadly comparable service.

Best for

Companies granting equity to US hires, and anyone who wants owned entities rather than a partner chain.

4. The Budget Tier

Three providers publish US EOR pricing at around $199 per employee per month, which is a third of what the defaults charge. This is a real saving and not a trick, but it buys a thinner product: smaller support teams, more reliance on in-country partners rather than owned entities, and fewer adjacent modules. For a company placing one or two US employees and running its own HR, that trade is usually correct. For a company placing thirty across twelve states, it usually is not.

3. RemoFirst

RemoFirst (frequently misspelled "RemoteFirst", including in the previous version of this article) is the price leader among the credible international EORs, covering 185+ countries.

Published US price

EOR starts at $199 per person per month. Contractor management has a free tier, with premium contractors at $25 per person per month, and its RemoHealth insurance add-on starts at $55 per person per month - RemoFirst pricing.

Key feature

No setup, onboarding or termination fees, and no minimums, which matters when you are hiring one person rather than a team.

Watch out for

The $199 is a starting rate and varies by country requirements. Health insurance is a separate line item here, where the pricier providers fold benefits administration into the headline fee.

Best for

Startups and SMBs making a small number of US hires who are comfortable managing more themselves.

4. Remote People

Remote People is an EOR that also runs a recruitment arm, which is an unusual combination in this category.

Published US price

US EOR from $199 per employee per month, covering employment contracts, multi-state payroll, FICA and FUTA compliance and statutory benefits.

Key feature

EOR and recruitment from one vendor, with candidate shortlists quoted at five days and payment on hire.

Watch out for

It is a far smaller company than the others here, so do your own diligence on which US states it is registered in. Its "lowest price on the market" positioning no longer holds: RemoFirst and Payoneer Workforce Management publish the same $199.

Best for

Startups that want to source the candidate and employ them through the same provider.

5. Multiplier

Multiplier sits between the budget tier and the defaults, and is the mid-market compromise for buyers who find $199 too thin and $599 too rich.

Published US price

$400 per employee per month for EOR, with contractors at $40 per active contract per month and no setup or offboarding fees - Multiplier pricing.

Key feature

A flat fee that does not change between month one and offboarding, where several competitors add termination surcharges.

Watch out for

Multiplier's rate card does not render for plain HTTP clients, so the $400 is harder to independently verify than Deel's or Remote's. Get it in writing.

Best for

SMBs expanding into the US who want more support than the $199 tier without paying the leader premium.

5. The Specialists

These three are rarely the right answer for a single US hire, but each is the clear answer to a specific problem. Two of the three do not publish a rate at all, which tells you what kind of deal they expect to do.

6. Oyster

Oyster is a B Corp with a strong compliance and documentation reputation, aimed at distributed teams.

Published US price

$699 per employee per month for EOR. US PEO is $114 per employee per month, contractors are $29 per contractor per month after a 30-day free period, and advisory time is $300 per hour - Oyster pricing.

Key feature

Hourly access to People Partner advisory, which is genuinely useful if you have no HR function at all.

Watch out for

The rate has moved. Older comparisons (including the previous version of this article) still quote $499, and the current published figure is $699. Verify before you budget.

Best for

Fully distributed SMBs that want compliance depth and advisory rather than the cheapest fee.

7. Papaya Global

Papaya Global is a payments-first platform: it treats global payroll and the money movement itself as the product, with EOR as one module on top.

Published US price

Papaya publishes a rate card of per-employee-per-month line items rather than one EOR number, ranging from $3.50 at the payments-only end up to $499 at the top of the range - Papaya Global pricing. Note that third-party trackers still quote $650 and up for its EOR, so get your specific configuration quoted in writing.

Key feature

Licensed payments infrastructure and workforce spend reporting, which is why finance teams tend to like it more than HR teams do.

Watch out for

Because the offering is split into payroll, payments and EOR line items, the headline number depends on which combination you buy. It is the hardest provider here to compare like-for-like against Deel's $599.

Best for

Companies with existing global payroll complexity where the US is one country among many.

8. Pebl (formerly Velocity Global)

Pebl is the company that used to be Velocity Global, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Denver. It rebranded in September 2025 and shipped an AI-first platform alongside the new name. The EOR model, entity network and team are unchanged.

Published US price

None. Pebl describes a flat monthly fee per employee but publishes no figure, and directs buyers to a custom quote.

Key feature

Deep immigration and M&A support, which is where it consistently outperforms the flat-rate platforms.

