The honest answer: it depends on more than the seat fee
“How much does an Employer of Record cost” sounds like it should have a single number for an answer. It does not, and any provider that gives you one without asking about your headcount, your salaries, and where your people sit is quoting you the headline and hiding the rest of the bill.
An Employer of Record is a company that legally employs your team in a country where you have no entity, handling contracts, payroll, tax withholding, and statutory benefits while you direct the work. The service is real and the value is real. But the price comes in layers, and the layer most buyers miss is usually the biggest one.
This guide breaks down what actually drives EOR cost in 2026: the pricing model, setup fees, the security deposit, and the hidden FX margin. Where we quote a competitor figure, it is read from that vendor’s own published page and dated. Pricing changes, so check the live page before you sign.
Layer one: the pricing model
There are two ways EOR providers price the core service, and they behave very differently as your salaries rise.
Per-employee per-month (the common model). A flat monthly fee per employee that does not change with the salary. This is predictable, easy to budget, and favours higher-paid roles because the fee is a smaller share of a larger cost. Most of the well-known EOR platforms use this model. As a share of total cost, a flat seat fee shrinks as the salary grows: on a junior role it can be a painful percentage of the package, while on a senior role it barely registers.
Percentage of payroll (the minority model). A fee set as a percentage of the employee’s gross pay. This scales with salary, so it gets more expensive exactly as you hire senior people. On a small, well-paid team a percentage model can quietly cost more than a flat seat fee.
The first question to ask any EOR is which of these two it uses, because comparing a flat monthly figure against a percentage without doing the math on your actual salaries is how buyers pick the wrong provider.
Layer two: setup fees and the security deposit
Two costs sit between the headline seat fee and your first payroll run, and neither is always on the pricing page.
Setup or onboarding fee. A one-time charge per employee to draft the contract, register the worker for statutory schemes, and set up payroll. Some providers waive it; others charge it per head. Ask.
Security deposit. Most EORs hold a refundable deposit of roughly one month’s salary or CTC per employee. This is not a fee you lose, it is working capital you park with the provider for the length of the engagement and get back at offboarding. But it is real cash out the door on day one, and on a ten-person team a one-month deposit is a meaningful sum tied up. Confirm the deposit size, whether it is refundable, and when it is returned.
Layer three: the FX margin, the cost buyers miss
This is the one that matters most, and the one least likely to appear on a headline price.
When your EOR pays an employee in their local currency, it converts your dollars at an exchange rate. The gap between that rate and the real mid-market rate is margin, and you pay it on every single payroll run, month after month, for every employee. It is not a line item. It is baked into the rate.
The scale is easy to underestimate. The global average cost to send money across borders was 6.36 percent in the third quarter of 2025, more than double the UN target of under 3 percent (World Bank). A margin of even one or two percent on a full year of payroll frequently exceeds the annual seat fee. On a team of any size, the FX layer is often the single largest number in the total cost of the EOR, and it is the one you have to ask for in writing because it is almost never on the page.
A worked example makes it concrete. On an employee with a ₹20 lakh CTC, roughly $23,800 a year at mid-market rates, a 2 percent FX markup adds about $476 a year. Across a ten-person team that is $4,760 a year in cost that never appears on an invoice as “FX.” That is close to the annual seat fee for two more employees, paid for nothing.
What published EOR pricing actually looks like
For reference, here is what two of the largest global EOR platforms publish, read from their own pages.
Deel lists EOR from $599 per employee per month, on deel.com/pricing as of May 2026. Remote lists EOR at $599 per employee per month on annual billing rising to $699 per employee per month, on remote.com/pricing as of May 2026. Both are per-employee recurring models, and neither headline states the FX margin, so treat that as a separate layer to price in.
These are global multi-country platforms, and the figures reflect the breadth of covering many countries from one place. If you are hiring across several countries, that breadth is what you are paying for.
| Cost layer | What it is | On the headline price? |
|---|---|---|
| Seat fee | Per-employee monthly (or % of payroll) | Yes |
| Setup fee | One-time per employee onboarding | Sometimes |
| Security deposit | ~1 month salary, refundable | Rarely |
| FX margin | Markup on the rate, every payroll run | Almost never |
Every competitor figure here is read from that vendor’s public page on the date shown. Pricing changes, so confirm the live page before deciding.
What Omnivoo’s EOR costs, and where it stops
Omnivoo’s EOR is India-only, from $149 per employee per month across all 28 Indian states. That is the deliberate trade: instead of thin coverage across many countries, it is deep coverage of one.
The base fee includes the statutory work India actually requires: PF, ESI, TDS under both the old and new regime, state-level Professional Tax across all 28 states, gratuity provisioning, and Form 16 issuance. There is no setup fee. Omnivoo holds a refundable one-month-CTC security deposit per employee in a locked reserve, returned at offboarding. Payroll is processed at the live market rate with a flat, disclosed transaction fee, and the exact rate applied is shown on each invoice rather than buried in the conversion. In other words, the FX layer that is usually the hidden cost is the layer Omnivoo makes visible.
For a full worked breakdown of the true employer cost at three salary levels, including where an EOR becomes cheaper or more expensive than running your own Indian entity, see how much it costs to hire an employee in India and model your own numbers with the contractor cost calculator.
How to price an EOR without getting surprised
- Ask which pricing model it is. Flat per-employee or percentage of payroll. Run it against your real salaries, not a hypothetical average.
- Total the one-time costs. Setup fee per head plus the security deposit. Confirm the deposit is refundable and when it comes back.
- Get the FX margin in writing. It is the layer most likely to be missing and most likely to be the largest cost. A provider that shows the applied rate on the invoice is telling you something a provider that will not is also telling you something.
- Confirm what compliance is included in the base fee. Statutory contributions, tax filings, and year-end documents should not be surprise add-ons.
- Match coverage to your map. Paying for global breadth you do not use is waste; paying for depth where you actually hire is value.
The bottom line, and who should look elsewhere
An EOR’s real cost is the seat fee plus setup, plus the deposit you tie up, plus the FX margin you pay on every run. The headline number is the smallest and most visible of those; the FX margin is usually the largest and least visible. Price all four.
If India is where you are hiring, Omnivoo’s India EOR is built for exactly that, from $149 per employee per month across all 28 states with the FX rate shown on every invoice. If you are hiring from the US into India specifically, start with how to hire from the US in India.
If you need to employ people outside India, Omnivoo is not your tool. Omnivoo’s EOR does not cover other countries, and it will not pretend to. For multi-country EOR, a global platform like Deel or Remote is what you are looking for, and the published figures above are your starting point. Match the provider to where your people actually sit, then price every layer, not just the headline.
This article is for general information and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Verify current pricing on each vendor’s live page and consult a qualified professional for your situation.