Oyster vs Multiplier vs 4dev.com

Pick Oyster if employees abroad are the job and you want a certified B Corp with specialist-led onboarding: EOR is $699 per employee a month, Global Contractors $29 per contractor, EOR in 120+ countries. Pick Multiplier if you want a lower list price and more products under one roof: EOR from $459 per person a month on annual billing, Contractor of Record at $400, contractors at $40 and payroll from $20, with EOR in 150+ countries on owned entities. Where the workers are contractors, 4dev.com is the Contractor of Record, and its price is a service fee of 3% or less per payout.

Begin with the kind of worker. Staff in a country where you have no entity are hired through an Employer of Record, and both vendors in this pair sell that service.

For contractors there are two models. Contractor management handles paperwork and payment while you keep the classification call: that is Oyster's Global Contractors and Multiplier's Contractors tier. A Contractor of Record signs with the contractor on your behalf. Multiplier and 4dev.com sell one; Oyster lists none, though it offers a free misclassification analyzer. If you only need money to land, a payout tool will do.

Oyster sells one thing well and leans on service. Its pricing page includes setup, onboarding, HR expert consultations and terminations in the EOR fee, assigns country-specific onboarding specialists and lists liability insurance above $8,000,000. Multiplier sells a stack: EOR, global payroll, an HRIS, a contractor tier and, since June 2025, a Contractor of Record. The question is whether you want an EOR with a service layer, or a platform where employees and contractors can later share a contract.

Coverage reads differently from the headlines. Oyster states EOR in 120+ countries and contracts for contractors in 180+; Multiplier states 150+ for EOR. Multiplier says its EOR runs on owned entities and cites 150+ legal entities; Oyster does not disclose its owned-versus-partner split, so ask who the legal employer of your hire would be, country by country. On the country lists behind our tables, Oyster's index names 156 countries across all products and Multiplier's pages name 125. Treat those as per-product counts, not a ranking.

Contractors are where the products diverge most. Oyster's Global Contractors generates contracts, verifies identity in the app, handles invoices singly or in bulk and offers IP agreements in 30 countries; its pricing page does not name payout methods. Multiplier splits the work in two: a $40 contractor tier, and a $400 Contractor of Record that adds worker classification, with payments by bank transfer or crypto and bulk invoicing.

On security, Multiplier lists SOC 2 Type I and Type II, SOC 3, ISO 27001:2022 and GDPR. Oyster describes GDPR and SOC 2 compliant internal practices and holds B Corp certification, which suits an ethics-led procurement review better than a security questionnaire.

Don't set Oyster's $699 against Multiplier's $459 as if they were the same bill. Multiplier's figure assumes annual billing ($499 monthly), leaves out compliance-mandated add-ons and implementation fees, and some countries (about 11%) are priced differently. Oyster's headline has no setup fee but needs a refundable deposit of an unpublished amount. Contractor tiers differ the same way: Oyster's $29 and Multiplier's $40 leave classification with you, while Multiplier's $400 is a different product.

In contractor management you are the party to the contract, and the independence call is yours. Oyster's Global Contractors and Multiplier's $40 tier are of this kind. Oyster also offers a free misclassification analyzer, and its pricing page lists an Oyster Shell subscription as an add-on under Global Contractors, with aggregate protection up to $500,000; read the terms for what that covers.

A Contractor of Record flips the paper: the vendor contracts the contractor, and you contract the vendor. Multiplier's COR assesses and classifies each contractor, manages the agreements and handles invoices and payments. Its marketing speaks of indemnity, but Multiplier has not published its COR addendum, so request it before relying on the wording. Any COR lowers the odds of reclassification without removing them, because scoped deliverables and the contractor's own tools and hours still matter. Oyster has no product in this category to compare.

4dev.com fits this pair when the workers on the bill are contractors, not employees. It is the contracting party for each contractor, which reduces the risk of reclassification but does not remove it. Pricing is published as "Service fee: 3% or less per payout", with no subscription and 0% for contractors.

