EOR fees start at $99 and go up to $699 per employee per month. Meteors charges $99, at the bottom of that range.
That fee is not the full cost. It’s one part of three.
The second part is the employee’s salary. The third is employer contributions, which the law requires you to pay on top of that salary. These usually add 10% to 20%, depending on the country.
The fee is the smallest of the three. The contributions are the part people forget, and they’re the reason budgets break.
This guide covers all three. It also covers the charges that appear later, a full worked example, and the point where setting up your own entity becomes cheaper.
The three parts of EOR cost
Every quote should show these separately. If yours doesn’t, ask again.
1. Gross salary. What you agree to pay the employee before deductions. This is the biggest number by far. It’s the same whether you use an Employer of Record or hire someone directly.
2. Employer contributions. What the law makes an employer pay on top of salary. Retirement or provident fund, social security, gratuity, mandatory bonuses, leave encashment, and in some markets insurance levies. Every employer in that country pays these, whatever structure they use.
3. The EOR fee. What the provider charges to hold the employment, run payroll, file with authorities, and manage benefits.
Only the third one is negotiable. Your offer sets the first. The law sets the second.
What do EOR providers charge?
Fees across the market start at about $99 and go up to $699 per employee per month. That gap is not random. It reflects real differences in what providers do.
What drives the difference
Country coverage. A provider covering 150 countries has to maintain entities or partners in all of them. That cost sits inside the fee. A provider covering fewer markets carries less of it.
Owned entities or partners. Some providers employ through their own registered entities. Others route through a local partner and pay that partner a margin. The margin ends up in your fee. Meteors employs through its own entities, which is a large part of why the rate sits where it does.
What’s included. Some fees cover contracts and payroll only. Others include benefits, immigration support, and a named account manager. Compare what’s inside the number, not just the number.
Volume and contract length. Annual commitments usually price below monthly. More headcount usually earns a lower rate per person.
Market complexity. Some countries carry heavier filing and registration work. Providers price for that.
What Meteors charges
Meteors charges $99 per employee per month. The same rate applies across Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.
It does not change with salary. A $600 hire and a $6,000 hire carry the same fee. Invoicing is in US dollars, euros, or pounds sterling.
Full EOR pricing is published rather than quoted on request.
Employer contributions: the line people forget
This is where budgets break.
A company compares provider fees. It picks one and signs. Then the first invoice arrives and the total cost is higher than the salary anyone approved.
Employer contributions are payments the law requires from the employer. They sit on top of gross pay. What’s included changes by country, but the list usually looks like this:
- Retirement or provident fund
- Social security or state insurance
- Gratuity or end-of-service accrual
- Mandatory annual or festival bonuses
- Leave encashment
- Workplace injury or health levies
- Payroll taxes charged to the employer
In most markets covered here, these add 10% to 20% of gross salary. Lower where social insurance is light. Higher where retirement and severance rules are strong.
Two things are worth knowing.
You pay this either way. It isn’t an EOR charge. Hire the same person through your own entity and the contributions are identical. Any provider who presents this as a saving is misleading you.
The rates move. Percentages change. Thresholds shift. New categories get added. A quote calculated in January can be wrong by June. Ask your provider how they handle a mid-year change, and whether it shows on your invoice as a separate line.
Building a full budget takes more than the contribution rate. The employee cost calculator works out the total for a specific salary and market.
Fees that appear after you sign
None of these are unreasonable on their own. All of them should be in the quote, not on the first invoice.
Security deposits. Some providers hold one or two months of salary upfront. On a team of ten, that’s a lot of your working capital sitting elsewhere. Ask if it’s held, how much, and when you get it back.
Foreign exchange margin. You fund in one currency. The employee is paid in another. If nobody tells you which rate is applied, the gap between the market rate and the rate used is a cost you never see. Ask what rate they use and where it’s published.
Offboarding charges. Some contracts bill separately when an employee leaves. That arrives exactly when you’re least inclined to argue. Check whether termination is included.
Per-filing add-ons. Year-end returns or amended filings charged on top of the monthly fee.
