Written by: Neil Powell

What is Deel?

Deel, one of the largest online payroll companies, its one solution for any job, international contract jobs, contractor payroll, localized compliance and other on-demand services. It helps to find employees and contractors worldwide, in 150 countries.

Having all of this built into the infrastructure of the platform makes hiring and paying people far easier for HR. For engaging with contractors, the integrated compliance feature is especially useful. Being able to onboard people quickly is one of the most important features of Deel, along with having a very good view of your headcount, employer cost structure and churn rates. The company is not only known for how easy it is to set things up quickly (it’s known for how painless it is to continuously administer).

In this Deel Reviews 2024 we will take a look at some of the key features of the platform and also see how it stacks up when it comes to pricing.

Pros

✅ Provides access to a on-the-ground network of local partners and entities in multiple countries, enabling cross-border hiring.

✅ Ensures adherence to local labor laws, tax regulations, and employment standards.

✅ Simplifies payroll processing across different regions with accurate and timely payments.

✅ Offers comprehensive benefit packages that are competitive and compliant with local standards.

✅ Reduces administrative burden by handling HR tasks such as onboarding, contracts, and employee management.

✅ Deel HR, is free to use for companies with 200 or fewer employees

✅ Facilitates fast business development and the entry into new markets without the establishment of local entities.

✅ Minimizes legal and financial risks associated with international employment.

✅ Provides additional HR support and resources, including employee support and dispute resolution.

Cons of Deel PEO

❌ Can be expensive, especially for small businesses or startups with limited budgets.

❌ Less direct control over employee management and HR policies.

❌ Reliance on a third-party provider for critical HR functions.

❌ Potential communication challenges between the PEO, the company, and the employees.

❌ Limited ability to customize HR policies and benefits to match company culture.

❌ Potential difficulties and disruptions when transitioning from an in-house HR model to a PEO.

❌ Variability in the quality of service and support provided by the PEO, depending on the region and local partners.

❌ No time tracking options

Pricing Structure:

If you’re going to use a platform to help with the complex task of paying a global workforce internationally – understanding the cost breakdown of your preferred payroll and compliance partner is critical. In this section, we explain Deel’s pricing plans – but first, let’s kick things off by dissecting exactly what it is you’ll get on this platform, so we can better understand the costs involved.

Deel Pricing: Hiring and Payroll

Deel uses a straightforward pricing system that’s designed to work for companies of all sizes. The platform works on a tiered subscription level, where you don’t pay for more than your company needs. The price generally depends on the number of employees that will be added to your payroll, as well as how many features you intend to use.

A basic plan with Deel, for example, offers all the core functionalities you’d need for international payroll and compliance, with higher pricing tiers enabling additional features such as report-generation, dedicated customer support and custom branding.

There’s no free trial for Deel, but that’s the ‘standard’ for many global payroll services. You can however take advantage of a Deel demo or start with Deel HR, it’s free for companies with 200 or fewer employees.

You save money when you bundle two or more payroll and HR products together. For those of you who opt for annual billing, you get a $1,200 credit in your Deel account.

Contractors

There is an integrated system of software settings, which enables clients to quickly create invoices and synchronize all the necessary information with their accounting software. Contractors also have the freedom of selecting among more than 15 different payment options, which also allows them to save money on foreign exchange rates. The plan is available in more than 150 countries.

Deels pricing starts at $49 per contractor per month.

Key features:

• Locally compliant contracts and guidance on local laws

• Automatically collect any local tax agreements

• Pay your team in one bulk payment with 10+ flexible methods in 150 currencies

• Automate invoicing, expenses, time off, and more

EOR

An employee of record (EOR) is the legal company of record responsible for a worker on a firm’s payroll – so a global expansion of the workforce is likely to require an EOR. With Deel, an EOR service costs $599 per month – a good price point relative to many competitors, and $499 if you choose to pay yearly.

This plan is available in more than 150 countries, and comes with features that include a compliance package, intellectual property protection and a local payroll and benefits package. Deel supports as many countries as some of its closest competitors (Papaya Global and Rippling).

Global Payroll and US Payroll

Deel’s pricing for both global and U.S. payroll services is competitive compared to its closest rivals, offering a variety of features and flexibility.

(Source: Deel)

Immigration

Deel Immigration offers tailored pricing. This plan cover immigration and visa sponsorship in 30+ countries and counting.

