Oyster vs Atlas HXM vs 4dev.com

Pick Oyster if you want an EOR fee that already covers onboarding, offboarding and HR expert access, from a certified B Corp: $699 per employee a month, with EOR in 120+ countries. Pick Atlas HXM if you want one vendor that states owned entities in 160+ countries, visa sponsorship in 75+ and ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 certification: EOR from $599 a month, with local employer services, FX and benefits billed on top. For contractors, 4dev.com is the Contractor of Record option and takes 3% or less of each payout.

Start with who you're adding. A team that employs people abroad but has no local company there needs an Employer of Record; both Oyster and Atlas HXM sell that.

Contractors are where the two part ways, and neither sells a Contractor of Record. Oyster's Global Contractors handles contracts, invoices and payments, and you remain the contracting party. Atlas HXM sells an Agent of Record: it adds a classification assessment and a capped reimbursement, but it states that you keep the direct contract with the contractor. 4dev.com is the option for a vendor that signs each contractor agreement itself.

Both vendors are Employer of Record first, so the useful question is what the headline price buys. Oyster's $699 includes setup, onboarding, offboarding and HR expert access. Atlas HXM's $599 is a platform fee. Its pricing FAQ lists three more costs per employee: a Local Employer Services rate that blends statutory contributions and taxes, an FX charge when currencies differ, and premiums for benefits. Visa sponsorship is billed per visa. The gap in list price therefore says little about the monthly invoice.

Entities are the second difference. Atlas says it employs workers through its own legal entities in supported countries rather than third-party partners, and it cites 160+ countries; its own country pages document about 147. Oyster states 120+ countries for EOR and up to 180+ including contractors, and does not publish how many entities it owns against partners. For either one, for each country on your list, ask which entity would sit on the employment contract.

On contractors the products are not like for like. Global Contractors from Oyster is $29 per contractor monthly, free for the first month, verifies identity in the app and lets you action invoices singly or in bulk. Atlas's Agent of Record costs $199 a month, cancel anytime. The fee includes KYB and KYC checks, quarterly classification re-checks and payment facilitation; each engagement opens with a country-specific classification assessment that costs $99 and is credited if you proceed. It also includes 12 months of Classification Protection, which reimburses documented reclassification costs, back taxes and unpaid employer-side taxes up to $100,000 per contractor and $1,000,000 per client, excluding penalties and interest.

On security, Atlas lists ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 plus GDPR and mentions no SOC 2. Oyster calls its internal practices GDPR and SOC 2 compliant and holds B Corp status, which fits an ethics review better than an information-security one.

Don't set Atlas HXM's $599 against Oyster's $699 as one bill. Atlas's figure is a platform fee, and its local employer services rate, FX and benefits premiums come on top per employee. Oyster's $699 covers setup and offboarding, but it asks for a refundable deposit of an unpublished amount and charges for currency conversion in some cases. Neither publishes the size of its conversion charge. Oyster's $29 and Atlas's $199 for contractors are different products, so don't net them against each other either. Oyster's pricing page also advertises a startup promotion of up to $1,200 off EOR subscription fees, which lowers the first-year gap for eligible companies.

Under contractor management the contract runs between you and the contractor, so you alone judge whether the engagement is independent. Oyster's Global Contractors works that way and comes with a free misclassification analyzer. Oyster also mentions an Oyster Shell subscription on its pricing page, with aggregate cover of up to USD $500,000 and no stated price; read the terms for what it pays out.

Atlas HXM's Agent of Record sits in between. The vendor says it acts only as your authorized agent and that you keep the direct contract. Its reimbursement is capped and subject to your services agreement, and claims must come within 12 months of the latest classification assessment, with no material change to the facts it was based on. A Contractor of Record works the other way round: the contractor signs with the vendor, and you sign a separate agreement with the same vendor. Such a vendor reduces the risk of reclassification but does not remove it. Neither Oyster nor Atlas HXM sells one.