Setup fees. One-time charges per employee, sometimes called registration costs.
Minimum commitments. A minimum headcount or a minimum term. Fine if your plans are settled. Expensive if you’re testing a market.
Expense processing. A charge for reimbursing employee expenses through payroll.
Ask every provider one question: what else could appear on an invoice that isn’t in this quote? The answer, and how quickly it comes, tells you a lot.
A worked example
A mid-level software engineer in Bangladesh.
| Line item | Monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gross salary | $1,000 | Agreed with the employee |
| Festival bonus, 16.667% of basic | $83.34 | Two months of basic a year |
| Gratuity accrual, 8.333% of basic | $41.66 | One month of basic a year |
| Annual leave accrual, 3.889% of gross | $38.89 | About fourteen days a year |
| Employer costs | $163.89 | 16.39% of gross |
| EOR fee | $99 | The same in every market |
| Total monthly cost | $1,262.89 | What you budget |
| Total annual cost | $15,154.68 |
Salary is 79% of the total. Employer costs are 13%. The fee is 8%.
Two of those employer costs are calculated on basic salary rather than gross. In Bangladesh basic is half of gross, so the rates look larger than the amounts they produce.
Look at those shares again. The provider’s fee is the smallest number on the page. Employer costs are two thirds larger, and they are the line most budgets miss.
That’s why comparing providers on fee alone tells you very little.
Bangladesh figures are current. Rates vary by country and change over time, so ask any provider for an itemized quote against your actual role and market.
EOR cost versus setting up an entity
| Employer of Record | Your own entity | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | None | $5,000 to $10,000 |
| Time before you can employ | 1 to 3 days | 3 to 6 months |
| Ongoing fixed cost | None | Accounting, audit, filings, local director |
| Cost per employee | Monthly fee | Payroll admin only |
| Employer contributions | Same | Same |
| Cost to exit | Notice and settlement | Deregistration, several months |
Entity setup covers incorporation, legal drafting, a registered office, share capital where required, and local advisory. Running one adds monthly accounting, an annual audit, statutory filings, and usually a local director or company secretary.
Working out your break-even
The arithmetic is simple. Compare what you’d pay each month either way. Then see how long it takes to earn back the setup cost.
Step 1. EOR monthly cost = number of employees × monthly fee.
Step 2. Entity monthly cost = accounting, audit, filings, local director, and payroll admin. In most markets this runs $800 to $2,000 a month, whatever your headcount.
Step 3. If the entity costs less per month, divide the setup cost by the monthly saving. That’s how many months until you’re ahead.
Two examples, using $1,200 a month to run an entity and $8,000 to set one up.
At $99 per employee. Twenty people cost $1,980 a month. The entity costs $1,200. You’d save $780 a month, so recovering the $8,000 setup takes about ten months. Below thirteen people the entity never catches up at all.
At $599 per employee. Ten people cost $5,990 a month. The entity saves you $4,790 a month and pays for itself in three months. Even three people recover it inside two years.
The fee decides this, more than anything else. That’s why you check the fee before assuming an entity is the sensible option. EOR vs local entity works through these numbers in more detail.
When an EOR stops making financial sense
Worth saying plainly, because most providers won’t.
A large permanent team in one market. Past the break-even above, an entity costs less. If you’re sure about twenty-five or more people in one country for years, run the numbers properly.
You need the entity anyway. Signing local contracts, holding assets, importing goods, or bidding for government work all need a registered company. If you need one regardless, the employment cost stops being the deciding factor.
Genuinely short, independent work. Someone working three weeks on their own schedule with other clients is a contractor. Employing them creates cost and obligation neither side wants.
How EOR cost varies by country
The fee itself varies less than people expect. What moves the total is the contribution layer underneath.
Countries with strong social insurance and severance rules carry higher employer contributions. Countries with lighter systems carry less. On a $3,000 salary, the difference between a 10% burden and a 20% burden is $300 every month. That dwarfs any realistic gap between provider fees.
Structure adds another layer. EOR India covers provident fund, employee state insurance, professional tax, and gratuity. Several of those thresholds are set by state rather than nationally. Two engineers on identical salaries in different states can cost different amounts to employ.
