Globalization Partners is a worldwide employer of record (EOR) for foreign workers. It onboards employees, handles payroll and compliance, pays in-country taxes at the local level, and more. With services available in more than 180 countries, Globalization Partners is optimal for businesses with plans to expand operations across various global markets because it helps you recruit workers without setting up your own local subsidiaries.
It even has a contractor package (monthly fees start at $49 per worker) if you need to hire and pay global contractors, as well as global recruiting solutions that are custom priced. In our evaluation of the best employer of record services, Globalization Partners earned an overall score of 4.26 out of 5.
Pros
- Local compliance and tax support
- Payroll processing in 187 countries
- Visa support in 31 countries
- Built-in Wise payment services
- Excellent customer support
Cons
- Pricing isn’t all transparent
- Even the plan with a listed price suggests there may be additional fees
- Requires a two-month advance payroll deposit
- Recruiting services, background checks, and visa assistance are paid add-ons
What We Recommend Globalization Partners For
Want to learn more about EOR services and hiring global workers? Read our ultimate guide to employer of record services to know how it works. For tips on how to find and hire overseas workers, check out our article on how to hire international employees.
Globalization Partners Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types | Businesses with plans to grow into a global company looking for a reliable EOR partner to compliantly handle international hiring and payroll |
Free Trial | None |
Pricing | Most of its products, which include EOR services, are custom-priced. To get a quote, you have to contact the provider and provide information about your business and HR requirements. |
Standout Features |
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Ease of Use | Its end-to-end platform is generally easy to use, although you need basic knowledge on how to pay international workers. |
Customer Support |
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Looking for something different? If you need expert help handling your day-to-day HR administrative tasks, read our guide on the best PEO services to find a solution or service provider that’s right for your small business.
How Globalization Partners Compares With Top Alternatives
Best For | Starter Monthly Fees | Number of Countries | Our Reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Businesses that need to hire internationally | Custom-priced | 180+ | |
 | Companies looking for an EOR with solid IP protection | $699 per employee* | 170+ | |
 | Businesses that want global HRIS and software/IT onboarding | $599 per employee** | 150+ | |
 | Companies needing payroll data accuracy and workforce analytics | $599 per employee | 160+ | |
*Provider offers discounted rates if you pay annual expenses in one payment, upfront
**Pricing is from a quote we received
If you’ve narrowed your search down to a few payroll providers but still can’t decide, check out our guide on choosing the best payroll solution for help.
Since Our Last Update: While most of Globalization Partners’ plans remain custom-priced, the provider has changed its pricing packages and added more product options, such as the G-P Meridian Select suite, which contains add-on services and solutions for recruiting, background screening, visa support, and more.
With its G-P Meridian Suite, you get a wide range of HR services and solutions to help you find, hire, onboard, and pay international workers. It has two custom-priced packages: G-P Meridian Core and G-P Meridian Prime. Both come with all of the basic solutions—from EOR services to payroll management and customer support. The main differences between the two include access to a dedicated CSM and additional tools, like bulk onboarding, contract customization, benefits analysis, and flexible payment options.
While it has a robust solution suite, Globalization Partners didn’t get a high score in our pricing criterion. The refundable deposit and setup fees it charges, including the limited transparency of its pricing plans, cost it several points.
Features | G-P Meridian Core | G-P Meridian Prime |
|---|---|---|
Pricing | Custom-priced | Custom-priced |
Onboarding and Offboarding | ✓ | ✓ Includes bulk onboarding |
Legal Right to Work Verification | ✓ | ✓ |
Employment Contract Generator | ✓ | ✓ Includes contract customization |
Payroll, Time, and Expense Management | ✓ | ✓ |
Employee HR Support | ✓ | ✓ |
Benefits Analysis | ✕ | ✓ |
Flexible Payments and Bulk Payroll Changes | ✕ | ✓ |
Expansion Planning Consultation | ✕ | ✓ |
Customer Support + 24/7 Help Center Access | ✓ | ✓ Includes a dedicated CSM |
To get pricing details, you need to contact the provider’s sales team. A representative will discuss your needs and break down the monthly fees for you. Note that Globalization Partners’ pricing depends on a wide variety of factors, from country to employee salary, so be sure you understand it before signing anything.
Aside from the G-P Meridian Suite, Globalization Partners offers a contractor-only plan, called G-P Meridian Contractor. This solution is perfect for companies that employ international contractors for short- and long-term projects. With monthly fees that start at $49 per worker, it lets you pay and hire contractors in 180+ countries.
Since Our Last Update: Globalization Partners is offering a special promotion for its contractor plan. New clients who sign up for G-P Meridian Contractor won’t need to pay the subscription fee until the end of 2023. However, after this period, you’ll be charged the regular monthly rates.
G-P Meridian Select provides you with several solutions and services that you can get at an additional cost. Note, however, that access to these add-ons depends on the G-P Meridian package selected (except for the contractor plan). You also have to contact Globalization Partners for a quote.
