Oyster Pricing
Oyster’s published EOR rate of $599-$699/employee/month puts it at the higher end of the mid-market bracket.
For a team of 10, you are looking at $72,000-$84,000/year in platform fees alone, before deposits, FX spreads, and benefits markups that can push your actual cost 20-30% above the headline.
What you get for that premium is a platform that reviewers consistently call the easiest to use in the category (G2 4.4/5, 1,040+ reviews) and an all-inclusive base fee with no setup, onboarding, or contract amendment charges.
Whether that UX premium justifies the price is a question your HR team and your Finance team will answer differently, and the answer matters because these are the two teams who will live with the consequences of your choice.
Check Oyster’s current pricing and plans
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What does Oyster charge?
Published prices by product
Oyster publishes pricing for three products. The EOR rate of $599-$699/employee/month is transparent but sits $200-$300 above budget providers like Multiplier (~$400) and Remofirst ($199).
Contractor management at $29/month is genuinely competitive, cheaper than Deel ($49) and most mid-market alternatives.
| Product | Published price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| EOR | $599-$699/employee/month | All-inclusive: no setup, onboarding, or amendment fees |
| Global Payroll (own entity) | $25/employee/month | Limited to 26-28 countries |
| Contractor Management | $29/contractor/month | 30-day free trial; 180+ countries |
| Scale plan (platform) | Custom quote | For larger deployments; volume discounts likely but not published |
Source: Oyster pricing page, verified March 2026.
What the global payroll rate is worth
The $25/employee/month global payroll rate is excellent value if your own entities happen to fall within those 26-28 supported countries.
If they do not, you will need a second provider, and that is where the real cost appears.
What does Oyster’s fee include?
What the base fee covers
Oyster’s base fee covers the full employment lifecycle: contract drafting and localisation, payroll processing with payslips, tax withholding and filing, statutory benefits administration, onboarding and offboarding management, HR advisory access, platform access with integrations, compliance monitoring, and contract amendments at no extra charge.
We benchmarked Oyster’s inclusion list against the other six providers compared, and only Remote matches it line for line. That last point matters more than it looks.
Why zero amendment fees matter
Deel charges for certain contract amendments.
If your employees change roles, locations, or compensation frequently, Oyster’s zero-amendment-fee policy saves you incremental costs that accumulate over a year.
The inclusion list is comparable to Deel and Remote at the same $599 price point.
You are not paying more for less, you are paying the market rate for a platform with unusually strong UX and equity compensation support, the kind of polish that quietly makes your HR ops day shorter.
What costs sit on top of Oyster’s fee?
The headline fee is the floor. Your actual cost depends on four variables that sit outside it.
Security deposit
Oyster requires a refundable security deposit per employee, returned within 60 days of termination. On 10 employees at an average gross of $6,000/month, even a one-month deposit ties up around $60,000 from day one, so confirm the amount before you model cash.
This is a dimension that varies meaningfully across providers.
Supplementary deposits can be requested at short notice, meaning your cash exposure can increase without much warning.
Your treasury team can be asked to find unbudgeted cash on a tight timeline, so build headroom into the plan. Remote requires no deposit at all.
If your Finance team is sensitive to working capital, this is a material difference.
FX conversion spreads
Oyster does not publish its FX margin, and neither do Deel or Remote; all three apply a conversion cost when your billing currency differs from the payout currency, so pin it down in writing.
The cost is easy to underestimate: even a 1% margin on a $6,000 monthly salary is around $60 per employee per month, and on a 10-person team that is several thousand dollars a year that does not appear on the pricing page.
Supplemental benefits markup
If you offer health, dental, or life insurance beyond statutory minimums, Oyster may add an administration markup on the premium cost; it does not publish the rate, so confirm it in your quote.
On a few hundred dollars a month of premium per employee, even a modest markup adds up across a team, so price it into the comparison rather than treating benefits as pass-through.
Mandatory employer contributions
Gross salary plus employer social contributions are pass-through costs that vary dramatically by country. France and Belgium can add 40-50% to gross salary. Lower-cost markets add 15-25%.
This is not unique to Oyster, every EOR passes through these costs, but it means your total employment cost in Europe is often 1.4-1.5x the gross salary before the EOR fee is added.
Cost modelling
10-person European EOR team: total annual cost
Platform fees: $71,880-$83,880/year (10 x $599-$699 x 12).
Deposit (refundable): ~$60,000 (10 x $6,000 average gross).
FX costs: an undisclosed conversion margin on salary disbursements (Oyster does not publish the rate).
Benefits markup: $4,800-$7,200/year (if offering supplemental health). Year-one cash outlay excluding salaries: ~$144,000-$162,000. Multiplier would cost ~$108,000-$120,000 for the same scenario.
How does Oyster compare on price?
