7 Best Remote Alternatives to Consider in 2023

Foreign companies expanding in India must know the local complexities of hiring Indian employees. The process can get expensive and time-consuming for businesses to get all the necessary approvals to start their legal entity. 

It is ideal to partner with an experienced employer of record (EOR) with knowledge of local rules and regulations. An EOR takes the responsibility of onboarding employees, maintaining payroll and ensuring local compliance.

Remote is a global EOR helping small and big companies with employment solutions such as onboarding foreign talent, understanding employee benefits, running payroll, taxation and compliance through their affiliates based in different countries. 

While the EOR service has local expertise in tax laws, some users find the platform very complex and are not happy with the customer support. The pricing structure and limited payment options are not affordable for all global workers. 

G2 reviews also mention that the health insurance provider chosen with the company takes a lot of time to pay out, and the user has no clear information about how the process is done. 

While the overall onboarding process may be smoother, such drawbacks affect the user experience. 

We bring you a comparative analysis of some of Remote alternatives based on their features, pricing and pros and cons. 

7 Remote Alternatives to Watch Out For in 2023  

Here’s a list of top Remote alternatives that you can choose to hire employees from India: 

1. Rapid

A trusted EoR platform with deep local expertise, Rapid helps global companies establish their teams in India without the hassle of having to form a separate legal entity. 

It takes care of onboarding, compliance, local benefits for employees, managing payroll and employee liabilities. 

Thus, companies can focus on growth and scalability in India while being assured of a quick and seamless onboarding at a fraction of the cost for their new technical team members via the intuitive Rapid platform.

Rapid, a Remote competitor, is advantageous for startups and scaleups as it also helps in facilitating rented office space and IT support for their employees for a comprehensive in-office employee experience. Rapid also offers passthrough taxation that helps companies save costs on all non-salary payments. 

Unlike other EORs, Rapid allows companies complete control over their organisational structure i.e. they’re free to set their holiday list, salary structure and so on.

Features

• Digital onboarding: Provides a dashboard to upload employee documentation online and generates relevant contracts for hiring in India. A dedicated team guides you through the entire process, as needed.
  

• Managing compliance: Ensures compliance concerning changing local laws is maintained. They also offer 24/7 email support and work closely with companies to understand their compliance challenges and help address them.

• Localised benefits: Deep local expertise ensures proper knowledge of local laws and employee liabilities. They have tie-ups with local service providers to provide best-in-class health benefits and background checks. Three tiers of packages are offered to cater to all types of companies.

• Quick process: Offers quick onboarding of a team in a compliant manner that takes just a few minutes through Rapid’s platform instead of the standard 6-9 months. 
  

• Flexibility: Allows the company complete control over its organisational culture, including policies, employee benefits, leaves and salary structure.
  

• Passthrough taxation: Companies can avail of the complete benefit of GST as Rapid carries out passthrough taxation. You can save up to 18% on all the non-salary payments such as rent and equipment costs etc. 

Pricing

Employee: $299 per month per employee

Contractor: $49 per month per employee

Rapid has a special startup pricing:

Employee: $199 per employee per month

Contractor: $39 per employee per month

2. Deel

Another Remote alternative, Deel makes global team management easy with streamlined hiring, HR and payroll integrated into one system. Whether you want to hire contractors or full-time employees, the payroll and compliance software simplifies international hiring for businesses of all sizes. 

With everything available on a single platform, you get a holistic view of HR management. 

Features

• Global hiring: Deel enables you to hire employees and contractors worldwide.
  

• Immigration and visa support: An in-house immigration team streamlines hiring in over 25+ countries and takes care of all the admin and documentation work to speed up the visa processing.
  

• All-in-one HR platform: It combines EOR, global payroll and immigration and automates tasks with minimum errors.
  

• Equipment management: Manages and ships all tools with a premium warranty for your new hires, eliminating trouble with customs.
  

• Global payroll: Runs payroll services in 100+ countries ensuring local taxes, benefits and expenses are handled.
  

Pricing

Employee: Starting at $599 per month per employee

Contractor: Starting at $49 per month per employee

Global payroll: Contact the sales team for pricing

3. Multiplier

A Remote competitor based in Singapore, Multiplier manages employee benefits, taxes, social security and offers local insurance policies to remote hires in foreign countries. It serves startups and medium-sized enterprises. 

 Features

• Localised benefits: Offers localised and cost-effective insurance

• Customised templates: Offers customisable job description templates for different roles

• Managing payroll: Offers payroll management for employees and freelancers in over 120 countries compliant with local corporate tax laws

• ESOP administration: Facilitates the provision of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) to the workforce

Pricing

Full-time employees: Starting from $300 per month

Freelancers:  Starting from $40 per month 

Additional plans include: 

Global payroll: Starting from $20 per month

Employee insurance: Starting from $20 per month

4. Oyster 

Oyster HR is a global employment platform that provides end-to-end management in over 180 countries through automation and self-serve tools. They have an employee analyzer, employment templates, checklists, cost calculator and benefits advisor. 

