Oyster

Oyster is a global employment platform that helps companies hire, pay, and manage international team members compliantly — without setting up local entities. Through its employer of record (EOR) service, Oyster legally employs workers on your behalf across many countries, handling locally compliant contracts, payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance. It also manages global contractors and payments, and provides HR tooling to run a distributed workforce from one platform. A certified B Corp, Oyster positions itself around enabling fair, borderless employment for globally distributed teams.

The platform covers the international hiring lifecycle. EOR onboards and employs global hires with compliant agreements and benefits; contractor management handles agreements, invoicing, and cross-border payments; and global payroll pays workers where you have entities. Oyster provides cost calculators and country-specific guidance to plan international hires, misclassification protection (Oyster Shell) for contractors, and integrations plus an API to connect with HR and finance systems. Its focus on ease, compliance, and transparent guidance makes global hiring approachable for scaling companies.

Oyster serves startups and companies building distributed, international teams. Pricing includes contractor management from around $29 per contractor per month (with a free tier covering up to 2 contractors), EOR from around $699 per employee per month (about $499 billed annually), global payroll around $50 per employee per month, and a US PEO around $114 per employee per month, plus add-ons like misclassification protection. It competes with Deel, Remote, Papaya Global, and Rippling, differentiating on ease of use, a free contractor tier, and its B Corp, people-first positioning.