Independent comparisonAll prices in GBPPrices checked

Deel vs Remote: UK Payroll, EOR and Verdict (2026)

Both run PAYE for a UK entity and both employ people abroad through Employer of Record, so the choice turns on what each publishes, which fees sit outside the published figures, and how each delivers support.

Independent comparison by SMECompare. How we compare

Deel logo

Deel at a glance

Deel is a global hiring platform with UK payroll for your own entity, contractor management, Employer of Record and immigration support, plus an HR layer. It publishes its payroll, contractor and Employer of Record prices, charges no payroll base fee, runs support around the clock and works on a monthly rolling basis.

Remote logo

Remote at a glance

Remote is a global employment platform that says it owns the local entities it employs people through, which it presents as its answer on compliance and intellectual property. It publishes its payroll, contractor and Employer of Record prices with no payroll base fee, and states that own-entity payroll also carries set-up and delivery fees it does not publish.

2 ProvidersDeel logoDeelRemote logoRemote
Est. Cost /mo (GBP)£87/mo£87/mo
Ratings
4.9Capterra (4,278)4.6Capterra (1,000+)
Costs & Pricing
£22/emp/mo (Global Payroll)£22/emp/mo (Payroll)
£0£0
NoNo
Yes (100+ countries)Yes (global)
£448/emp/mo£522/emp/mo
Yes (£37/contractor)Yes (£22/contractor)
NoNo
Tax & Compliance
YesYes
YesYes
YesYes
UK pensionUK pension
YesYes
LimitedLimited
YesYes
YesYes
YesYes
YesYes
AI
Native + add-ons (Deel AI, Akai agents)Native (payroll/compliance AI access)
Native MCP (official)Native MCP (official)
Features & Integrations
YesYes
YesYes
YesNot stated
Xero, QBO, NetSuite, SageXero, QBO, NetSuite
24/7Dedicated specialist
Estimates based on 4 employees. Rates can change without notice, confirm current pricing with the provider before signing on.
How we calculate this
  • Estimated cost: each provider’s published prices and rates applied to the inputs you set above (such as volume, team size, or invoices), plus any fixed monthly fees.
  • Providers with an incomplete cost and quote-only providers are never ranked as the cheapest while a complete-cost option exists.
  • These are estimates. Published rates can change and your final pricing depends on your business, so confirm current pricing with the provider before switching.

Deel vs Remote in the UK is a choice between two global platforms that a British business usually meets the moment it starts employing people abroad, and on paper they look interchangeable. Both run PAYE for your own UK entity, both pay contractors across borders, both employ people through Employer of Record where you have no entity, and both publish a price for each of those three products. The differences are in what sits around the published figures: which fees are published and which are not, how each describes the entities it employs through, and how support is delivered when the person with the payroll question is in another time zone.

Plans and pricing checked September 2026, and every figure below is read live from our pricing database.

Pricing compared

For payroll through your own UK entity, Deel charges a monthly base fee of £0 and prices UK payroll per employee under its Global Payroll product, shown in our table as £22/emp/mo (Global Payroll). Remote charges a base fee of £0 and prices per employee at £22/emp/mo (Payroll).

Remote's per-employee figure needs a caveat that Deel's does not. Remote's own pricing page says that Payroll also carries an implementation fee to set up your entities and a recurring payroll delivery fee, and it publishes neither, so the real bill for own-entity payroll on Remote is higher than the per-employee line alone. Ask for both before comparing that line against Deel's.

Employer of Record, the product you use where you have no entity, is published by both: Deel at £448/emp/mo and Remote at £522/emp/mo. Contractor management is published by both as well, Deel's reading Yes (£37/contractor) and Remote's Yes (£22/contractor). Neither has a free plan: Deel lists No and Remote No. On contract terms Deel reads No and Remote No.

The calculator above prices both at your own headcount. If your overseas people are mostly contractors, the contractor line is the one that decides the bill, not the per-employee line, so set the mix you actually have. Deel's wider product range, including its HR layer, is costed separately in our Deel pricing guide.

