Deel

What it is

Deel solves a problem that appears the moment you want to work with someone in another country: you can find them, and you cannot straightforwardly pay or employ them. It handles contractor agreements and payments in more than 120 currencies with automated invoicing and tax form guidance, and for employees it acts as employer of record in more than 130 countries, meaning Deel is the legal employer while the person works for you.

Alongside that sit US co-employment through a PEO, managed payroll with tax filings and reporting, benefits administration, and a hiring product with job posting and AI-powered screening.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

It fits companies hiring across borders without a legal entity in each country. Setting up a local entity to employ one person is months of work and ongoing cost, and employer of record replaces that with a monthly fee. It also fits businesses paying a spread of international contractors who are tired of chasing invoices and wire transfers.

It is a weaker fit if everyone you work with is in your own country, where local payroll software is cheaper and simpler. And at $599 per EOR employee per month, it is a poor fit for hiring at volume in one place: past a handful of people in the same country, setting up an entity usually becomes the cheaper option.

Pricing

Deel is paid, priced per worker per month, with no free tier and month-to-month terms. Find Talent is $14 per worker per month. Hiring contractors is $49 per contractor per month, or $325 per month per contractor of record. Full-time employees are $125 per month per US PEO employee, or $599 per month per EOR employee.

That EOR number is the one to model carefully. It is cheap against the cost and delay of incorporating abroad for one hire, and expensive as a permanent arrangement for five people in the same country. Calculate the crossover before you commit to the model.

Set it up

Official guide: How to Create a Contractor Contract on Deel

1. Decide what kind of worker this is. A contractor is a self-employed person who works with you on a project basis, and these steps cover contractors. Deel has no free tier, so create a Deel account on the Hire Contractors plan ($49 per contractor/mo, month-to-month). Have the worker's name, email address, country and agreed rate ready. You now land in your Deel account.
2. On the Deel homepage, select the People icon, and on the People tab click "Add People". Select "Contractor". You now see the first step of a contract.
3. Choose how to start the contract: from a blank template, or from a pre-filled template based on an existing contract. For your first contract, use the blank one. Pick the group and entity, then enter the worker's name, email address and country of residence. The contract draft now names the worker.
4. Select the agreement type, then describe the job in the Scope of Work, which is the list of what the person will do. Pick "New Scope of Work" to let Deel AI write a first version, then read it and fix anything that is wrong. The contract now holds your scope of work.
5. Choose how you pay the person. "Fixed Rate" means consistent payments for ongoing work. "Pay As You Go" means payment for tasks, hours or days worked. "Milestone" means payment when a deliverable is done. Enter the rate, currency, payment frequency, start date and first payment date. The contract now holds your payment terms.
6. Choose the coverage. Misclassification means a tax authority decides your contractor is really an employee. Deel offers full misclassification coverage or coverage up to a set amount. The contract now shows the coverage you chose.
7. Review the contract and click "Review and Sign". Then invite the contractor to sign, with a personal message or by copying the Deel contract link and sharing it yourself. Check the email address first, because the contract goes to that person. The contract now waits for the contractor, and it activates when both of you have accepted.

When this works, you have a signed contract with a person abroad that sets their rate, currency and payment schedule. Extras such as background checks are billed separately. Next, use the same flow for each new contractor, starting from a pre-filled template.

On Hire Full-Time Employees ($125 per US PEO employee/mo, or $599 per EOR employee/mo): you can hire full-time employees too, where PEO (professional employer organization) and EOR (employer of record) both mean Deel acts as the legal employer. These steps cover contractors only.

Strengths and limitations

The strength is speed and coverage. Hiring legally in a country where you have no presence goes from a multi-month entity project to onboarding in days, and contractor payments across many currencies stop being a manual chore.

The limitations are cost shape and dependency. Per-worker monthly pricing means the bill scales linearly with headcount, and EOR is deliberately priced as a service rather than infrastructure. You also depend on a third party for the employment relationship itself, which is a real consideration for key hires. And classification remains your risk: whether someone is genuinely a contractor is a legal question about how you work with them, and a platform cannot make a misclassified relationship compliant.