Cost by payroll rail
Total monthly cost for each rail at your entered headcount and pay, with dollars and percent saved versus traditional EOR (the baseline). The cheapest rail is highlighted.
| Rail | Total cost | Effective rate | Saved vs EOR ($) | Saved vs EOR (%) |
|---|
How it works
Every rail here answers the same question: what does it cost to get money from your company to a remote worker's pocket, legally and reliably? A traditional EOR legally employs the worker in their own country โ running local payroll, withholding income tax and social contributions, often bundling benefits โ which is a genuine full employment relationship and priced accordingly at a flat few hundred dollars per worker per month, regardless of how much you pay them. Contractor-management platforms like Deel's contractor tier skip the employment relationship and just handle invoicing, contracts, and payment routing for independent contractors, so the flat fee drops sharply, though a wire/FX spread still applies to the payment itself. Stablecoin payroll platforms such as Bitwage or Rise cut the fee further and remove most of the FX spread by settling in USDC/USDT instead of a SWIFT wire, while still handling KYC and tax documentation. Direct on-chain payroll โ just sending stablecoins from your own wallet โ has essentially no platform cost at all, but that also means no KYC, no tax withholding, and no compliance layer unless you build one yourself.
Reading the comparison
At 25 workers and $4,000/month average pay ($100,000/month total), a traditional EOR at $599/worker runs about $14,975/month โ a 14.98% effective rate on top of payroll, independent of how much each worker earns. Moving the same team to a contractor-management platform at $49/worker plus a 3% wire spread drops that to roughly $4,225/month, about 71.8% cheaper. A stablecoin payroll platform at $20/worker plus a 0.2% conversion spread brings it down to about $700/month โ over 95% cheaper than EOR. Direct on-chain payroll at 5 cents of gas per payment costs about $1.25/month, effectively free โ but note that number reflects only the cost of moving the tokens, not the legal and tax infrastructure an EOR or stablecoin platform bundles in. The honest takeaway isn't "always pick the cheapest row" โ it's that the fee gap between these rails is really a gap in how much employment-compliance work is being done on your behalf, and the right choice depends on whether your workers are genuinely employees or contractors under local law.
FAQ
How much does stablecoin payroll save compared to a traditional EOR?
A traditional Employer of Record charges a flat per-employee monthly fee -- commonly around $500-600 for a full-time hire -- to handle local payroll, tax withholding, and compliance in the worker's country. That fee doesn't scale with how much you pay the worker, so it's steep for smaller teams and gets relatively cheaper per dollar paid as salaries rise, but it never goes near zero. Stablecoin payroll platforms like Bitwage or Rise instead charge a much smaller flat fee per worker (commonly $10-30/month) plus a small conversion spread, because they're not running local payroll compliance -- they're moving USDC or USDT to a wallet and, optionally, helping the worker off-ramp to their local bank. For a 25-person team paid $4,000/month each, that difference alone is roughly $15,000/month for EOR versus $700/month for stablecoin payroll -- a gap that's really about what you're paying for, not a discount on the same service.
Is direct on-chain payroll without any platform actually viable?
The gas cost really is close to zero -- sending USDC to 25 wallets on a cheap L2 costs cents, not dollars, and that part of the calculator isn't exaggerating. The catch is everything a payroll platform normally handles that gas doesn't: KYC on each worker, tax withholding and reporting (1099s, local equivalents), the legal question of whether paying someone directly in stablecoins even satisfies your jurisdiction's minimum-wage or in-kind-payment rules, and dispute resolution if a wallet address is wrong or a worker claims non-payment. Some fully crypto-native DAOs and small teams run exactly this way and accept the compliance risk deliberately. Most companies with any real headcount end up needing at least the tax-reporting and KYC layer that a platform like Bitwage or Rise bundles in for its per-worker fee -- which is why this calculator shows direct on-chain as a distinct, cheaper-but-riskier rail rather than assuming everyone should use it.
What's the difference between an EOR and a contractor-management platform?
An Employer of Record legally employs the worker on your behalf in their country -- it runs local payroll, withholds income tax and social contributions, and often bundles benefits, which is why it's needed for a genuine full-time employee relationship and why it costs hundreds of dollars per worker per month. A contractor-management platform (Deel's contractor tier, for example) doesn't employ anyone; it just handles invoicing, contract paperwork, and payment routing for people you're paying as independent contractors, which is a much lighter service and priced accordingly -- often under $50/worker/month plus a wire or FX fee on the payment itself. The right choice depends on the actual working relationship and your jurisdiction's worker-classification rules, not just which is cheaper -- misclassifying an employee as a contractor to save on EOR fees carries its own legal and back-tax risk that this calculator doesn't price in.
Do stablecoin payroll platforms still charge an FX or conversion fee?
Usually a small one, yes, even though stablecoins themselves aren't subject to traditional cross-border wire spreads. The fee shows up at the edges: converting a worker's local fiat salary figure into a USDC amount, or -- more commonly -- when the worker off-ramps their stablecoin balance back into local currency at a bank or exchange, which typically costs a fraction of a percent rather than the 2-4% spread a SWIFT wire or contractor-platform wire transfer carries. This calculator applies that spread (default 0.2%) only to the stablecoin-payroll and direct on-chain rails so the comparison stays honest -- it isn't claiming those routes have literally zero currency-conversion cost, just a much smaller one than wire-based rails.