Deel Pricing: HR Operations

Deel HR

The Deel HR plan is free to use for teams of up to 200 people – you can also request a custom quote for being a larger company. Deel HR’s advanced features include expense management, workflow automation and HR reporting. It also helps complete common HR tasks like onboarding, document collecting, ordering equipment and processing PTO requests.

Deel Engage

Starts at $20 per employee/month and includes different features that drive performance, growth and engagement. You can build your own courses easily via drag-and-drop, ad quizzes, surveys and tasks. Create and manage goals for individuals, teams and company, create career pathing frameworks for every role and level, run highly customized 360° feedback reviews, use AI to draft in-depth frameworks in minutes and more.

Key Features

Deel offers a long list of features and functionality aimed at streamlining and improving several aspects of running a company.

Userfriendly interface

When it comes to finding talent abroad, making payments and ensuring compliance, ease of use is critical. Deel was built with that in mind.

Deel’s design is logical and coherent, making it easy to find your way around. As a well-built portal, the dashboard is organized in sections, keeping layout at a minimum while allowing users to access what they need in a streamlined fashion. The application’s UX for features such as payroll, compliance and reporting is user-centric and intuitive.

Home screen (Source: Deel)

Deel’s payroll dashboard gives a clear and concise overview of required payments and information for payroll processing. You can here view the ones awaiting approval, funding and report submission (Source: Deel)

Automated Tax Form Collection

Deel’s Automated Tax Form Collection feature is a key pillar of the ecosystem: By continually collecting the necessary tax forms automatically, this feature drastically streamlines the difficult hurdle of tax documentation for companies and contractors.

This service optimizes efficiency and accuracy, freeing up employees from the need to manually collect and input forms. Rather than relying on cumbersome and error-prone manual data-entry, this solution provides relief in several ways.

Importantly, Deel’s chokepoint on compliance is on full display here. The feature automatically gathers the appropriate tax forms, which, in turn, enables businesses to have confidence that they are compliant with the myriad diversity of labour laws and tax code across jurisdictions. The feature’s data-locking component (which securely stores the forms) further contributes to data protection by providing a ‘trove’ for safekeeping of foundational tax files.

Contractors are listed per entity, and the filter shows one entity at a time. It gives a clear overview and makes it easy to navigate. (Source: Deel)

From a time-savings perspective, this feature is a big plus as it enables Deel to bypass the tedious process of collecting tax forms each month, which frees up time for the customer to focus on core activities instead of mundane admin tasks. And, as always, tax savings.

For instance, Deel not only offers support to users, such as reminders and warnings, but also the ability to catch tax deadlines and requirements – this reduces the chances of users unknowingly missing deadlines and being penalized.

Adding to this, Deel’s Automated Tax Form Collection feature becomes more accurate, with time. Since it is always monitoring changes to tax laws and regulations, it ensures that users include everything necessary for an entity to be compliant with the changing tax policy.

Compliance monitoring

Deel supports a broad range of business tasks, including – most interestingly, given the controversy surrounding employment laws – automatic compliance monitoring with local and global laws and regulations, be they on employment, tax, social security or other industry-specific affairs, and they are updated in real time as and when the applicable legislation changes.

Key benefits of Deel’s Automated Compliance Monitoring include:

• Automated Checks: Reduce manual effort and minimize oversight risks, enhancing accuracy and regulatory adherence.
• Customization: Tailor compliance rules to meet specific industry and geographical needs for a personalized approach.
• Robust Reporting: Report on compliance efforts with attention to detail; especially useful for internal reviews and external audits.
• Employee Classification Support: Avoid legal issues with proper employee classification.
• Early alerts: Find out early about upcoming regulatory deadlines and regulatory changes so you are ready before compliance issues arise.
• Seamless Integration: Integrate with payroll and tax tools for a cohesive regulatory management system.
• Training Resources: Access educational materials on compliance best practices to effectively address challenges.

In short, Automated Compliance Monito­rings by Deel provides up-to-date information, periodic, automated checks, tweaking options for each country of operation, ease of use and seamless integration. It is a tool perfect for managing regulatory environments that differ across the globe.

Compliance Documents

Deel has an integrated compliance document management feature, which enables a business to maintain local and global regulations. This feature helps users to easily generate, save, organize, and access important compliance documents such as employment contracts, tax documents and regional/global regulatory filings. The user gets real-time alerts whenever any changes are made to the documents and also real-time notifications if any documents are no longer valid or fail to meet the legal standards.

The notification feature on Deel sends automated reminders for upcoming deadlines for compliance due dates, which can prevent compliance delays or failures. This feature is built to help businesses maintain compliance with regulations based on local and global factors.

