Oyster Review (2026)Two Costs Have No Figure

The two numbers that decide your bill are not on the price card.

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Pricing (2026)

✓ Pricing re-verified 29 Aug 2026

Employer of Record USD 699 per employee per month, with annual discounts available; Global Contractors free for 30 days, then USD 29 per contractor per month; People Partner Services USD 300 per hour, project-based. Creating an account is free, there is no minimum team size, and Oyster states there are no setup or onboarding fees. Two costs still carry no figure anywhere: Oyster requires a refundable deposit for EOR team members, and charges a currency-conversion fee when you pay in a currency other than the contract currency (it accepts USD, EUR, GBP and CAD).

Oyster Shell, included with a Global Contractors subscription, carries aggregate misclassification protection up to USD $500,000. Plans change — always verify the live price on their site.

Correction after re-checking: One line in our earlier text no longer holds. We wrote that the refundable EOR deposit and the currency-conversion fee sit in the FAQ rather than on the price card; on 14 August 2026 both are stated on the pricing page itself. Neither has a number attached, so the substance stands — $699 is a floor, not a total — but Oyster is no longer burying them. The startup offer of up to $1,200 off EOR subscription fees is on the pricing page itself on 29 August 2026, and two other discount routes sit beside it: Oyster for Impact for non-profits and B Corps, and Oyster for Refugees, which the page says carries no or discounted costs. None of the three states a rate you can calculate with, so treat all of them as an opening to ask rather than a price. (re-verified 2026-08-29)

The honest knock

Oyster holds a refundable deposit per EOR employee: working capital out of your account before anyone is paid. It also takes an FX fee whenever the payment currency differs from the contract currency, which for a genuinely global team is most of the time. Neither has a figure attached anywhere we could find. So the honest position is that $699 is the floor, and the real per-employee cost depends on a deposit and a spread you have to ask for.

The contractor product is a different shape and much cheaper at $29, so decide which one you actually need. Misclassifying a contractor as an employee is expensive; misclassifying the other way is what the $699 exists to prevent.

What Oyster does

Employer of record and global contractor management for hiring where you have no legal entity. EOR is $699 per employee a month, contractors $29. Two costs sit in the FAQ rather than on the price card: a refundable deposit per EOR employee, and an FX fee when payment and contract currency differ.

What buyers report about Oyster

Recurring themes from the buyer-review sites listed at the foot of this page, read in August 2026 (the GetApp listing states it was last updated July 2026, over 91 verified reviews). We have not run Oyster ourselves, so this is other buyers' experience rather than ours. We summarise it here because the complaints are usually the part a vendor page leaves out.

When the paid plan is worth it

There are two products here at wildly different prices, and picking the wrong one is the expensive mistake. Employer of Record is USD 699 per employee per month with annual discounts available. Global Contractors is free for 30 days and then USD 29 per contractor per month — twenty-four times cheaper. People Partner Services are USD 300 an hour, project-based. That gap is not a discount to chase, it is a legal distinction.

Misclassifying an employee as a contractor is what the $699 exists to prevent, and the exposure from getting it wrong dwarfs the difference. Decide the classification first on the facts of the working relationship, then read the price. The Global Contractors subscription includes Oyster Shell with aggregate misclassification protection up to USD $500,000, which is a real number to weigh against the risk you are carrying. Two costs decide your actual per-employee bill and neither has a figure anywhere we could find.

Oyster requires a refundable deposit for EOR team members. That is working capital out of your account before anyone is paid, and on a team of ten it is a meaningful sum sitting somewhere else. And there is a currency-conversion fee whenever you pay in a currency other than the contract currency — which for a genuinely global team is most of the time. Oyster accepts USD, EUR, GBP and CAD.

So $699 is the floor, and the honest position is that the real cost depends on a deposit and a spread you have to ask for. Ask for both in writing, as a percentage and as a multiple-of-salary figure. For a company hiring its first person abroad, that removes the usual barrier to finding out what this costs.

How to actually use Oyster

Ask for the two unpriced numbers before you budget anything. One is the refundable deposit Oyster requires per EOR employee. The other is the currency-conversion fee, charged whenever you pay in a currency other than the contract currency. Neither carries a figure anywhere we could find, and the deposit is working capital leaving your account before anyone is paid. Treat $699 per employee per month as the floor rather than the cost.

