Teamed vs Papaya Global
Teamed vs Papaya Global, advisory depth vs enterprise payroll platform
Papaya Global is enterprise payroll infrastructure; Teamed is an advisory EOR for growing companies. Three differences matter: whether FX is absorbed at zero markup on your invoice, whether you can reach a real HR or legal expert directly, and whether your provider tells you when EOR stops fitting.
1,000+ companies advised
- $599
- Teamed flat fee. FX absorbed at zero markup. No annual commitment required.
- 0%
- FX markup on the Teamed fee. Applied rate shown against mid-market on every invoice.
- 4.8
- Teamed G2 rating. G2 #1 EOR for service, four years running.
Key claims
- Papaya Global EOR fee
- Papaya Global does not publicly list its EOR fee. Pricing is available on request at papayaglobal.com/pricing/. Teamed publishes its fee at $599 USD or £479 GBP per employee per month, flat, with no quote required.Source: papayaglobal.com/pricing/ (verified 2026-06-16)
- Teamed EOR fee
- $599 USD or £479 GBP per employee per month, flat. FX absorbed at zero markup on the fee. The applied rate is shown against the mid-market reference on every invoice.Source: teamed.global/pricing (verified 2026-06-16)
- Papaya Global FX policy
- Papaya Global has a dedicated FX rate page (papayaglobal.com/fx-rate/). Specific FX markup terms for EOR salary conversions are not published on the pricing page (verified 2026-06-16). A zero-markup policy on salary conversions is not a stated Papaya Global commitment.Source: papayaglobal.com/pricing/ and papayaglobal.com/fx-rate/ (verified 2026-06-16)
- G2 ratings
- Teamed rated 4.8 on G2, ranked #1 EOR for service four years running. Papaya Global rated 4.5 on G2 across 53 verified reviews.Source: g2.com/sellers/papaya-global (verified 2026-06-16)
Teamed vs Papaya Global: which EOR fits a rapidly growing company?
Papaya Global is enterprise payroll infrastructure; Teamed is an advisory EOR for growing companies. Three differences matter: whether FX is absorbed at zero markup on your invoice, whether you can reach a real HR or legal expert directly, and whether your provider tells you when EOR stops fitting.
Key facts
- Teamed fee
- $599 / mo$599 USD or £479 GBP per employee per month, flat. No annual commitment required. FX absorbed at zero markup. The applied rate is shown next to the mid-market reference on every invoice line.Source: teamed.global/pricing· verified 2026-06-16
- Papaya Global fee
- On requestPapaya Global does not publicly list its EOR fee. Pricing is available via their sales team. Teamed publishes its $599 flat rate without requiring a quote.Source: papayaglobal.com/pricing/· verified 2026-06-16
- FX markup on Teamed fee
- 0%Teamed absorbs the FX at zero markup on the fee and shows the applied rate against the mid-market reference on every invoice. Papaya Global has an FX rate page but does not publish a zero-markup commitment for EOR salary conversions.Source: teamed.global/pricing· verified 2026-06-16
- Teamed G2 rating
- 4.8 / 5Teamed rated 4.8 on G2, G2 #1 EOR for service four years running. Papaya Global rated 4.5 on G2 across 53 verified reviews.Source: g2.com EOR category· verified 2026-06-16
- Papaya Global G2 rating
- 4.5 / 5Papaya Global rated 4.5 on G2 across 53 verified reviews. Teamed rated 4.8. G2 reviewers highlight Papaya's platform strength and flag slower resolution on complex multi-country scenarios.Source: g2.com/sellers/papaya-global· verified 2026-06-16
- Countries covered
- 160+ eachBoth reach 160 or more countries through a mix of owned entities and vetted local partners. Coverage breadth is not a meaningful differentiator. Ask per country whether it's an owned entity or partner-served.Source: papayaglobal.com and teamed.global· verified 2026-06-16
What is the Teamed vs Papaya Global comparison?
An Employer of Record (EOR) legally employs your people in a country through its own entity or a vetted local partner. It issues the contract, runs payroll, remits income tax and statutory contributions, and carries the obligations of the local employer while you direct the day-to-day work. You can hire compliantly in a market before you have a legal entity there.