This is why comparing fees alone misleads you. A low fee in a high-contribution market still costs more overall than a higher fee in a light one. Compare total employment cost per hire, per market.
Ask for the contribution percentage in writing for every market you’re considering. Then ask when it was last checked.
EOR cost in South Asia
South Asia offers one of the widest gaps anywhere between talent quality and total employment cost. That’s why so much global engineering, finance, and operations work sits there. Salaries run well below North America and Western Europe for equivalent skill, and employer contributions are moderate next to much of continental Europe.
Bangladesh carries festival bonus, gratuity, and annual leave obligations, which together add 16.39% of gross for a permanent employee. EOR service in Bangladesh is $99 per employee per month.
In Pakistan, social security and old-age benefit contributions are set by province, so obligations in Sindh differ from Punjab. EOR coverage in Pakistan is priced the same.
Meteors works across all three markets on one agreement and one invoice. You get the full breakdown of salary, contributions, and fee before you make an offer.
How to compare quotes properly
Six checks that make two quotes genuinely comparable.
1. Get all three parts separately. Gross salary, contributions, and fee, itemized. One blended number hides everything.
2. Ask what else could be invoiced. Deposits, FX margin, offboarding, per-filing charges, expense processing. Get the list in writing.
3. Check the FX rate. Ask which rate they apply and whether the source is published.
4. Confirm what the fee covers. Benefits, immigration support, account management, and offboarding sit inside the fee for some providers and cost extra with others.
5. Ask when the contribution rate was last verified. Rates change. A stale figure gives you a quote that’s wrong before you sign.
6. Ask about minimums and exit terms. Minimum headcount, minimum term, notice period, and what leaving costs.
A provider who answers all six without hesitating is showing you how they’ll behave once you’re a client.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an Employer of Record cost per employee?
Fees start at $99 and go up to $699 per employee per month, depending on country coverage and what the fee includes. Meteors charges $99. Total employment cost is higher than the fee, because it also covers gross salary and the employer costs the law requires on top of it.
Is an EOR cheaper than setting up an entity?
For small teams, almost always. An entity costs $5,000 to $10,000 to set up before you employ anyone, then $800 to $2,000 a month to run whatever your headcount. An EOR removes both. The comparison shifts as one market grows, and where it shifts depends heavily on the fee you pay.
Are employer contributions included in the EOR fee?
No, and no provider includes them. Contributions are set by law and passed through at cost. What varies is whether the provider shows them clearly in the quote or leaves you to find them on the first invoice.
What does the EOR fee actually include?
Scope differs by provider, which is why comparing fees without comparing scope misleads you. Employer of Record services from Meteors cover the employment contract, monthly payroll, tax withholding and statutory filings, benefits administration, and offboarding, with no separate charge for any of them.
Do EOR providers charge setup fees?
Some do, as a one-time charge per employee. Others don’t. Ask directly, and ask whether a security deposit is held. Both affect your cash position more than the monthly fee does.
Why do EOR prices vary so much?
Country coverage is the biggest factor. Maintaining entities and partnerships across 150 markets costs more than covering a focused region, and that sits in the fee. What’s included in the service explains most of the rest.
What is employer burden and how is it calculated?
Employer burden is the total statutory cost an employer pays on top of gross salary. It covers retirement contributions, social insurance, gratuity, and mandatory bonuses. It’s calculated as a percentage of gross pay, set by each country’s law, and it sometimes varies by state, province, or salary band.
Can I negotiate EOR pricing?
Usually, particularly on volume or an annual commitment. The fee is normally the only negotiable part, since your offer sets the salary and the law sets the contributions. Ask what rate applies at five, ten, and twenty employees before you sign for one.
Working out what your hire will actually cost
The number that matters isn’t the provider’s fee. It’s salary plus contributions plus fee, for that role in that market. Anything less than all three is an incomplete answer.
Run the figures yourself with the employee cost calculator. Or send us the role and the market and we’ll come back with the full breakdown within 24 hours. Get a quote.