You have full control under “Status”, here you can see if there are any documents missing or if you need any update to your documents (Source: Deel)

Contract Generation

Deel’s contract generation feature makes hiring for global teams easier by automating the contract creation process, saving time and resources without compromising local labour laws and regulations, providing standardized templates per country, which can be adjusted to fit business needs and corporate policies.

Digital signing makes it simple to sign. The contracts are all stored in one place – a secure, centralized location – where an audit trail is automatically generated. This makes it much easier to track and hold people accountable.

You can review the details of your contract at any time on the Contract Details tab. Here you can find information such as the start and end date of your contract, payment details, your job role, and more (Source: Deel)

Automated Payment

Deel’s automated payment system brings efficiency, security and compliance on how international contractors get paid, the automated aspect being the key driver in solving the ever-present problem of delays and errors due to long payment cycles and outdated systems.

The platform also supports multiple currencies and can pay contractors in any desired local currency. Emphasizing security, Deel implements robust measures to safeguard sensitive payment information throughout the transaction.

For international financial regulations, Deel’s automated payment system makes it automatically compliant with local tax laws so that businesses is less likely to get into legal trouble with the IRS or other tax authorities. Everything is also tracked in real time, so everyone knows where their money is at all time.

You can enable auto-payments for a group, you can only do this for one group at a time (Source: Deel)

Perhaps its greatest strength is the ease with which it can be customized. Deel’s software allows companies to establish customized payment cadences specific to how they have structured pay agreements with contractors. Preset payment windows can also be easily set up to reflect company pay structures. The payment modules can be integrated with other platform features to smooth and maximize administrative flows.

This automated tax withholding, based on the contractor’s location, simplifies employers’ tax compliance on the one hand while ensuring that contractors receive payments in accordance with local regulations. In sum, Deel’s automated payment system neatly bundles these features to deliver a reliable way for businesses to pay their global workforce.

Integration Capabilities

Deel has extensive two-way integration capabilities that help turn it into a one-stop shop for payroll and HR administration. Integration with other systems helps ensure data flow, reduce manual labour and make operations more efficient in every way.

Deel is integrated with major HRIS systems, such as Workday, BambooHR, and SAP SuccessFactors, which facilitate automatic synchronisation of employee information (eg, new hire information, status changes and terminations) without the need for manual input and potential mistakes. Financial data from payroll can be automatically synced with leading accounting software, like QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite.

It’s integrated with time tracking platforms such as TSheets, Kronos and Clockify, so that employees’ working hours, overtime and leave balances are recorded and reflected in payroll calculations with virtually no discrepancies. Deel also integrates with expense management tools such as Expensify and Concur for easy approval and reimbursement of expenses made by employees so that they get paid on time.

(Source: Deel)

Further, by integrating with benefits administration systems, Deel is able to control employee benefits, such as health insurance, retirement plans, commuter benefits and others, and make sure it’s reflected in payroll, streamlining benefits administration. Single Sign-On (SSO) integration with providers such as Okta provides increased security for both Deel and the user, making access to the platform secure and simplified with just a set of credentials.

Overall, Deel’s connectivity advantages are a notable player in enhancing its overall intrinsic value, as its unified approach eases transactions, improves data quality, and eliminates redundancies by being able to seamlessly integrate with HRIS (human resource information systems), accounting software, Timesheet, Expense Management, Benefits Admin systems, and with SSO (single sign-on) providers.

– Some of the HR and accounting software Deel is compatible with to have you work smarter and save time:

(Source: Deel)

In conclusion, Deel’s integration capabilities create an efficient and connected business environment. We give it praise for precision, adaptability, and streamlined workflows.

Benefits administration

Deel’s benefits administration simplifies and amplifies benefits management for global teams. It offers employees a robust set of benefits, including health insurance, retirement plans, supplemental insurance and other benefits that meet local standards.

These benefits packages are configured to comply with local mandates and labour regulations to mitigate legal risks, matching local benefits eligibility and premiums. Deel offers a centralized management system for all your benefits, across all your operating countries. Its easy accessible and employers can view their benefits through the user-friendly platform.

(Source: Deel)

Deel’s benefits admin allows for easy adjustment and scaling to businesses of any size as they grow, adding new employees and new locations smoothly. Key benefits include efficiency – by automating the tedious task of tracking different benefits for different regions, it brings efficiency and reduces the time spend on this.

