Remote once set out with a similar mission to Boundless, not using Partners and creating a compliant, tech solution. But like Deel, large VC rounds and pressure to grow at all costs have had an impact.
Cost/Fees
Originally Remote had a very low / cheap offerings like Deel, that they were only able to offer due to VC funding covering their losses, as they focused on Growth at all costs Old Fees: Their price was to be $349 per employee per month, and from 2020-2021 often ran a “first 12 months no fee”. In 2022 interest rates increased, and like many Tech Startups reliant on VC investment, Remote increased their fees to try to get revenue to justify their crazy valuation
Fee increases Their fees went up to $699 per month but Jan 2024 (but they advertise it as $599 monthly - if you pay up front for the year) Hidden Fee disguised as payroll: We’ve been told by some customers that often Remote will include extra benefits + costs in their payroll that are not statutory. We’re not sure if this is because they increased their benefits in some countries where employers must offer equal benefits to all employees &/or if it’s to keep employee’s happy and reduce churn, or if it’s for some other reason. Deposits: Unlike Boundless’s account balance, most EORs will ask for a deposit. The difference is that a “deposits” can be kept if certain EOR terms aren’t met - e.g. termination notice, previous late payments, minim term of employment not reached. These deposits can vary and aren’t necessarily based off payrol value.
2) Invoicing + FRX + Payroll
Payroll Cut-Off: Remote’s cut off time for payroll each month is the 8th, with 0 flexibility to re-open payroll past that date. While Boundless’s cut off is the 10th, we are willing to be flexible if a last minute addition request comes in, a few days after the 10th. While we don’t encourage this behaviour, we’re happy to help once off, rather than regularly from a customer. FRX + Reconciling Invoices: A Finance Manager from a prospect in Q4, 2023 explained the biggest issue he had with Remote was how they handled invoices + FRX.
From what he told me; Remote invoice at the start of the month, and then again at the end of the same month, if there have been any exchange rate differences or payroll changes. For example
- Let’s say your invoice on the 1st of May was for $5,000 invoice to pay a €4,800 €uro costs (salary + payroll + Remote fee). So you pay the $5,000 USD for the May Invoice.
- By the end of May, the $dollar had weakened, so €4,800 was actually worth $5,100 USD
- Remote now invoice you a second “May Invoice” worth $5,100. Acknowledging you already paid $5,000, you only pay them $100.
- But now you have two invoices from Remote totalling $10,100 USD ($5,000 + $5,100). But you’d only paid them $5,100. For your account to balance, you now have to manually “reconcile” your invoices. This is a time consuming and manual task, and is done every month this happened. Additionally
-This can effect other changes to payroll: This “reconciling of invoices” can also happens when you ask to pay a bonus to the employee after paying the first invoice.
-Remote always wins, Customer always loses: And VERY ANNOYINGLY, if the opposite happened. If the USD strengthen, you would not get any sort of credit or refund from Remote. E.g. ig you paid the $5,000 at the start of the month to cover the €4,800 costs, but by the end of the month, €4,800 was now only worth $4,900 USD, then Remote aren’t going to refund or credit you $100 .
What is the FRX rate?: It’s hard to know. It seems you need a Remote account to even access that based on their FAQ pages (See screenshots below)
3) Compliance + Operations
While Remote’s mission was similar to Boundless at one point, this has changed, though they have claimed to not use partners and only operate through their own entities.
Employment Models: We’re aware of some countries where the employer operating models do not allow for Co-employment or employment leasing e.g. France, where we have to use a Portage Salarial model. However, Remote do not allow for fixed term employment in France, meaning they are not using a Portage. This is an example of how they are no longer taking the route of long and complicated set up to be compliant, and are operating in countries that goes against the local labour laws. Employment Contracts: From a customer who switched to Boundless from Remote in Q3 2023, we were told one of her biggest concerns as Head of HR when she joined this customer’s company (based in the Netherlands) was that she had no visibility of the EAs signed between their employees and Remote.
Her biggest red flag was when her employee (who had moved from Netherlands to Greece) shared the EA she signed with Remote, directly with the Head of HR (as Remote would not share it with her). She was shocked to see a number of protections in The Netherlands (e.g. 2 year sick leave) included in this Greek EA, even though they were not required in Greece. She was furious for 2 reasons:
1) this must have only been added at the request of the relocating Dutch employee, and Remote approved it without asking the client
2) The client had insurance to cover their Netherlands employees sick leave, but that would not cover this employee in Greece. And under the Remote CA terms, her company would be financially liable to cover any benefits and protections of employees’ they hire through Remote.
Also, Remote will often only mention Remote + the employee with little to no mention of clients in their EAs. This makes it easier to ignore regulations on co-employment, and set up. But will inevitably cause issue if employees report this to local authorities in the future. It’s also why Remote won’t allow for C-level hires, otherwise Deel would have 100s of CMOs, COOs etc whose EA says they are Remote’s C-level. These sort of EAs can cause IP concerns and other issues. Contractor: Remote, like many tech EORs offer contractor payments, and promises compliance, but in reality aren’t providing any checks to ensure customers are not running a high risk of misclassification Operating in Spain: Remote offers EOR in Spain, which we know is not compliant
4) Platform / offering
Jack of all trade - master of none: Remote have needed to rapidly expand their product offering, to try to grow revenue and meet their crazy valuation. So they’ve started to acquire companies that complement EOR services (Visa services, payroll, ESOPs etc).
All of this + integrations means a lot on their platform and nice to haves they can offer for cheap/free - but the quality of the services and support are still very low. Customers need to choose between quality or quantity Poor Customer Service: There’s been a growing list of issues from delays, ignoring key questions, over promising under-delivering. Their team are mostly sales agents and customer support. Based on reviews, their response time is slow, uninformed and lack any nuance in tricky situations like termination.