Who each one is built for

Deel's target market reads UK + global / cross-border teams, and the product matches: it began as a contractor and Employer of Record engine and grew payroll, immigration and HR around it. The pitch is range. Whatever shape the next hire takes, a contractor in one country, an Employer of Record employee in another, a PAYE employee in Manchester, there is a Deel product with a published price for it.

Remote's reads UK + global-first teams. The pitch is control. Remote says it owns the local entities it employs people through, and it presents that as what lets it stand behind compliance and intellectual property assignment in the countries it operates in. For a business hiring engineers or product staff abroad, who owns the entity that owns their work is a fair question to put to any platform.

What still has to work in the United Kingdom

A global platform is only useful to a UK business if it also runs the UK pay run properly, and both do. HMRC recognition reads Yes for Deel and Yes for Remote. RTI and FPS filing reads Yes and Yes. Workplace pension auto-enrolment reads Yes and Yes, with the pension providers each supports listed as UK pension for Deel and UK pension for Remote. Statutory pay reads Yes and Yes.

CIS is where both thin out. Deel lists its Construction Industry Scheme support as Limited and Remote as Limited. Neither is built for a business whose UK workforce is subcontractors on site, and a construction firm with a global team is better served pairing either with a UK-native engine for the CIS part. Our payroll guide for global teams covers that split arrangement and the UK-native options for it.

Global hiring and Employer of Record

Global payroll reads Yes (100+ countries) for Deel and Yes (global) for Remote. Immigration and visa support reads Yes and Yes, and contractor-to-employee conversion Yes and Yes.

Misclassification protection needs more care than a single cell allows. Our table records it as Yes for Deel and Yes for Remote, but for both the indemnity sits on a higher contractor tier than the base contractor product, so the per-contractor fee in the table is not the price of being covered. Ask which tier a quote includes.

An Employer of Record employs your overseas hire through a local company. Remote says it owns the entities it employs people through and makes that its argument on compliance and intellectual property; Deel states that it owns entities and its payroll engine in many of the countries it covers. Neither statement tells you what happens in the one country you care about, so ask each platform which entity would employ your specific hire, in that specific country, and who owns it. That answer matters more than any headline country count.

Neither platform makes an IR35 status determination for a contractor based in the United Kingdom. Under the off-payroll working rules that decision sits with you as the engager, and misclassification cover on either platform is about contractor law abroad, not about HMRC's view of your Bristol contractor.

Support, integrations and AI side by side

Support is delivered in different ways. Deel's reads 24/7 and Remote's Dedicated specialist: one is coverage at any hour, the other a named person with in-country expertise. Which is worth more depends on whether your payroll questions arrive in the middle of the night or need someone who knows the local rules.

Accounting integrations are listed as Xero, QBO, NetSuite, Sage for Deel and Xero, QBO, NetSuite for Remote, so check your own ledger against each list before assuming a journal will post itself. AI features read Native + add-ons (Deel AI, Akai agents) for Deel and Native (payroll/compliance AI access) for Remote, and the connection for AI agents Native MCP (official) and Native MCP (official). Employee self-service is Yes on Deel and Yes on Remote.

Pros and cons for this matchup

Deel publishes its payroll, contractor and Employer of Record prices, charges no payroll base fee, runs support at any hour and requires no annual contract, and its range covers immigration support and an HR layer as well. Against that, the range is also the cost of entry to a larger product: if all you need is PAYE for a UK team plus one overseas hire, much of what Deel sells will go unused.

Remote makes entity ownership the centre of its compliance and IP argument, publishes its Employer of Record and per-employee prices, and pairs a dedicated specialist with in-country experts. Against that, its own-entity payroll carries an implementation fee and a payroll delivery fee that it states but does not publish, so its per-employee line understates the real cost of that product.

The verdict

If the reason you are here is range, one platform for every hiring shape with published prices and support whenever your team is awake, Deel is the one built for that, and its published figures let you cost the whole arrangement today.

If the reason you are here is control, and the question you keep asking is who actually employs the person and who owns what they produce, Remote puts that question at the centre of its offer, and its Employer of Record figure is published. Ask Remote for the implementation and delivery fees on own-entity payroll before you compare that line against Deel's, because the published per-employee figure is not the whole price.