It also aids compliance – by providing advice and giving easy access to the most up-to-date information on local labour laws, it reduces the chance for being non-compliant and gives you, the CEO, peace of mind.

On the next level of importance it helps with raising the satisfaction of your employees by providing the access to benefits info and self-service options, and on the bottom it supports your growth – by making it easy to adjust the process to new hires and new locations.

Under the benefits section you can enroll in the benefits provided by your employer (Source: Deel)

But for smaller companies, the service could be more expensive than managing benefits in-house, and enterprises might lose some granular control over the details of their benefits packages. Still, Deel’s benefits administration service is an eye-opening solution for companies that need to manage a larger and more diverse group of employees, across different global locations.

Security Measures

Deel’s infrastructure is built with SOC2 compliance and subjected to annual third-party security audits to ensure that their platform and infrastructure remain secure. Deel also runs regular vulnerability assessments to ensure that their system remains safe and secure. The basis for Deel’s entire information security program is the most widely adopted security framework around the world, ISO 27001. Deel undergoes annual re-certification and surveillance audits to ensure continued compliance.

GDPR-compliant, Deel secures customers’ sensitive information according to the standards set out in GDPR, adhering to all relevant frameworks, policies and processes. Using Deel and Okta together provides secure single-sign-on so organizations can manage your identity centrally and access the platforms applications and other services securely by signing with a single user identity.

Deel’s systems are constantly and actively updated to protect customer data, and pen-testing is carried out regularly. Deel’s data is hosted on Amazon Web Services and is encrypted and backed up daily. Data at rest is encrypted with AES-256 and data in transit is encrypted with TLS 1.2. All traffic on Deel’s network runs over SSL/HTTPS, so that all network traffic is encrypted, and it’s impossible for anyone to listen in or alter any communications between Deel’s computers and your browser.

Scalability

Deel provides scalability for businesses running end-to-end global hiring and payroll at scale. The convincing words here are related to the system’s ability to adapt to the needs of a large number of users operating across the globe. Deel caters to users running from small startups to large enterprises and beyond. The large range of user sizes demonstrates its flexibility in serving various types and sizes of businesses.

Payroll and payments is also processed without a hitch, updated from week to week, and tagged appropriately as an employee is added or dropped.

Deel’s scalability is ensured by its configurability, a customized system that allows the user to change and organize their processes. But it is the technical infrastructure of Deel that fundamentally enables its scalability. Its architecture is structured to be able to scale horizontally both in server capacity and IT resourcing to address bandwidth and data-processing workloads.

Customer Support and Resources

Deel have live chat options which is the best way to reach them. They have agents available 24/7 to help you. They are proactive and quick to respond, their agents will normally respond to you via chat within 2 minutes, and within 8 hours via webform request.

Customer Reviews

Trustpilot rates Deel 4.8/5 (based on 3559 reviews)

G2 rates Deel 4.8/5 (based on 3314 reviews)

Capterra rates Deel 4.7 (based on 541 reviews)

Among all the different PEOs out there, Deel has one of the highest ranking scores across different reviews

Who is Deel most suitable for…

• Rapidly expanding companies looking to quickly scale their global presence.
• Startups needing efficient and compliant HR solutions without extensive internal resources.
• SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) that want to hire internationally without setting up local entities.
• Compliance-focused organizations seeking to ensure strict adherence to diverse labor laws and regulations.
• Remote-first companies with a distributed workforce that need streamlined international hiring processes.
• Project-based businesses that require temporary or project-specific international hires.
• Technology firms expanding their talent pool across multiple countries.

Who is Deel not suitable for…

• Small businesses with limited budgets that may find the costs prohibitive.
• Companies with a preference for in-house HR management and control.
• Organizations with minimal international hiring needs, focusing primarily on local talent.
• Firms that do not require complex compliance support due to operating in a single country.
• Businesses seeking to maintain full direct control over all HR and payroll processes.
• Companies that have already established local entities and do not need PEO services.

Conclusion

Deel PEO offers a simple and elegant solution that helps companies get set up quickly, manage global headcount efficiently, and avoid the administrative burden associated with the hiring process. By taking care of complex local compliance, payroll and benefits admin tasks, businesses attain the opportunity to be more focused on core activities, which is complemented by a better onboarding experience for new hires. While managers might have to incur more costs and lose some functional control over traditional HR processes, the overall advantages of global compliance, additional scalability, and support resources make Deel PEO a useful additional tool for hiring abroad.

If you are not sure if Deel is the right fit for your company check out its close competitor Rippling in our review here,