You have the entities. Find who runs the payroll.
Independent comparison of 84 global payroll providers: real per-employee pricing, exact country coverage, and who actually processes the run. No paid placements, no signup.
Six things worth checking on any payroll quote
Providers publish the headline price and stay quiet about the rest. These are the fields that move the real number, and the ones we publish for all 84.
All your countries, or most of them
Partial coverage means a second vendor, a second contract, and a second deadline every month. Check the list country by country, not the marketing map.
The platform fee under the per-seat price
Most providers charge per employee plus a monthly fee per country or per entity. Two vendors at $25 a head can differ by thousands a year on the second line.
Who actually processes the run
Some providers own a payroll entity in the country. Others resell a local firm. Both work, but it decides your turnaround and who picks up the phone when a filing is wrong.
Your pay cycle and funding cut-off
Not every provider supports semi-monthly or weekly runs. Ask how many days before payday they need funds cleared; that number sets your treasury calendar.
The GL and HRIS you already use
Without a native connector, someone on your team re-keys the journal every month. Confirm the integration exists and is live, not on a roadmap.
Who pays the penalty for a late filing
Read the compliance clause. Plenty of contracts put statutory penalties back on you as the legal employer, even when the provider missed the date.
Start with the countries you already run
We only show providers that can process payroll in all of them.
Multiplier
One Global Payroll
Remote
The detail that decides it
Same fields, same wording, every provider. No field is left blank to flatter anyone.
| Payroll comparison | Multiplier | One Global Payroll | Remote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payroll price | $30/emp/mo | $26/emp/mo | $29/emp/mo |
| Payroll countries | 171 | 163 | 186 |
| Pay cycles | bi-weekly, semi-monthly, custom | weekly, monthly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly | weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly |
| GL & HRIS integrations | BambooHR, HiBob, Workday | Workday, BambooHR, HiBob | QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite |
| Payout currencies | 27 | 27 | 52 |
| Rating | 4.7 | Not yet rated | 4.5 |
One vendor for everything, or a specialist per country?
This choice matters more than which brand you pick. Most bad shortlists start by skipping it.
One aggregator
A single vendor consolidates payroll across all your entities, processing locally where it holds an entity and subcontracting where it doesn't.
- +One contract, one invoice, one monthly deadline
- +Consolidated reporting and a single GL export
- +One place to escalate when something breaks
- –Local depth varies market by market
- –Higher per-employee price than a local firm
Usually wins if you run three or more countries and have no in-house payroll team.
A specialist per country
You contract a local payroll bureau in each country and manage the relationships yourself, or through your finance team.
- +Deepest local compliance knowledge
- +Typically the lowest cost per employee
- +Direct line to the people doing the filing
- –One vendor, format, and calendar per country
- –No consolidated view without manual work
Usually wins if your headcount is concentrated in one or two countries.
Hiring somewhere you have no entity?That's not payroll: you'd need an employer of record, which typically costs around ten times as much per employee. We keep those separate, and we flag EOR availability on every provider page.
Payroll vs. EOR →What is global payroll?
Global payroll is the processing of salaries, tax withholding, and statutory filings for employees you already employ through your own legal entities in more than one country. The provider runs the calculation and the filings; you remain the legal employer.
That is the line that separates it from an employer of record. An EOR employs the person for you because you have no entity in that country, and charges roughly ten times as much for it. If you already hold the entity, payroll is the product you're shopping for, typically $12 to $40 per employee per month.
Providers deliver it in one of two ways. Some own a payroll entity in each country and process the run themselves. Others resell a local firm's processing under their own contract. Both are legitimate; the difference shows up in price, turnaround, and who you reach when a filing is wrong.
Payroll Overview indexes 84 providers across 250countries against one published checklist. We're funded by referral fees from some providers, and those fees never affect ranking or which fields we publish.
Everything we've published on global payroll
What payroll buyers ask us most
What is global payroll, and how is it different from an EOR?+
How much does global payroll cost per employee?+
Do I need a legal entity to use a global payroll provider?+
Should I use one aggregator or a provider per country?+
What does "own entity" versus "local partners" mean?+
How is Payroll Overview funded, and does it affect the ranking?+
Have another question? Email the editorial team →
How a provider gets into this index
Every other "best global payroll" list is a vendor ranking itself, or an affiliate page with no stated criteria. Here is ours, in full, before you read a single review.
Multi-country payroll, documented
Payroll for employees in at least five countries, publicly documented. Not EOR dressed up as payroll.
A stated compliance split
Public detail on withholding, statutory filings, and where liability sits between vendor and customer.
A real review footprint
Verifiable ratings on G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot. We average them and link out; we never collect our own.
Disclosed pricing
A public price, a starting price, or an explicit quote-only policy, each with a source URL and a date.
Built by a small team of researchers led by Robbin Schuchmann. We read the provider contracts and pricing pages ourselves, and re-check every price quarterly. How we research →
Independent · No paid placements · Funded by referral fees that don't influence rankingRather have the providers come to you?
Send your countries, headcount, and pay cycles once. We route the requirements to matching payroll providers and the proposals come back to you. No cost, no obligation.
Start with the countries you already run.
84 payroll providers, mapped across 250 countries, with no paid placements anywhere in the index.