Oyster Payroll Review

Oyster Visit Site

Oyster at a Glance

What is Oyster? 

Oyster is a powerful international employee management platform with various HR and payroll management features. It’s designed to help companies comply with the relevant laws when hiring international employees and contractors. 

What I like the most about Oyster is that it’s designed to take care of time-consuming payroll processes such as tax compliance, benefits, and time-off tracking. It enables you to hire full-time employees in 130+ countries and contractors in more than 180. 

What’s more, Oyster is easy to get started with. It also has a range of extra HR features, but you only pay for what you use. 

Oyster Features

Oyster’s international payroll software has many handy features, the most noteworthy of which we detail below.

Compliant international payroll

Oyster’s standout feature is compliant international payroll. It enables you to hire employees in multiple countries while following each country's labor and payment laws. To help you do this, Oyster automatically handles taxes, benefits, time off, and more. There’s support for full time-employees in 130+ countries and for contractors in 180+ countries. 

Time and attendance management

Oyster also has an employee time clock that enables you to track worked hours and ensure accurate, efficient payroll. Paid time off is applied in countries where it’s legally required, and you can track employee attendance and time-off requests via your management dashboard. 

Benefits management

With Oyster, you can select from a range of optional and included local benefits packages to offer to your employees. These can include everything from healthcare benefits to special perks such as gym memberships or discount cards. 

Software integrations

Last, but certainly not least, Oyster offers integrations with numerous third-party platforms. These include a wide range of accounting and payroll programs such as Xero, QuickBooks Online, Hibob, and Expensify. These are easy to set up and can help you to get the most out of the Oyster platform. 

Is Oyster Safe and Reliable? 

Oyster has excellent security and powerful data access controls. For example, it uses encryption to protect all stored data, and one of its main features is to ensure compliance with local regulations. 

What’s more, Oyster receives excellent ratings across the web. For example, it gets 4.7/5 stars from 23 reviews on Capterra, a leading software review website. On another review site, G2, it has 4.3/5 stars from 135 reviews, and most customers gave it 4 or 5 stars. 

How Oyster Works

Oyster is straightforward to use, and I was extremely impressed with its intuitive user interface. To get started, you’ll need to sign up for an account and make your first hire. Useful hints guide you through this process, making it fast and efficient. 

What’s more, Oyster takes care of all the legal requirements associated with hiring international talent. Depending on an employee's country of residence, this can include healthcare, paid leave, worker’s compensation, and more. 

The payroll tools enable you to pay international employees with ease. You can pay employees in 180+ countries and 120+ currencies, which means that it has almost worldwide coverage. 

How to Get Started With Oyster

To create your free Oyster account, head to the company website and hit the “Explore Platform for Free” button. You will need to enter a few personal details, including your name, professional email address, and company data. This should only take a couple of minutes, and then you’ll be taken to your account dashboard. 

Here, you’ll be offered a short informational video and product walkthrough to help you get started. I’d recommend taking it, as it explains how to get the most out of the Oyster platform. I found it extremely useful. 

When you’re ready to make your first hire, simply head to the Hire tab on the left of your dashboard and hit the Start Hiring button. You will be walked through a number of questions about your new employee. You need to answer these accurately so that Oyster can provide the best services possible. 

All things considered, Oyster is easy to set up and use, and the support resources are a good source of help if you do run into trouble. 

Oyster Customer Service

The only way to contact the Oyster customer support team is to submit an online request. Paying customers can view and reply to support threads from their account dashboard or email address. If you’re not a customer, you’ll only receive a reply to your email address. 

Oyster’s support staff are responsive and knowledgeable. However, receiving a response during busy periods can still take 24+ hours. 

The thing that really stands out to me here is Oyster’s Help Center. It contains a selection of handy articles that I found very well-written and informative. There’s also a resource library, blog, podcast, and various courses for people who want to learn more about Oyster and payroll management in general. 

How to Cancel or Pause an Oyster Subscription

Oyster makes it a little difficult to cancel your account, as there’s no online cancellation option. Instead, you have to provide the company with 30 days’ written notice, and you’ll be liable for all fees and charges within this period. 

Unfortunately, there’s no way to pause your subscription. 

Is There an Oyster App?

Oyster doesn’t have a mobile app. 

Oyster Pricing

How Much Does Oyster Cost? 

Oyster has three subscription options. The cheapest Contractor plan starts at $29 per month per contractor, while the Employee plan comes in at $599 per employee, per month ($499 with annual billing). There’s also a Scale option that’s designed for larger businesses. It’s custom-priced and offers excellent discounts. 

One thing I particularly like about Oyster is that it provides access to most of its features for free. After creating a free account, you can browse the dashboard, and you won’t have to pay until you’re ready to make your first hire.

oth contractors and full-time employees. It includes bulk hiring tools, and it’s designed for companies hiring multiple employees. You’ll need to speak with the Oyster team to discuss pricing, but you can expect to get a decent discount with multiple employees or contractors. 

What can you do with Oyster for free?

With Oyster, you can create an account and log in to your account dashboard for free. You can also browse the payroll and other tools and familiarize yourself with their functionality. 

However, you can’t hire or manage any employees until you upgrade to a premium subscription. When you’re ready to hire, head to the Hire tab on your account dashboard and follow the prompts. You’ll need to subscribe before you can confirm your hire. 

Optional add-ons

Oyster offers optional local benefits packages that take care of healthcare, life insurance, pensions, and other legal requirements. They’re only available with the Employee and Scale plans, and you’ll need to have a chat with the Oyster team to find out more about them. You can also request a demo to find out exactly how Oyster could help your business.  

Oyster Alternatives

How Does Oyster Compare to Other HR Software

Oyster vs Deel

Like Oyster, Deel enables you to pay international employees in their local currency. The two platforms are very similarly priced, and both offer international payroll compliance and flexible benefits packages. In my eyes, Oyster comes out slightly ahead simply because it’s easier to set up and use.

Oyster vs Gusto

Gusto is a powerful payroll management program that’s excellent for small, US-based businesses. However, it doesn’t cater to international employees, which makes it less suitable for companies that want to hire remotely. Oyster stands out as a much better choice for this. 

Oyster vs Rippling

Rippling is an automatic payroll solution that enables small to medium businesses to streamline payroll processes. However, it’s most useful for US-based businesses, and it doesn’t offer international payroll. This makes Oyster my option of choice if you’re looking for a powerful international payroll solution. 

Oyster Visit Site

Bottom Line (Is Oyster Worth It?)

Oyster is a powerful payroll and employee management platform that’s designed to help you hire international employees. It enables you to hire from 180+ countries, make payments in 120+ currencies, and manage everything from a single, user-friendly dashboard. 

What’s more, Oyster is easy to set up, and the free version lets you test every aspect of the platform. The premium subscriptions are rather expensive, but it’s an excellent option if you’re looking for fully compliant international payroll software.