4dev.com fits the contractor side of this comparison. It is the contracting party for each contractor, which reduces the risk of reclassification but does not remove it. The price is published: "Service fee: 3% or less per payout", with no subscription and 0% for contractors.

Neither Oyster nor Atlas HXM lists a Contractor of Record price, so there is no COR line to set against it. Take ten contractors at $3,000 a month as a yardstick. At most $900 goes to 4dev.com, against $290 for Oyster's Global Contractors (the first 30 days free) and $1,990 for Atlas's Agent of Record. Because the fee is a percentage, 4dev.com stops being the cheaper line for a contractor paid above $967 a month when set against Oyster's $29, and above $6,633 against Atlas's $199.

A contractor registers and passes KYC. Each engagement then gets a contract with IP assignment, and invoices and closing documents can be exported in one click. Payouts reach contractors in 150+ countries by bank transfer (IBAN/SWIFT), card or USDT, which 4dev.com says takes 1–3 days. Neither Oyster nor Atlas names its payout methods. On Trustpilot, 4dev.com has 4.1 from 56 reviews.

For employees, the question is country coverage, speed and the real monthly cost. Oyster's best case for EOR onboarding is 48 hours. Atlas HXM's EOR page says days, while its homepage says as little as 2 weeks depending on the country; both are vendor claims, not SLAs.

Atlas's only payroll product runs payroll for its own EOR employees, so a company with entities of its own should ask whether it fits. Ask Oyster the same, and in which countries. Atlas lists healthcare, dental, vision, mental health, travel and 401(k) benefits where available, and sells visa sponsorship as an add-on in 75+ countries. For more options see EOR providers.

Support. Oyster promises a reply inside 24 hours and offers tickets, email and a help center; country specialists handle EOR onboarding. Atlas HXM promises a 24-hour support team, support in 15+ languages and a dedicated HR consultant for each employee, plus an account manager. For contractors on 4dev.com, help comes from people by email and the Help Center in working hours.

Onboarding. Oyster says contractors complete onboarding, identity checks and agreements in minutes. Atlas's pricing table lists same-day contractor onboarding, with a footnote that SLAs are measured in business days and exclude third-party checks. A 4dev.com contractor arrives by invitation or registers alone, and KYC follows. These are vendor claims.

Benefits and integrations. Oyster offers pre-built local and global benefits packages and equity tools, and lists connections to Xero, Slack, Carta, HiBob, Personio and others, with a full integrations page. Atlas lists single sign-on with Okta, Microsoft and Google Workspace, role-based permissions and centralized reporting, but names no HR or accounting integrations.

Oyster draws the larger crowd: 1,624 G2 reviews at 4.4, and 91 on Capterra at 4.6, with 3.8 across 272 on Trustpilot. Atlas HXM has 97 on G2 at 4.2, but only 5 on Capterra (5.0) and 2 on Trustpilot (2.9), so treat those two scores lightly. Most of Oyster's reviews come from employees hired through it; they praise an easy portal and quick onboarding, and complain about slow or email-only support and, on Trustpilot, late salary payments. Atlas's reviewers, employees and clients in roughly equal measure, praise responsive support with a named contact and a clear portal, and complain about a slow interface and weak mobile app.

Treat a move between Oyster and Atlas HXM as two jobs, closing one account and opening another. Before closing, gather signed contracts, invoices, a per-contractor record of what was paid and when, and this year's tax forms. Contractors will go through identity verification again on the new platform; Atlas's Agent of Record also starts with a classification assessment of each worker, and the $99 assessment fee is credited if you proceed.

EOR employees can't be transferred as they are: the first EOR terminates the employment, then the second one's entity hires them, so check notice periods, leave balances, benefits continuity and whether probation restarts. Atlas says it guides migration from another EOR with no extra transfer fee, and Oyster has a team for switches too. Moving from Oyster also means asking when the refundable EOR deposit comes back. Atlas bills monthly and lets you cancel its Agent of Record before the next billing date.