This Remote competitor is focused on building a remote workforce and provides guided support for all hiring needs. 

Features

• Centralised platform for recruitment: Offers a dashboard to store all documents, onboarding information and payroll details
  

• Multi-country global payroll: Manages payouts in 120+ countries and presents a single invoice for all global hires
  

• Guided hiring: Offers a virtual hiring assistant to provide relevant information and insights on hiring requirements, compliance and employee benefits packages for specific countries
  

Pricing

Employee: Starting at $499 per employee per month 

Contractor: Starting at $29 per contractor per month

Customised and discounted annual package for businesses targeting faster growth 

5. Papaya Global

Papaya Global has a comprehensive payroll system that can be used by HR and finance teams collectively. They have an intuitive and standardised platform to regulate huge volumes of employee data. 

Building its own global payments network, this Remote alternative processes payment with full transparency globally with a guarantee of no more than 72 hours. 

Features 

• Own payment rails: Cuts out third-party integrators with their embedded payments platform to ensure timely payments
  
  
• Payroll compliance: Has an in-built compliance system to audit payments before processing
  
  
• HR and finance integrations: Simplifies HR and finance team tech stacks with one platform backed by AI

• Certified security: Offers bank-level security certified with GDPR, SOC1, SOC2, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701
  
  
• Immigration support: Helps obtain work and residence permits for relocation of employees

Pricing

Full-service payroll: Starting from $12 per month per employee

EOR services: Starting from $770 per month per employee

Contractor management: Starting from $25 per month per employee

Global expertise services: Starting from $250 per month per employee

6. Plane (Formerly Pilot)

Plane is an EOR platform that enables US companies to hire employees in over 100+ countries and manages payroll, benefits and compliance for them. It follows a centralised system and also manages taxes, labour law compliance and IP protection. 

• Digital onboarding: Uses a guided hiring flow to suit employees from different locations

• Drafts multi-level contracts: Gives customised options to draft contracts with the help of a local legal team 

• Convenient expense management: Reviews and reports the company expenses over a few clicks

• Automated compliance: Automates tax forms collection, handles mandatory filings for employees and ensures country-specific contracts are reviewed by local lawyers

Pricing

Contractors: $29 per contractor per month (flat rate)

US employees: $29 per employee per month (flat rate)

International employees: Starts at $299 per employee per month (flat rate)

7. Rippling

Rippling is a workforce management platform that streamlines hiring and payroll for global employees. A Remote competitor, it offers talent management, headcount planning, device management and expense management. 

Features

• Workflow automation: Offers one place to manage, update and report on everything related to hiring, payroll, benefits and devices across multiple systems, reducing the errors of manual data entry

• Flexible policy engine: Builds custom policies and automatically applies them to your employees based on their location, department and tenure

• Controlled access: Ability to control approvals and access of the team to third-party apps like Rippling Payroll through a role-based permission system 

• Unified analytics: Collates data from the HR, IT and Finance systems and turns them into daily, weekly or monthly reports

Pricing

• Starts at $8 per user per month
• Customised pricing is available depending on the services chosen 

Partnering With Rapid for Scalable Growth

The EOR services market is anticipated to reach $196 million by 2029, thus highlighting the benefits of partnering with one. 

Among the many Remote alternatives to choose from, how do you decide on one that is best suited for hiring employees in India? 

Here’s a checklist to find the right EOR for you: 

• Does it have deep local expertise?
• Does it offer comprehensive services such as global hiring, payroll processing, compliance management and workforce solutions?
• Does it offer transparent pricing without any other additional charges? 
• Is it cost-effective in terms of money and time?
• Does it provide the flexibility to set up your own organisational culture? 
• Does it have a reliable and prompt customer support team?
• Does it offer an end-to-end customer experience?

If you want to scale your business operations in India, consider partnering with Rapid to onboard high-quality tech talent at a fraction of the cost of setting up a legal entity and within minutes instead of spending the standard 6-9 months. 

We ensure that the compliances and approvals are taken care of while you can focus on growing your company. 

We have also partnered with trusted service providers to offer best-in-class health insurance and background verification services–spread across three tiers to suit the needs of every type of company.

Unlike other EORs, you do not have to hand over control of your team to us. We allow you to set up your own organisational culture–be it through deciding your own holiday list, salary structure, leave policy and benefits offered.

Through our services marketplace, you can also partner with recruiters, office space providers, visa processors and other types of services–everything you need for a complete in-office experience.  

Book a demo with us today! 

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