Most multinational payroll providers charge a fee per full-time employee and a smaller fee for contractors. While not every vendor discloses its initial pricing scheme online, since many will provide a custom quote upon requesting a demo, we’ve put together the following chart for your convenience:

Note: All figures are in USD.‍

When we speak about global payroll, it means much more than paying people internationally, likely with a money transfer company, and using a different system to manage and onboard them. In the full sense of the term, global payroll should let you do all this while offering the following services or payroll models: 

• Global employment services: This is when you don’t own a business entity where your remote employees live, so the provider will be employing your workers on your behalf acting as an Employer of Record. This is essential if you intend to hire people full-time in a country and you don’t plan on opening a new branch where they live. Precisely because of that, it’s a good way to go if you plan on hiring as little as 1 person or a bigger team. 
• Contractor payment services: On the other hand, we have the case where you have a worker, or workers, abroad, but either side prefers contractor status as opposed to full-time employment. Essentially, this means that the worker acts more as a service provider and is legally a self-employed person. An international payroll company should also offer this type of service, with a key component being the assurance of full legal compliance. In other words, a global payroll provider not only helps with managing payments to a contractor, but ensures that all the local legal requirements of working with said contractor are met and avoids non-compliance. 
• Localized payroll services: Then we have the case of a company having a legal entity in a country, but needing a payroll solution anyway. Naturally, most global payroll providers can help with this as well, since they don’t need to employ the workers for you in order to process payroll for them. In that case, they’re able to handle payroll and benefits just like any local payroll provider would, while you are the legal employer of your people and thus responsible for the legal obligations that stem from that relationship. 
  

As you probably imagine, multi-country payroll partners can offer a mix and match of these services, letting you choose different methods for different countries depending on what’s more comfortable and efficient for you at the moment.

As with any software purchase, once you select 2-3 options for your global payroll provider, you should give each of them a try, likely through a demo, and maybe even by doing a free trial. With both scenarios, it’s a good idea to step into the process with a list of the key questions you need to answer in hand. 

To put this list together, you should consult each stakeholder within your team, including remote employees and contractors overseas. This list should reflect your unique business needs when it comes to employing people in different countries, but we’ve put together a basic list to get you started: 

• Which countries do we need payroll in, or do we plan on needing payroll in, and in which of those do we need the full service, such as EoR? 
• What kind of benefits would I like to offer to my global workforce?
• What are the key features I want to try out and validate?
• What kind of workflows are possible and maybe automated? 
• How will this solution fit into the rest of my tech stack and therefore what integrations do I need?
• How will others in the organization use this solution?
• How can this tool improve the experience of our workers? 
• What are the things that would make me or my coworkers nervous about switching our current processes to this platform? 
• How is employee data kept safe if trusted to this vendor? 
• What conclusions can I start to make about the quality of customer support? Is there a help center? Are the support articles clear and easy to read? 
• How will this solution fit our current plans for global expansion? 

We’ll now expand into one of the points we touched upon above: what are your alternatives if you decide that global payroll software is not the way to go for you just yet? Mainly, these are the two following: 

1. Payroll services: Most of the vendors we mentioned offer a combination of payroll services and a platform from where to manage and keep track of them. But of course, you could also opt for partnering with a company and letting them take care of it themselves. This likely requires that you get more familiar with each kind of payroll service and the type of fees they charge. It will also likely require much more direct communication with those payroll professionals. ‍
2. Money transfer companies: The other option is to just solve the issue of international money transfer. If your contractors overseas are okay with handling taxes & benefits themselves, this can be a less costly and time-consuming option, particularly helpful while you figure out what to do in the long term. There are many ways to pay people internationally these days, but we’ve put together some of the more convenient and trustworthy ones:

What is Global Payroll?

The term “global payroll” refers to the compensation that a company needs to make to its foreign employees, independent contractors, and freelancers. Typically handled by the HR or finance departments, it includes salaries, tax withholdings, invoicing, benefits, bonuses, PTO, overtime, commissions, and of course, international bank transfers. 

What is an ERO? 

ERO stands for ‘Employer of Record’. It is an essential component of an international compliant payroll, since it’s what most providers use in order to be the legal employer of a worker in their country. Through this practice, a company doesn’t need to set up a legal entity in that country in order to stay compliant with the local labor laws. 

What are the best international payroll companies?  

To sum up, these are the best software and services providers in the field of global payroll according to our extensive research:  

• PayFit: Localized payroll operations for the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. 
• Papaya Global: Hire and pay all employee types in 140+ countries.
• Deel: Payroll and savvy local expertise for remote international employees.
• Remote: HR services & payroll platform for remote teams. 
• Globalization Partners: Global Employer of Record platform. 
• ADP GlobalView: International payroll made for large enterprises.
• Workday: Full HCM suite with multi country payroll capabilities.