# Oyster

> Employer of record and contractor payments in 120+ countries

Oyster lets companies hire, pay and manage people in other countries without opening a local entity. As employer of record it employs full-time staff in 120+ countries and runs their payroll, expenses and time off, and its contractor product issues contracts and pays freelancers in 180+ countries. HR advice, benefits and visa help are sold on top.

- **Category:** Payroll
- **Made by:** Oyster HR, Inc.
- **Website:** https://www.oysterhr.com
- **Runs on:** Web
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026

## Pricing

Oyster is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $29 per contractor / month, after 30 days free.

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** Global Contractors is free for the first 30 days.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Global Contractors | $29 per contractor / month, after 30 days free | Contracts in 180+ countries, payments in 120+ currencies, ID checks, invoice and expense handling and a misclassification analyzer. |
| Employer of Record | $699 per employee / month, billed monthly | Employment in 120+ countries with multi-currency payroll, expenses, time off, onboarding specialists and local experts. Annual seats cost less. |

Read from https://www.oysterhr.com/pricing on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Oyster before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Startup discount of up to $1,200 per hire** (Startups): Companies that raised pre-seed, seed or Series A, or are bootstrapped with under 50 employees, save up to $1,200 per team member on EOR fees in their first 12 months. Source: https://www.oysterhr.com/startups
- **Oyster for Impact discounts** (Nonprofit): Certified nonprofits and B Corporations anywhere can enroll in Oyster for Impact for discounts on Oyster's global employment products. Source: https://www.oysterhr.com/oyster-for-impact
- **Lower EOR fee with annual seats** (Annual discount): Oyster sells Employer of Record seats billed annually at a reduced fee; the pricing page does not give the figure. Source: https://www.oysterhr.com/pricing
- **Oyster for Refugees** (Other savings): Companies hiring refugee talent through Oyster can do so at no cost or at a discount, according to its pricing page. Source: https://www.oysterhr.com/pricing

## Key features

- **Employer of record:** Hire full-time staff in 120+ countries without a local entity; Oyster employs them and handles onboarding, offboarding and local compliance.
- **Multi-country payroll:** Pays team members in 120+ currencies, with expenses, time off and reports handled in the same platform.
- **Global contractors:** Generate contracts in 180+ countries, verify identity, approve invoices and expenses, and check the risk of misclassifying a worker.
- **Reusable annual seats:** Annual EOR seats cost less than monthly billing and can be reused for a new hire or a backfill when someone leaves.
- **Add-on services:** Benefits packages, visa sponsorship, salary bands for 130+ countries and Oyster Shell misclassification cover of up to $500,000.
- **Integrations and API:** Approve time off and expenses in Slack, sync data from ATS and HRIS tools such as Ashby and Workable, link 5,000+ apps through Zapier, or use the API.

## Good for

- Startups making their first hires in other countries
- Teams paying contractors in many countries and currencies
- Nonprofits and B Corps eligible for its impact discounts

## Worth knowing

- HR advice from People Partner Services is billed at $300 an hour, and benefits, visas and Oyster Shell cover cost extra.
- Each EOR hire needs a refundable deposit, and a conversion fee applies if you pay in a currency other than the contract's.
- Covers 120+ countries for EOR and 180+ for contractors; the pricing page does not list them. Billing is in USD, EUR, GBP or CAD.
- It runs in a web browser; the pages read mention no mobile app.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. Oyster employs people for you in 120+ countries and pays contractors in 180+, with discounts for startups, nonprofits and B Corps. Contractors are $29 a month each after 30 days free. But employer of record is $699 a person a month, the highest monthly rate of its kind here, and it's web only.

- **Value for money: D.** Graded against the other employer-of-record services: $699 a person a month billed monthly, $3,495 for five, $100 a head more than Deel and Remote and the dearest here. Annual seats cost less, but the page gives no figure.
- **Free plan and trial: C.** Global Contractors is free for the first 30 days, and opening an account costs nothing. Employer of record has no trial, so the main product is paid from the first hire.
- **Features: C.** Employer of record in 120+ countries and contractors in 180+, with ID checks and a misclassification checker. Hiring abroad is covered, but the listing shows no payroll for your own entities and no US PEO, which Deel and Remote both sell.
- **Ease of use: C.** No App Store rating on record. Onboarding specialists help, but each EOR hire needs a refundable deposit and setting up with Oyster's team.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web only, with no mobile app in the pages read, but it links to Slack, Ashby and Workable and to 5,000+ apps through Zapier, and there's an API.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Oyster's own pages on 17 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among payroll services

- Oyster's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 1 of the 18 other payroll services we grade, and level with 1.
- It stands best on platforms and integrations (B, above 2 of 18) and worst on value for money (D, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $29 a month for each person, against a middle price of $29 for the category: 4 of the 13 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 2 tools score higher and cost less.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/payroll

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Oyster you would be making payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 16 of the 18 other payroll services grade higher. It costs $348 a year.

- You could make: Expense tracking: an app builder makes this well.
- You could not: Payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you.
- You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team.
- You could not: It plugs into other products, Slack, Zapier and Ashby among them, and has an API.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## Works with

Slack, Zapier, Ashby, Workable

**Tags:** Payroll, Expense tracking, Public API

## Alternatives

- [Deel](https://toolgpa.com/tools/deel): Global payroll, contractor payments and employer of record. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/deel-vs-oyster)
- [Remote](https://toolgpa.com/tools/remote): Employer of record, global payroll and contractor payments. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/oyster-vs-remote)
- [Rippling](https://toolgpa.com/tools/rippling): HR, IT and finance platform with US and global payroll, by quote. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/oyster-vs-rippling)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026:

- https://www.oysterhr.com/pricing
- https://www.oysterhr.com/startups
- https://www.oysterhr.com/oyster-for-impact
- https://www.oysterhr.com/integrations

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/oyster
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).