2022 Remote.com Review: Is It Right for Your Small Business?

Remote offers HR solutions and services for managing international payroll, taxes, benefits, and compliance for all business sizes. Benefits packages tailored to specific countries are also available, plus its Employer of Record (EoR) services allow Remote to handle your payroll and hiring needs in countries where you don’t have business entities. It even offers low-cost contractor payroll and management tools.

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What We Recommend Remote For

Remote helps businesses manage the complexities of hiring and paying international workers. As an EoR, it handles your essential global HR needs—from managing paid time off (PTO) and local employment taxes to ensuring you stay compliant with the statutory benefits requirements and tax regulations of more than 170 countries. It also administers and offers benefits plans to your international staff so you don’t have to handle this yourself. And, if you have global contractors, it can onboard and process payments for these workers at no cost.

Overall, Remote is best for:

• Businesses needing to pay international employees: Remote is one of our recommended international payroll services because, aside from its EoR services, it also has a standalone global payroll solution that streamlines your employee payment processes. In addition to managing local employment taxes and processing payroll in multiple local currencies, it comes with automated payments and built-in compliance tools.
• Employers with plans to expand globally or have employees spread across countries they don’t have business entities in: Remote’s EoR service makes it easy for you to hire, onboard, offer benefits, and pay local employees without setting up business entities in locations outside your home country. This is made possible through its network of fully owned local entities, enabling Remote to assume the legal responsibilities of an employer and managing essential HR processes for you.
• Companies that hire refugees: If your business wants to support refugees to get back on their feet, Remote can help you hire qualified refugee talents—provided they are legally allowed to work in the country where Remote’s services are available. As of this writing, the provider is even offering its EoR solution for free to those hiring refugees.
• Global employers looking for low-cost international contractor payroll services: Remote, which is included in our list of best contractor payroll solutions, has a contractor management module that lets you onboard and pay US-based and global contractors in their local currencies. This costs $29 per contractor per month.
• Global companies that want robust invention rights and intellectual property (IP) protection: While some global employment providers may not offer in-house IP protection tools, all of Remote’s fully owned local entities are covered by its IP Guard solution. Designed to prevent IP risks, it helps ensure you retain ownership over your trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Remote also monitors IP laws and has a team of international legal professionals who provide expert advice on how to protect your IP.

When Remote Would Not Be a Good Fit

• Companies that don’t have international business expansion plans: Remote’s solutions and services are designed to handle global hiring and payroll. Its tools may be more than you need, especially if you’re not looking at expanding your business in countries outside of the US. For those with US-based workers needing payroll and HR tools, read our best HR payroll software guide to find a more suitable option.
• Employers needing 1099 year-end reporting: Remote’s contractor management module only generates 1099 tax forms. If you’re hiring primarily US-based contractors and need year-end 1099 filings, we recommend Gusto. It handles year-end tax reporting for contract workers and has a budget-friendly contractor-only payroll plan that costs $6 per contractor monthly.
• Global businesses looking for transparent pricing: Remote’s pricing for some of its solutions (like its Global Payroll and Remote Enterprise options) isn’t published on its website. If you need transparent pricing, consider Papaya Global as it lists its fees online—plus, it offers a payroll solution that’s affordably priced (monthly fees range from $20–$100 per employee).

Top Remote Alternatives At a Glance

Best for: Small international businesses	Best for: Tech-heavy businesses needing IT and global payroll tools	Best for: Large companies or those already using ADP products
Base monthly fee: From $20 per employee	Base monthly fee: From $18 per employee (includes payroll add-on)	Base monthly fee: Custom-priced
Visit Papaya	Visit Rippling	Visit ADP

Remote Overview

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Remote Pricing

Remote has an inexpensive Contractor Management solution for onboarding and paying international contractors. It also offers a Global Payroll module (custom-priced) and an EoR option with hiring, payroll, benefits, and compliance functionalities. Those fees range from $599 or $699 per employee monthly, depending on whether you select an annual or monthly plan.

For those needing customized solutions, its Remote Enterprise package is a great option as it has all of its HR and payroll features plus custom reports and system integrations, dedicated support, and quarterly consultations with its team of HR, tax, benefits, legal, and immigration experts.

*Contractors may be charged 1%–2% of their payment for currency conversions by Remote’s payment partner.

**Remote also offers an annual-billed option that costs $599 per employee monthly (paid in a lump sum).

***Consists of HR, legal, benefits, tax, and immigration professionals.

Remote’s prices are the management fee only, and are on top of the total cost of employment for your employee, which includes their wages and any government-required additions like Social Security, as well as the price of benefits packages. Remote offers competitive rates on benefits with no additional administration costs.

Remote also offers promotions. As of this writing, it provides free EoR services to companies hiring refugees and special packages for startups and social purpose organizations (with up to 10 employees and/or 12 contractors).