Where Oyster sits in the market
Oyster sits in the middle of the EOR pricing spectrum, more expensive than the value tier, competitive with the premium tier, but with a narrower product set than the broadest platforms.
| Provider | EOR rate | Deposit | FX spread | Setup fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oyster | $599-$699 | Refundable (by quote) | Undisclosed | None |
| Deel | $599 | By quote, by country | Undisclosed | None (EOR) |
| Remote | $599 | None | Undisclosed | None |
| Multiplier | ~$400 | By quote | Undisclosed | None |
| Remofirst | $199 | Varies | Not disclosed | None |
Where contractor pricing wins
Oyster’s contractor pricing at $29/month is where it genuinely undercuts the field. If your workforce mix skews toward contractors, the savings there can offset the higher EOR rate.
For 20 contractors, you save $4,800/year compared to Deel’s $49/month rate.
For the full platform review, see our Oyster.
For head-to-head comparisons, see Oyster vs Deel and Oyster vs Remote.
Whichapp view
Oyster is not the cheapest EOR and does not try to be. Its pricing reflects a bet that platform UX, zero amendment fees, and equity compensation support are worth $200/month more than Multiplier.
For HR teams managing 10-30 international employees who value self-service and low administrative friction, that bet often pays off.
For Finance teams optimising unit economics on 50+ employees, the maths favour Deel’s volume discounts or Multiplier’s lower base rate.
Is Oyster worth the cost?
Oyster is worth the cost when your HR team values platform usability over lowest-possible price, when you need contractor management at scale ($29/month is hard to beat), when you grant equity to international employees, or when you want a provider with no contract lock-in and 30-day termination notice.
It is harder to justify when you are optimising for total cost of ownership across 20+ employees (Multiplier saves $48,000-$72,000/year), when you need global payroll in more than 28 countries (Deel covers 100+, Papaya 160+), when your reporting needs go beyond basics (Oyster’s analytics are consistently flagged as limited), or when you need phone or live-chat support on your standard plan.
The deposit structure deserves particular attention.
The combination of a 1-month-gross deposit plus supplementary deposits on 5 days’ notice creates a cash-flow exposure that is harder to model than Deel’s fixed deposit or Remote’s zero-deposit approach.
Check Oyster’s current pricing and plans
View the provider’s latest pricing, plans, and setup details.
Oyster
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Frequently asked questions
Does Oyster charge setup or onboarding fees?
No. Oyster charges no setup, onboarding, offboarding, or contract amendment fees. The $599-$699/month EOR rate is all-inclusive for platform and service fees.
Your costs above that rate are deposits, FX spreads, benefits markups, and pass-through employer contributions.
How does Oyster’s contractor pricing compare to Deel?
Oyster charges $29/contractor/month versus Deel’s $49/contractor/month. For 20 contractors, that saves $4,800/year. Oyster also offers a 30-day free trial for contractor management.
The main limitation is that Deel’s contractor platform includes more compliance features and a built-in contractor hub.
How do you get a volume discount from Oyster?
Oyster does not publish volume discount thresholds, but reductions are available at the contract stage for teams above roughly 20 EOR employees.
The negotiating leverage improves when you can present competitor quotes from Deel ($599/month) and Multiplier (~$400/month) in writing.
Ask specifically for a revised per-employee rate, a cap on future price increases, and reduced benefits markup. Oyster’s Scale plan (enterprise tier) is the vehicle for custom pricing, but sales teams typically require at least a 12-month commitment in exchange for discounted rates.
Get the discount terms in writing before signing: verbal commitments from account managers are not contractually binding.
Does Oyster’s EOR fee cover benefits, or are they billed separately?
The $599-$699/month base fee covers statutory benefits administration but not the premium cost of supplemental benefits.
If you offer health, dental, or life insurance beyond the statutory floor, Oyster may add an administration markup on the premium cost; it does not publish the rate.
At $200/employee/month in supplemental premiums, that adds $20-30 per employee per month in admin fees that does not appear on the headline pricing page. Statutory employer contributions (15-50% of gross depending on country) are also passed through separately.
Before presenting a cost model to Finance, ask Oyster for a full cost-per-employee breakdown that includes: platform fee, estimated employer contributions, benefits markup, and FX spread for your target countries.
What is Oyster’s security deposit requirement?
A refundable security deposit per employee, returned within 60 days of termination. Oyster can also request supplementary deposits at short notice, which creates less predictable cash-flow exposure than providers with no deposit.
Remote requires no deposit at all.
Methodology and disclosure
Whichapp is an independent comparison site. We do not sell EOR, payroll, or contractor services.
We may earn a commission from provider links. This does not affect our editorial judgement.
This review drew on Oyster’s public pricing page, terms and conditions, and third-party pricing analyses.
FX spread and benefits markup figures are sourced from review aggregators and are classified as probable inferences, Oyster does not publish these figures.
Oyster was not tested as a live product.
Last reviewed: April 2026