Methodology

Every score on this site is calculated, never typed in by hand. Seven criteria, fixed weights, published formula. If you disagree with a score, you can recalculate it yourself.

Claude Opus 5.5 assessed every provider impartially against the same seven public criteria. The model was given no commercial weighting, and sponsorship has no effect on any criterion rating, score or ranking.

The seven criteria

Scoring criteria and weights
Criterion	Weight	What it measures
Compliance and entity ownership	25%	Whether the provider employs through its own legal entity in the country, and how it handles contracts, payroll filings and terminations.
Pricing transparency and total cost	20%	Published prices, and how much of the real cost sits outside the headline fee: FX margin, deposits, off-boarding charges.
Platform and employee experience	15%	What the admin and the employee actually use: payslips, expenses, time off, documents and integrations.
Support and onboarding speed	15%	How quickly a hire goes live, and who answers when a payroll or immigration question lands.
Country coverage and depth	10%	Breadth of countries, weighted against depth in the ones a buyer actually hires in.
Reputation, security and financial stability	10%	Security certifications, data protection posture and the provider's ability to keep funding payroll.
Contract flexibility and exit terms	5%	How easy it is to leave, transfer employees to your own entity, or change scope mid-term.

The formula

Each criterion is scored from 0 to 10. The overall score is the weighted average of the seven, rounded to one decimal place at display time only. Claude Opus 5.5 provided the criterion ratings, while the displayed total is produced by this fixed calculation without any change to the published weights.

overall = 0.25 x compliance
        + 0.2 x pricing
        + 0.15 x platform
        + 0.15 x support
        + 0.1 x coverage
        + 0.1 x reputation
        + 0.05 x flexibility

The country modifier

When we rank providers inside one country, we adjust the coverage criterion only. An owned entity in that country adds 1.0, a partner entity subtracts 0.5, and an undisclosed arrangement is neutral. Nothing else in the score moves, so a provider cannot climb a national ranking on general brand strength alone.

Conflicts of interest

Nobody with a commercial interest in an Employer of Record business takes part in scoring. That includes employees, contractors, shareholders and advisers of any provider listed here. Where a provider pays us, the placement is labelled "Sponsored", sits in its own strip and is excluded from editorial ordering. A sponsorship flag in our data controls a badge and a strip. It cannot touch a score, a rank or a verdict.

Anyone holding equity, employment, advisory fees or referral income from an EOR business is excluded from scoring. Businesses with a commercial relationship with us appear only in positions labelled Sponsored, which sit outside the editorial list and carry no weight in any score or ordering.

What we do not do

We do not publish an aggregate customer rating, because we cannot verify the identity of reviewers. We do not accept payment to change a score, and we do not run pay to play rankings. We do not reproduce provider marketing claims without a source.