• Companies that hire refugees: Remote will act as an EoR for your refugee talents at no cost.
• Qualified registered nonprofit, charity, trust, social enterprise, and benefit corporations that aim to make a positive difference for social impact: 25% off EoR services for up to 10 employees; 30% off Contractor management for 12 months; mention on the Remote website.

Annual Subscription

Paying Remote’s management fees annually is more cost-efficient because you get slightly lower rates compared to paying on a month-to-month basis. However, you have to pay the entire year’s subscription with that employee’s first invoice. If that employee is terminated before their 12-month billing cycle ends, Remote won’t refund the unused management fees. It also doesn’t prorate monthly fees even if your staff member’s contract is terminated before the end of the month.

Contractor Fees

Remote charges $29 per contractor, per month, in management fees. If a contractor needs currency conversions through Remote’s payroll provider, they will be charged an additional 1% to 2%. There are no other fees for you or your contractors, however.

Billings

Remote bills you the actual payroll costs (such as salaries, Social Security, and benefits contributions), plus the applicable management fees. Remote can also send billing statements that reflect your selected currency. Remote bills in EUR, USD, AUD, CAD, DKK, GBP, JPY, NZD, NOK, SEK, or CHF. However, if you cannot pay in EUR or USD, you can be charged a 3% processing fee.

Remote lets you view and pay billing statements online.
(Source: Remote)

Remote Features

Companies with global distributed teams will find Remote’s solutions and services helpful and convenient to use. Let’s look more closely at its essential features to help determine if it’s right for your business.

Hiring

As an EoR, Remote can help find and hire qualified candidates for you in countries where it has local entities, and it’s growing fast! In our previous review, it worked in 12 countries. As of this writing, that has grown to 34, with 11 more coming in Q3 2022.

You can select one of the countries on Remote’s list to get information about hiring in that country. (Source: Remote)

Onboarding

Onboarding tools for both employees and contractors include sending your new hires their employment contracts and conducting right-to-work and/or medical checks (if required by local labor regulations). It also removes the burden of having to manage employee onboarding yourself since Remote assigns each worker with a dedicated specialist who will guide them through the process and answer questions about their contract and new hire requirements.

Users found the onboarding tools easy to use, but some complained of delays when their dedicated specialist was unavailable.

New hires will receive a link to Remote so they can input their personal profile into the system and complete documentary requirements.
(Source: Remote demo)

PTO Requests

Employees can file paid time off (PTO) requests directly from Remote’s platform, and the approved transactions will automatically be deducted from your staff’s PTO credits at the end of the month. Remote bases time off on an 8-hour workday, and employees can request partial time off, and even vary time off over multiple days using a single request. If necessary, they can request unpaid leave and if approved, the time is deducted from the payslip at the end of the month.

The system sends email notifications of approved PTOs, although employees can check the details of their paid and unpaid leaves (if any) either online or via their electronic pay slips.

Employees can request full or partial days off using the Remote platform.
(Source: Remote)

Payroll

Remote users said they appreciated how it handles payroll for them. Remote manages payroll and country-specific employment taxes through its network of local entities. It can handle bonus and incentive payments for international staff and even supports the Dutch 30% ruling, wherein qualified highly skilled migrants who moved to the Netherlands for specific jobs get tax-free allowances equal to a maximum of 30% of their gross salary.

You can add incentives and bonuses to employee pay as a one-time or recurring event.
(Source: Remote)

It also follows a payroll cut-off timeline that’s due the 11th of every month. This means that you have to input bonus, commission, incentive, and expense reimbursement details into its platform before 11:59 p.m. UTC on the 11th so they can be processed. In case you miss the deadline and don’t want to wait for the next payout schedule, Remote can run off-cycle payroll for an additional fee. This cutoff date is for onboarding as well.

If you are in a country that allows semimonthly payroll, if you miss the deadline, it will pay out at the next pay period.

Salaries are remitted to their accounts and in their local currencies through bank transfers (via SEPA and ACH if the local currency is Euro and US dollar, respectively). If local bank transfers in the employee’s local currency aren’t available, Remote will send the payments via international wire transfer. Note that processing timelines vary depending on the payment method used, although this typically takes around two to nine business days.

Benefits

Your global staff members are provided access to competitive benefits packages available in their country. You can even include contractors if you desire. Here are some of the benefits that Remote offers (options may vary by country):

• Healthcare insurance
• Dental and vision
• Travel insurance
• Retirement plans/401(k)
• Stipends and allowances
• Stock options

In 2022, Remote is using bSwift for US Benefits open enrollment.
(Source: Remote)

Remote will also manage the benefits plans and ensure that full-time employees are covered by country-specific Social Security programs. Its services include helping you handle the complexities of statutory benefits so that the correct coverage is provided to your staff based on the country’s regulations. In addition, it works to ensure that you are providing the same benefits for employees in a country regardless of their job level. Further, if you need to provide a single employee a one-off benefit, it can work with you to find the best complaint approach.