Watch out for

No published rate means no way to sanity-check a quote against this page. Independent reviews put it at the premium end.

Best for

Enterprises with visa requirements or an acquisition to absorb, not a company hiring one American.

6. Two Providers on Most "EOR" Lists That Are Not EORs

Both of the following appear on nearly every "best US EOR" list, including the previous version of this one. Neither is an EOR. They are PEOs, and the distinction is the whole point of section 1: a PEO co-employs alongside your entity, so if you do not have a US entity, neither of these can help you at all.

They are still worth knowing about, because if you do have a US entity, they are competing for your business against Deel's $125 and Remote's $99, and they will usually beat the EORs on benefits buying power while losing on software.

9. ADP TotalSource

ADP TotalSource is ADP's PEO: co-employment, payroll, benefits, risk management and training for US employees, backed by the largest payroll company in the country.

Published US price

None. ADP quotes per client.

Watch out for

It requires a US entity, and it is not an international solution. It cannot employ your American if you are a foreign company with no US presence.

Best for

US mid-market and enterprise companies that want to outsource HR, not companies entering the US.

10. TriNet

TriNet is a PEO offering industry-specific HR bundles for small and mid-sized US businesses, with particular depth in technology and financial services.

Published US price

None. TriNet quotes per client.

Watch out for

Same constraint as ADP: co-employment requires your own US entity. TriNet's own comparison material makes the PEO versus EOR distinction explicitly.

Best for

US SMBs in tech and finance that already have an entity and want richer benefits than a startup can buy alone.

7. Published U.S. Pricing at a Glance

All figures below were read from each vendor's own pricing page in July 2026. They are platform fees only: none of them include salary, employer taxes, or benefits.

The spread in the first column is the story. Between RemoFirst at $199 and Remote at $699 there is $6,000 per employee per year of difference, and the legal outcome (a compliantly employed American) is identical. What differs is who absorbs the work when something goes wrong in month seven.

8. What the Headline Fee Leaves Out

Every number on this page is a platform fee. Your invoice is the platform fee plus gross salary plus the employer burden, and in the US that burden runs roughly 10% to 15% of salary once FICA, FUTA, state unemployment insurance and workers' comp are stacked up. On a $120,000 engineer, the EOR fee is a rounding error next to the $12,000 to $18,000 of statutory cost sitting underneath it.

Four items reliably surprise first-time buyers, and all four are worth raising in the first call rather than the first invoice. Deposits come first: several providers hold one to two months of total employment cost as security, which is a real cash-flow event for a small company. Then FX, where a 1% to 1.5% spread on converting your home currency into dollars is standard but rarely itemised. Then termination: US employment is at-will in most states, but your EOR contract is not, and notice periods on the vendor agreement are where the surprise lives. Finally, misclassification. If you are using contractors today and converting to employees, ask directly who carries the liability for the period before the conversion.

The practical move is to make every vendor quote you a total landed cost for one specific candidate, in one specific state, at one specific salary. Providers who will do that on the first call are usually the ones whose published rate is close to their real one.

9. How to Choose

Work through it in this order and the decision collapses quickly. If you have a US entity, stop reading the EOR columns and price PEOs: Remote at $99, Oyster at $114, Deel at $125, plus ADP TotalSource and TriNet for benefits depth. You will save around $500 per employee per month for the same legal outcome.

If you have no US entity, the choice is a straight trade between price and support. Under five US hires, running your own HR, cost-sensitive: start at RemoFirst's $199 or Remote People's $199, and accept that you are doing more yourself. Five or more hires, multiple states, or you want one throat to choke: Deel at $599 or Remote at $699, with Multiplier at $400 as the middle path. Equity for US hires pushes you toward Remote. Immigration or an acquisition pushes you toward Pebl. Existing multi-country payroll pushes you toward Papaya.

Whichever way it lands, ask the same three questions of every finalist: which US states are you already registered in, what is the total landed monthly cost for this exact candidate, and what happens on termination. If you are also standing up the hiring side of a US expansion, the sourcing problem is a separate one: tools like HeroHunt.ai handle finding and contacting the candidates, and the EOR only comes in once you have someone to employ. For a wider view beyond the US, see our guide to the best Employer of Record providers globally.

Written by Yuma Heymans (@yumahey), who built HeroHunt.ai, the world's first AI Recruiter, now used by 15,000+ recruiters to source and engage talent across borders. This guide reflects published pricing as of July 2026: EOR rate cards move, so verify the current figure on the vendor's own page before you budget.