Add-ons | Features | For G-P Meridian Core and Prime Users |
|---|---|---|
G-P Meridian Recruit | Access to recruiting specialists to help you find qualified candidates in key locations globally | ✓ |
Background Checks | Pre-employment screenings for new hires | ✓ |
Employment Contract Enforcement Facilitation | Support from G-P’s legal team to enforce contracts issued through its platform | ✓ |
Visa Support | Work visa assistance for employees moving from one country to another | ✓ |
Equity Payroll Management | Online tools to help simplify management of taxable events related to equity-based compensation | ✓ |
Merger & Acquisition (M&A) Transition Services | Support services to help reduce disengagement and improve employee retention during M&A transitions | For Prime users only |
Office Space | Access to flexible workspaces for remote employees | For Prime users only |
IT Equipment | Deploy and manage IT tools (such as laptops and monitors) to help your remote team work from home | For Prime users only |
Globalization Partners acts as an EOR, meaning it takes on the legal responsibilities for managing your international employees. It offers excellent services for new hire onboarding, and other HR concerns—but take note that you are still in charge of training, mentoring, and performance management.
What contributed to its perfect marks in this criterion include the wide range of solutions that it offers—from onboarding and benefits to work visa assistance. Let’s take a look at some of its essential HR features.
The G-P dashboard provides easy access to its suite of HR and EOR solutions. (Source: Globalization Partners on YouTube)
It’s easy to expand to other countries with Globalization Partners. While it offers access to recruiting specialists who can manage your in-country hiring needs, you have the option to find your new employees. If you choose to handle hiring yourself, Globalization Partners will ensure you have a country-specific hiring package to offer candidates to make you a good choice. It also provides country-specific offer templates so you can get started on the right foot. It even has a team of lawyers specializing in international law to draw up employee contracts.
Globalization Partners offers hiring solutions that simplify the process while ensuring compliance with local labor laws. (Source: Globalization Partners on YouTube)
Once hired, Globalization Partners handles onboarding, paperwork, compliance issues, and more. Once the new hire signs the contract, it leads them through the onboarding, including getting their information and having them select benefits from the ones you’ve chosen to offer. One bonus feature is that its local HR representative will call your new hire, so they have a personal connection to the person they can contact with questions. You only have to worry about work assignments and supervision.
You select the country, and then Globalization Partners leads you through the benefits you can offer, including the requirements. (Source: Globalization Partners)
Similar to its EOR services for employees, Globalization Partners’ contractor package provides you with the essential tools you need to compliantly hire and pay global contract workers. It comes with employment contracts, but you can create your own by following its comprehensive workflows. Your contractor can also create and send automated invoices, although you have the option to manage the contractor invoicing process yourself.
Globalization Partners can help you track contractor invoices and the applicable payments. (Source: Globalization Partners on YouTube)
Note, however, that G-P Meridian Contractor doesn’t include legal advisory services and a misclassification risk tool. You have to contact a third-party legal service provider to ensure that you’re classifying contract workers correctly.
Its online “Globalpedia” not only lets you know the required and voluntary benefits expected in a country—from maternity leave to stock options—but also recommends how much you should add to salaries to cover these benefits. As a global EoR, Globalization Partners can secure enterprise-level benefits packages for employees at competitive prices. It ensures the benefits meet the country’s requirements and offers you a choice of packages. It then manages the programs, both in payroll and execution.
You select the country, and then Globalization Partners leads you through the benefits you can offer, including the requirements. (Source: Globalization Partners)
Because benefits vary by nation, Globalization Partners does not list what services it offers. Contact its team with specific questions about the country you are interested in. It does endeavor to provide packages that make you attractive to job candidates in that area. Your rep will help you determine what’s commonly offered so that you remain competitive.
Globalization Partners focuses on international tax, law, and finance expertise in areas of HR as well as payroll. This is important not only to keep you on the right side of international laws but also to give your employee the best experience.
You can learn about the laws and regulations of countries through Globalization Partners’ in-app country reports and its online “Globalpedia.” (Source: Globalization Partners)
Globalization Partners has experts in every location so that you can get experience from people on the ground. They can help with hiring, managing, and even terminating an employee. Another advantage when working with this provider is that you and your employees have access to services regardless of the time zone or language. However, it only offers these services for employees hired outside of your country (this is expected for an EOR).
Employees are provided access to self-service tools for onboarding and for accessing basic information, such as employment details and personal information. Help tools are also available in-app, allowing your team members to easily submit requests (for data changes) and access help articles. Globalization Partners will even customize the information that your staff can see, based on the country’s labor requirements, if any—which is great for businesses with offices in various countries.
With Globalization Partners, your employees can securely view their personal information and salary details online. (Source: Globalization Partners on YouTube)
This image from the ADP/Globalization Partners brochure illustrates their roles. (Source: ADP)
Globalization Partners has had a strong working relationship with ADP. In 2020, it won ADP’s Rising Star Award. In February 2021, it announced its partnership with ADP TotalSource, a popular PEO service, allowing US businesses using ADP easier access to a global EoR. ADP TotalSource users can take advantage of this partnership not only for hiring in other countries but also if their American employees need to work outside of the US on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. See the ADP/Globalization Partners factsheet for details.