For a business also weighing whether to keep payroll, HR and IT in one system, the comparison worth reading next is Deel vs Rippling, where the question is a platform rather than an entity. Set your real headcount and contractor mix in the calculator above; the answer between Deel and Remote moves with it.

Ratings

Deel logoDeelRemote logoRemote
User rating
4.9/ 5 on Capterra (4,278)
4.6/ 5 on Capterra (1,000+)
What stands outPublishes its payroll, contractor and Employer of Record prices, runs support around the clock, and has no annual contract.Presents its owned entities as its compliance and IP argument, and publishes its Employer of Record price, but own-entity payroll carries unpublished set-up and delivery fees.

The user rating is the average from verified reviews on the named external source.

Frequently asked questions

How do Deel and Remote price UK payroll?

Both publish a per-employee monthly figure for running PAYE through your own UK entity, and neither charges a monthly base fee for it, so the comparison table on this page shows the two figures side by side and the calculator prices them at your headcount. Remote states on its own pricing page that payroll also carries an implementation fee and a recurring payroll delivery fee, and publishes neither. The two also publish different per-contractor fees, in the same table. The total for your business depends on whether your people are employees or contractors, so set your real numbers in the calculator rather than reading the per-employee line alone.

What does Employer of Record cost with Deel and Remote?

Both publish an Employer of Record figure per employee per month, and both are shown live in the comparison table on this page. Employer of Record is the product you use when you have no entity in the country you are hiring in: the platform employs the person through a local entity and you pay a monthly fee on top of their salary and employer costs. Because that fee buys a legal employer rather than software, it is many times the per-employee payroll fee either platform charges for staff on your own entity.

Do Deel and Remote both run UK PAYE properly?

Yes. Both are HMRC-recognised, both file RTI and FPS submissions to HMRC, both handle statutory sick, maternity and paternity pay, both handle workplace pension auto-enrolment, and both produce P60s and P45s. Where they thin out is CIS: both list their Construction Industry Scheme support as limited, so a business paying subcontractors in construction should pair either one with a UK-native payroll engine for that part of the workforce. For an ordinary PAYE team, the choice between them is better made on the overseas side, where their offers actually differ.

What is the difference between Deel and Remote?

Less than the marketing suggests on the UK pay run, where both cover the same HMRC ground, and more in how each sells the rest. Deel offers payroll, contractor management, Employer of Record, immigration support and an HR layer with support around the clock. Remote says it owns the local entities it employs people through and makes that its argument on compliance and intellectual property, and it pairs a dedicated specialist with in-country experts. Remote also states that own-entity payroll carries set-up and delivery fees it does not publish, which matters when you compare the per-employee lines.

Which is better for paying overseas contractors from the UK?

Both pay contractors across a wide range of countries and both can convert a contractor to an employee later. They publish different per-contractor fees, shown in the comparison table on this page, and for both the misclassification indemnity sits on a higher contractor tier than the base product, so ask which tier a quote covers. Neither makes an IR35 status determination for a UK-based contractor: under the off-payroll working rules that decision sits with you as the engager, whichever platform pays the invoice.

Does Deel or Remote have a free plan?

No. Neither offers a free tier for UK payroll. Both price per employee per month for own-entity payroll and per contractor per month for contractor management, with no monthly base fee on payroll, and neither requires an annual contract. If what you need is free payroll for a handful of UK staff with nobody abroad, a global platform is the wrong category altogether, and the full payroll comparison lists UK-native options built for that.

Which should a UK business with staff abroad choose?

If you want one platform for the widest range of hiring situations, with published payroll, contractor and Employer of Record prices and support in every time zone, Deel is built for that shape. If the question you keep coming back to is who employs your overseas staff and who owns what they produce, Remote makes that the centre of its pitch. For the UK PAYE half of a split team, either runs it, and both list CIS as limited. Set your headcount and contractor count in the calculator above before deciding, because the answer moves with the mix.

How does SMECompare compare Deel and Remote?

We are independent and not owned by any provider. The comparison table above pulls live pricing from our database, last checked 4 September 2026, and the calculator estimates each option at your own numbers. Our editorial verdict weighs price, features and UK fit, not commercial relationships. See How we compare for our full method.

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