Equity Programs

Offering stock and stock options to employees is a great way to invest them in the company’s success. Remote can help you with planning and executing your equity plan, including country-specific tax and withholding compliance. You can sign up for a free 30-minute equity incentive planning consultation to learn more.

When adding a new employee, you can select to include equity compensation.
(Source: Remote)

IP Protection

Contractor Management

In addition to contractor hiring and onboarding tools, Remote provides customizable contract templates to help protect your business against potential employment misclassification issues and legal claims. These documents have also been localized to meet the labor laws of 34 countries. Users say they appreciate knowing up front what’s required in each country.

Understanding the country-specific rulings for employing contractors can be challenging, but Remote makes it easy to comprehend with its helpful online guides. Created by its in-house legal experts, these resources not only detail the relevant laws but can help save you money from having to hire an external legal counsel to review contractor contracts.

Remote’s customizable contractor contracts are available in multiple languages and have data fields that you can easily fill in.
(Source: Remote)

Contractor Payments

What’s New:

Remote now integrates with Stripe Connect to allow eligible contractors to be paid directly from the platform. Contractors can set up a Stripe account on the Remote platform and create invoices through Stripe Connect.

Remote can help you with approving and paying contractor invoices in over 170 countries around the world. It offers invoicing tools so your contractors can create and send invoices directly from its platform. This is ideal for businesses with long-term contractor contracts as it allows you to review, approve, and pay invoices online. You can even set up automatic invoice approvals and payments in Remote.

Aside from debit/credit cards, payments can be made via ACH and SEPA transfers. Remote supports 65 currencies. If your contractor’s local currency is different from the currency that Remote bills you with, the provider will use TransferWise to pay contractors. Note that transfer fees or exchange rate differences (if applicable) will be shouldered by your contract workers. If you want to cover these costs, you can add a small buffer amount to your contractor payments.

You can pay contractors by card, or set up a bank transfer instead.
(Source: Remote)

For those with US-based contractors, Remote generates year-end tax forms but doesn’t offer 1099 filing services. Contractor payslips are also unavailable mainly because payments for these workers are made through Remote’s invoicing tool and not its payroll solution.

Third-party Software Integrations

Remote Ease of Use

• User-friendly interface
• Dedicated onboarding specialist for each new hire
• Legal compliance tools
• Fully-owned local entities in dozens of countries
• 24/5 email support
• Access to dedicated support team (for the Remote Enterprise option)
• Online guides and how-to articles
• Customizable and localized contractor contracts

Remote takes the stress away from hiring, onboarding, and paying both international employees and contractors. Unlike similar global payroll and EoR service providers that have third-party partners in the countries that it services, Remote fully owns the local legal entities in the countries where it handles employees, so you’re assured of getting solid HR/payroll services and comprehensive IP protection. It even assigns each of your new hires with a dedicated onboarding specialist who can answer their contract and/or onboarding-related questions.

Its interface is also simple to learn and use, with built-in legal compliance tools that include localized contractor contracts that you can easily customize. While it lacks phone support, it offers 24/5 assistance via email and access to a dedicated support team—provided you’re on its Remote Enterprise plan. Its online help center is also full of how-to guides that cover a wide range of topics—from new hire onboarding to payroll and contractor management.

What Users Think About Remote

Remote reviews on popular third-party sites like G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot are generally positive. Users who work in HR or run the company said that it has a straightforward interface with tools that are easy to learn. They also commended its helpful and responsive support team. A few reviewers complained about the lack of chat support, alerts to show onboarding progress, and per-region payment details that are easily accessible on its platform.

Employees had more complaints, which included difficulties with onboarding that resulted in working without benefits or having to sign a contract with unanswered questions. A few said their dedicated support person disappeared (possibly on vacation) and no one was able to help them. Most did say the interface was easy to use, however. Complaints generally stemmed from contract questions or unusual requests.

At the time of publication, Remote.com reviews earned the following user ratings:

• G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on 180+ reviews
• Capterra: 4.3 out of 5 based on nearly 10 reviews
• Trustpilot: 4.4 out of 5 based on about 185+ reviews

Bottom Line

Hiring and paying international employees can be challenging because each country has different labor regulations, statutory benefits, and local tax employment laws. Remote takes away the stress and burden of handling these complex HR, benefits, and payroll processes yourself. As an EoR, it can help you manage the entire employee lifecycle of your global staff while keeping you compliant with local laws and tax rulings in over 170 countries. Sign up for a Remote plan today.

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