As an EoR, Globalization Partners takes the payroll headache from you. It has local entities in the countries it services, making it easy for the provider to handle payroll taxes and payments for both employees and contractors. These functionalities earned Globalization Partners high marks in this criterion. It would have received a perfect score here if it supported cryptocurrency payouts.
With its G-P Meridian Core or Prime packages, you can track time and attendance and approve payrolls automatically if nothing changed from the last payroll, or go in and make changes. It ensures that you are following all the needed rules for tax withholdings, PTO, benefits, and more, and calculates the costs of payroll.
Globalization Partners can pay employees in up to 150 currencies. (Source: Globalization Partners)
Then, it sends the payroll for you to approve on the schedule you set (and as conforms to local laws). Once you approve payroll, employees are paid in their local currencies by direct deposit or check, and Globalization Partners sends you a single bill for the entire payroll.
You can fund payroll in multiple ways, such as via bank transfer, Venmo, cryptocurrency, and pay by wire. Employee payments, on the other hand, are made via direct deposits or manual checks.
With its robust reporting tools, you can run a wide variety of HR and workforce-related reports. It has a library of standard reports, but you can easily create your own. Data is also updated in real time, and you can download reports as CSV files.
Globalization Partners has a report builder that allows you to filter and select the data columns you want. (Source: Globalization Partners)
- Setup help
- Dedicated team of local experts
- Training articles
- Easy-to-use website
- 24/7 year-round customer support
- In-country specialists
Globalization Partners does its best to make hiring, onboarding, and maintaining international employees easy. It would have received a perfect score in this criterion if it offered live phone support and access to a dedicated representative without having to upgrade to a higher plan.
However, it’s still a good option for businesses looking to expand globally. As an EoR, it handles many of the tax and legal issues for you, which is a huge plus. The website itself is straightforward, clean, and easy to navigate. You’ll find country profiles as well as employee information on the site, so you can do research if you are looking to expand into a new country or check on laws in your existing areas.
Globalization Partners sets you up and onboards in as little as a couple of days. It offers training articles and an in-app help section. You also get a dedicated team of local experts to help if you have questions, as well as a dedicated CSM if you upgrade to its most premium package.
What we also appreciate about this provider is the additional support it provides to expanding businesses. It has research tools to help you analyze talent availability, check local regulations, and compare potential labor costs in target countries where you plan to expand to. You’re even granted access to experts who can help you design a global expansion plan—provided you get G-P Meridian Prime.
In our expert assessment of Globalization Partners’ EOR services and HR solutions, we find a great option for businesses with plans to hire internationally. In addition to recruiting services, it has a relatively easy-to-use platform that streamlines global employee management processes.
However, it may not be a cost-efficient choice for business owners, as it charges setup and deposit fees. It also has limited user reviews on third-party review sites (like G2 and Trustpilot), although a majority of those reviews are positive.
What Users Think About Globalization Partners
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Helpful, timely support | Onboarding new hires sometimes takes time |
| User-friendly platform | Could use more reports |
| Knowledgeable customer reps | Expensive |
As of this writing, we found fewer than 200 Globalization Partners reviews on trusted third-party review sites—but of those, the provider received glowing praise and very few complaints. Many commended its support team for being helpful and responsive. Several others like that it has an intuitive platform that’s relatively simple to learn.
On the other hand, some users commented that it’s expensive—but they did not specify what providers they are comparing it to. However, reviewers said that they were satisfied with the pricing explanations given and that Globalization Partners even adapted its fees to their company’s budget.
At the time of publication, Globalization Partners reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- G2: 4.7 out of 5 based on more than 150 reviews
- Trustpilot: 4 out of 5 based on 20 reviews
How We Evaluated Globalization Partners
When we evaluate employer of record services, we look at pricing and ease of use. We also check the HR features and services it offers. Finally, we consider the feedback that users left on popular user review sites.
Click through the tabs below for our full evaluation criteria:
20% of Overall Score
We looked for transparency—can you find the pricing on a website or with a phone call, or do you need an in-depth assessment of your business? We also considered setup fees, separate (cheaper) plans for your contractors, and whether they have add-ons for additional tools.
20% of Overall Score
Your EOR should handle your employees from hiring to termination, including paperwork, benefits, and compliances. We also looked for any indication that they protect your intellectual property, like patents created by your employees.
10% of Overall Score
We not only considered what reports are available but also how customizable they are, and if they can be separated by country.
20% of Overall Score
In addition to the basics, like time tracking tools, we concentrated on global features like paying in local currency and having local entities as opposed to third-party partners.
15% of Overall Score
Here, we considered appropriateness for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), how good the software was, and what real-world users thought of the service.
15% of Overall Score
For this criterion, we looked at setup assistance, customer support, access to how-to guides, integration options, and whether the provider offers an intuitive user platform.
Bottom Line
While an expensive international payroll and HR service, according to real-world users, Globalization Partners nonetheless is worth the cost. Acting as an employer of record, it can help you manage employees from hiring to termination and keep you compliant with local laws in more than 180 countries—all while offering easy-to-use software. Further, it has excellent user reviews and boasts a 98% customer satisfaction rate.
Sign up for a Globalization Partners demo today.
