Should you build or buy Employer of Record (EOR), PEO & Global Employment?
An employer of record hires and pays staff on a company's behalf in a country where that company has no legal entity. The EOR is the registered legal employer, handling the employment contract, payroll, tax filings and statutory benefits, while the client company directs the person's day-to-day work. Companies use it to hire abroad without incorporating first.
Buy. The thing you are paying for is a registered local employer with its own entity, payroll registrations and liability; no software builds that, and contractor tools do not change a worker's legal status. Published fees cluster at $599 to $699 per employee per month, and the documented alternative is forming your own entity once a country's headcount is stable enough to justify the entity's setup cost plus ongoing maintenance and internal HR capacity.
Build it, buy it, or bridge?
When building makes sense
There is no build case here in the normal sense. Being someone's legal employer in a foreign country requires a registered local entity, employer tax registrations and statutory liability under that country's labor law, none of which a software team can create. The only real alternative to an EOR is incorporating your own entity, which is a legal and finance project, not an engineering one. Hawksford documents a European software company that hired one person in Singapore through an EOR to test the market, then transitioned a team of four to its own Singapore entity twelve months later once demand was validated. That is the honest shape of the "build" path: start with an EOR, watch headcount in that country, and incorporate when it's durable enough to justify the setup cost, ongoing compliance and internal HR capacity a real entity demands. Treat incorporation as the exit from EOR, not as something to plan around from day one.
When buying makes sense
Buying is the obvious call, and the confidence here is high. Deel prices EOR employment at $599 per employee per month as a flat platform fee covering the employment contract, payroll, tax filings and benefits administration, which is far cheaper and faster than incorporating an entity for one or two hires. The work an EOR does is identical for every client, because it's defined by the target country's labor and tax law rather than by anything specific to your business, so there's nothing proprietary to protect by building it yourself. Use an EOR while a market is small or unproven, when you need someone employed within days rather than months, or when you're hiring a single remote employee in a country where standing up an entity would be wildly disproportionate to the headcount. Reassess country by country once a team there becomes durable enough that entity setup pays for itself.
The desk read
Build-versus-buy analysis for Employer of Record (EOR), PEO & Global Employment is being written. In the meantime, the framework that drives every B4 call is on the B4 Index page.
Frequently asked
What is an employer of record?
The category exists because software cannot create legal-employer status in a foreign country. That single structural fact is why an EOR is a service, priced as a flat monthly fee, rather than a tool a team could build or configure around.
Can a company build its own EOR capability instead of paying for one?
No. Legal employer status requires a registered local entity and statutory registrations in that country, which software cannot create. The only alternative is incorporating an entity yourself, a legal and finance undertaking rather than a build.
When does it make sense to stop using an EOR?
When headcount in a country becomes durable enough that entity setup pays for itself. Hawksford documents a client moving a four-person Singapore team to its own entity twelve months after starting with a single EOR hire, once the market was validated.
How is EOR pricing structured?
As a flat monthly fee per employee. Deel lists EOR employment at $599 per employee per month, covering the compliant employment contract, payroll processing, tax filings and benefits administration for that person.