Oyster
Hire, pay, and manage your global team compliantly, anywhere in the world.
Executive Summary
Oyster is a global employment platform designed for HR, People Ops, and finance teams to hire and manage distributed employees and contractors across 180+ countries without establishing local entities. The platform centralizes onboarding, contracts, payroll coordination, benefits administration, and ongoing employment lifecycle workflows. It ensures compliance with local labor laws and reduces risk, enabling faster global hiring, standardized worker experiences, and improved visibility into global workforce costs and status.
Use Cases
- Hiring full-time employees in new international markets without establishing local entities.
- Managing and paying global contractors compliantly across multiple countries.
- Centralizing payroll, benefits, and HR administration for a distributed workforce.
- Ensuring legal and tax compliance with local labor laws in 180+ countries.
- Transitioning contractors to full-time employees while maintaining compliance.
- Accessing real-time salary and benefits benchmarking data for global compensation strategies.
Features
Visibility
- Global Workforce Dashboard: Provides a unified view of all employees and contractors across different countries, including their employment status and key HR data.
- Payroll and Cost Reporting: Detailed reports on payroll costs, taxes, and employer contributions by country, offering clear financial oversight.
- Time-Off and Expense Tracking: Visibility into employee time-off accruals, requests, and expense claim summaries for efficient management.
- Compliance Insights: Surfaces country-specific employment intelligence and legal insights to ensure adherence to local regulations.
Intelligence
- Employment Cost Calculator: Estimates total hiring costs, including local taxes and fees, for various countries.
- Salary Insights Tool: Provides market data on typical pay ranges for specific jobs in different countries to help set competitive salaries.
- AI-Powered Global Employment Assistant (Pearl): Offers instant virtual assistance, supercharged search, and expert guidance to streamline HR processes and answer complex global employment questions.
- Automated Compliance Engine: Reviews employment data and agreements to ensure legal compliance with local regulations, reducing risk.
Support
- Dedicated Customer Success Team: Provides proactive guidance and strategic advice to help companies build sustainable global talent strategies.
- Online Help Center and Guides: Access to educational materials, FAQs, and best practices for global hiring and payroll.
- Specialized Support Teams: Access to HR pros, legal experts, and specialized support for payroll, benefits, ongoing HR, and offboarding issues.
- In-App Support Request: Ability to submit support inquiries directly through the platform with guaranteed response and resolution times.
Technical Specifications
- Architecture
- Cloud-native SaaS
- Deployment
- Cloud/SaaS
- Authentication
- SSO, 2FA, Google Login
- API Available
- Yes
- MCP Server
- No
Infrastructure
- AWS
AI/ML Stack
- Machine Learning
- Natural Language Processing
- Generative AI
- Predictive Analytics
Integrations
- HRIS (e.g., BambooHR)
Security & Compliance
Certifications: SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR
Encryption: AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2 in transit
Data Residency:
Pricing
- Model
- Per employee/contractor per month, Tiered subscription
- Starting Price
- Contractor: $29/contractor/month; Global Payroll: $50/user/month; Employer of Record: Starts at $699/user/month
- Target Customer
- SMB to Enterprise
- Contract Type
- Annual (discounts for 3+ EOR hires)
- Free Trial
- Yes, 30 days for contractors; 3 days for some features (credit card required)
About Oyster HR, Inc.
Oyster is a global employment platform that helps companies hire, onboard, pay, and manage distributed teams across countries. The company provides Employer of Record (EOR) services, global payroll, benefits administration, and compliance tooling to support cross-border employment.