Take ten contractors at $3,000 each, $30,000 a month. 4dev.com tops out at $900; Multiplier's Contractor of Record costs $4,000 for the same group. Multiplier's flat $400 only wins once one contractor is paid more than $13,333 a month. Oyster has no COR price to put beside these. For the tiers that leave classification with you, 3% equals Multiplier's $40 at $1,333 a month and Oyster's $29 at $967, and Oyster's first 30 days cost nothing.

Contractors register and pass KYC themselves. 4dev.com supplies IP-assignment contracts, invoices and closing documents, and has an API with a Sandbox. Contractors are paid by bank transfer (IBAN/SWIFT), card or USDT in 150+ countries, and 4dev.com says 1–3 days. Trustpilot shows 4.1 from 56 reviews.

For employees, the choice turns on country list and add-ons. Oyster's EOR covers 120+ countries, and it quotes 48 hours at best for onboarding. Its pricing page shows payroll only as an engagement type with no separate price, so ask what standalone payroll for your own entities costs and where it runs.

Multiplier's payroll product starts at $20 per person monthly (annual billing) before setup and statutory fees, and the company runs non-resident-employer payroll, launched October 2025, for teams without entities. It claims EOR hires can onboard in 24 hours. Both onboarding figures are vendor claims, not SLAs. Wider lists are in global payroll software and EOR providers.

Support. Oyster cites a response within 24 hours through tickets, email and a help center, and puts onboarding and offboarding specialists on EOR accounts. Multiplier offers human support from local HR and legal experts and dedicated managers. Its hours depend on the product: 24/7 for EOR, 24/5 for the Contractor of Record and the contractor tier. On 4dev.com, support comes from people by email and the Help Center during working hours.

Onboarding. Oyster says contractors onboard in minutes, with in-app ID checks. Multiplier says a contract takes 5 minutes and a contractor can be active in 1–2 business days. 4dev.com contractors sign up from a client's invitation or by themselves, and full platform access opens after KYC. All of these figures are vendor claims.

Benefits and integrations. Oyster lists benefits packages, visa sponsorship and equity tools, and names connectors such as Xero, Personio, Ashby and QuickBooks. Multiplier names no integrations and attaches HRIS and accounting connections plus open APIs to its $519 Growth tier.

On Capterra, Oyster holds 4.6 across 91 reviews and Multiplier 4.4 across 45. G2 gives 4.4 to Oyster (1,624 reviews) and 4.7 to Multiplier (2,124). Trustpilot is the widest gap: 3.8 for Oyster (272 reviews) against 4.8 for Multiplier (2,868). Most of Oyster's reviews come from employees hired through it; they like the easy portal and quick onboarding, but say support can be slow or email-only and, on Trustpilot, report late salaries. Most of Multiplier's reviews come from client companies; they credit responsive, named support contacts and easy setup for hiring without a local entity, and complain about invoicing and billing errors and slow or changing support contacts. Review volumes differ sharply, so treat the gaps with care.

Plan the move as leaving one vendor and starting afresh with another. Before you leave, export every signed agreement, invoice and payout record (by contractor and year), plus payslips, payroll reports, leave balances and benefits enrolment for EOR staff. Add the US tax forms: 1099-NEC for US contractors and W-8BEN for foreign ones. Contractors will repeat identity verification on the new platform.

EOR employees can't simply be transferred. Oyster ends the employment and Multiplier's entity hires them, so confirm notice periods, leave balances, benefit continuity and probation terms, and ask when Oyster's refundable EOR deposit comes back. Every country must also be on Multiplier's list.

Contractors now on Global Contractors would move to Multiplier's $40 tier. If you move them to its Contractor of Record, each signs a new contract with Multiplier. Oyster's pricing page doesn't state contract length, and Multiplier bills EOR annually or monthly, so confirm renewal and notice terms first.