Then decide which product you actually need, because they differ by a factor of twenty-four and by law. Employer of Record at $699 exists precisely to prevent misclassification; Global Contractors at $29 assumes the classification is already right. Getting that wrong is expensive in both directions, and it is a legal question rather than a budget one. Take advice on the specific role and country rather than picking the cheaper line.

Check the currency list against your reality: Oyster accepts USD, EUR, GBP and CAD. If your contracts or your people sit outside those, the FX question is not occasional, it is every payment. So run one real contractor payment cycle end to end during the 30 free days before committing to anything larger. If you take the contractor product, note that Oyster Shell is included and carries aggregate misclassification protection up to $500,000. Worth reading the terms of, since that is the risk you are carrying.

Distilled from Oyster's own pricing page (oysterhr.com/pricing), read 29 August 2026 — the three product cards with the currency selector set to USD, and the FAQ block below them on the refundable EOR deposit, currency conversion, minimum team size and how annual EOR seat billing works.

Oyster vs Deel, side by side

Both columns come from the same place: each vendor’s own published pricing, read on the date shown in the sources at the foot of this page. We do not average them into a score.

Oyster →

What it costs

Oyster Shell, included with a Global Contractors subscription, carries aggregate misclassification protection up to USD $500,000.

Price read on

2026-08-14

The catch

The two numbers that decide your bill are not on the price card.

Best for

companies hiring their first employees in countries where they have no legal entity, and who would otherwise spend more on local counsel and payroll setup than the monthly fee

Deel →

What it costs

Contractor management is $49 per contractor a month, or $325 per month per Contractor of Record if you want Deel to carry the compliance risk.

Price read on

2026-08-17

The catch

Every price is a ‘starting at’ and every button says ‘book a demo’ — the real bill depends on countries, benefits and add-ons, and only firms up in a sales conversation.

Best for

companies hiring internationally without local entities — contractors paid compliantly in 150+ countries, or full EOR employment where you need someone on the ground fast

The Deel link above is an affiliate link — we may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you — and the other column is a plain link. Neither changes what this table says: both columns come straight from the vendors’ own pricing pages.

The natural comparison is Deel or Remote — the standing EOR comparison — ask all three for the deposit amount and the FX spread, because the per-employee headline is the part they agree on.

The ex-banker filter — the same yardstick on every review (how we review): My ex-banker filter is simple: does Oyster remove a real cost — time, errors, missed revenue — bigger than what it charges? If the job above is genuinely yours, it's worth a look. We never publish fake or “exclusive” prices, so always confirm the current plan on their site.

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Frequently asked questions

Employee or contractor — which Oyster product do I need?

The gap is USD 699 against USD 29 a month, so it pays to get this right rather than cheap. Employer of Record at USD 699 per employee per month exists to carry the legal employment relationship in a country where you have no entity; Global Contractors, free for 30 days then USD 29 per contractor per month, does not. Misclassifying an employee as a contractor is the expensive mistake, and Oyster sells the contractor product with Oyster Shell, which it says carries aggregate misclassification protection up to USD $500,000.

What will Oyster cost beyond the $699?

Two things, and neither has a published figure. Oyster requires a refundable deposit per EOR team member — working capital out of your account before anyone is paid — and charges a currency-conversion fee whenever you pay in a currency other than the contract currency; it accepts USD, EUR, GBP and CAD, so for a genuinely global team that fee is the normal case rather than the exception. Ask for both numbers in writing before you sign. There is no setup or onboarding fee and no minimum team size.

Is there any discount to ask for?

The pricing page says annual discounts are available on Employer of Record, and our August 2026 capture of the same page carried a startup offer of up to $1,200 off EOR subscription fees. Both are stated without conditions, which makes them an opening to negotiate rather than a rate you will automatically be given.

What should I weigh before buying HR & People software?

Compliance is country by country, so the honest answer is: only where the vendor says it is, and only for the entity type you actually have. Ask which countries are covered by its own entities versus a local partner, who carries the liability if something is filed wrong, and how changes in local law reach you. Get those answers in the contract rather than the sales deck.

Is this a hands-on review of Oyster?

This is a researched assessment, not a hands-on test — where we've used a tool ourselves, we say so explicitly. We name what each tool is genuinely good and bad at, and we have no affiliate relationship with Oyster — we earn nothing whether you sign up or not.

Others in this category

The hr & people tools closest to Oyster that we have also reviewed. They overlap rather than match:

DeelRemote PeoplePapaya GlobalPlandayParimall 16 reviews →

This is our researched assessment — not a paid placement. How we review →

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