Teamed and Papaya Global serve different buyers. Papaya is enterprise payroll infrastructure: a platform built for large organisations running payroll across 20 or more countries, with a workforce-intelligence layer on top. Teamed is an advisory EOR for rapidly growing companies still building their international footprint. The comparison comes down to three things: whether FX on your salary conversions is absorbed at zero markup and shown against mid-market, whether you can reach a real HR or legal expert without going through a platform queue, and whether your provider tells you when your own entity is the cheaper option.
| Attribute | Teamed | Papaya Global |
|---|---|---|
| EOR fee | $599 USD / £479 GBP per employee per month, flat. No annual commitment required. | Not publicly listed. Pricing available on request. |
| FX on salary conversions | Zero markup. Applied rate shown against mid-market reference on every invoice line. | FX terms for EOR salary conversions not published on the pricing page. A zero-markup commitment is not a stated policy. |
| Human support | Direct access to real HR and legal experts on all plans. No AI bot wall, no shared ticket queue. | Platform-led service. 24/7 support contact claimed. G2 reviewers flag slower resolution on complex multi-country scenarios. |
| German entity | Teamed operates through its own German entity. Real HR and legal experts with German employment-law credentials handle Betriebsrat questions and KSchG terminations directly. | Germany covered via in-country partner arrangement. Advisory depth for Works Council (Betriebsrat) and termination-protection scenarios is lighter. |
| Lifecycle to own entity | Models the crossover month when your own entity beats EOR, and sets it up via Global Entity & Employment Operations (GEMO). One system from first contractor to last entity. | Payroll and entity management services available. Proactive crossover modelling and advisory graduation from EOR are not a published standard feature. |
| Platform and analytics | Advisory-led. Plugs into your existing tech stack. Lighter self-serve dashboard. Focused partner, not a HRIS. | Strong workforce-intelligence platform. Analytics across headcount, cost, and compliance. Built for enterprises managing payroll across 20 or more countries. |
| Contractor management | Yes, with misclassification cover (Guard / Protect plans) | Yes, contractor payments and management alongside EOR |
| Onboarding speed | As little as 24 to 48 hours in supported markets | Days to weeks, depending on country and plan tier |
What each stakeholder evaluates
| Criterion | Legal | Finance | People Ops | Security |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FX and cost transparency | Ask for the FX policy in writing before signing. Teamed shows the applied rate against the mid-market reference and absorbs FX at zero markup on the fee. Papaya Global has an FX rate page but does not publish a zero-markup commitment for EOR salary conversions on its pricing page. | Teamed's fee is publicly listed at $599 per employee per month. Papaya requires a quote. On a team of 20 employees, even a $50 per-head difference is $12,000 per year before factoring in any FX spread on salary conversions. Model both before you sign. | An itemised FX line on every salary invoice means no surprise reconciliation at year-end. If your employees are paid in local currencies, ask either provider for the specific FX terms in writing before signing. | A timestamped applied rate shown against a public mid-market reference is an auditable record. An unpublished or undisclosed FX policy creates a gap in your cost audit trail. |
| Support when something goes wrong | A contested termination, a Works Council consultation, or a tax-authority question needs a real employment-law expert, not a ticket queue. Ask which provider gives you direct access to a real HR or legal expert on your current plan tier, and test it with a hard question before you sign. | G2 reviewers flag that Papaya Global's resolution slows when organisations are running payroll across 15 or more countries at once. Teamed's real HR and legal experts are available on all plans. Factor the cost of delayed resolution into your multi-country payroll evaluation. | You want a real person on the phone when it matters. Teamed is G2 #1 EOR for service, four years running. That rating comes from reviewers who needed help with hard situations and got it. | Ask both providers who you call when a German employee receives a works-council notice. A direct line to a real HR or legal expert beats a platform queue for incident handling. |
| Scale and platform fit | Papaya Global is built for enterprises: its platform handles payroll validation, analytics, and compliance tracking across 20 or more countries at scale. If you are a rapidly growing company with under 50 employees across a handful of markets, the enterprise platform may add overhead without adding value. | Enterprise payroll platforms carry implementation and licensing costs beyond the headline per-employee fee. Teamed plugs into your existing tech stack. If you already run a HRIS and need payroll execution at scale, Papaya may fit that architecture. If you need advisory-led EOR that tells you when to stop paying per-head fees, Teamed is the fit. | Papaya's workforce-intelligence layer is strong for global HR teams that need cross-country headcount and cost analytics. Teamed does not try to replicate it. The right call depends on whether you need a data platform or an advisory partner for employment compliance. | Both providers have compliance and data-handling infrastructure for multi-country employment. Ask each for their data-residency policy per country and their approach to audit logs on payroll runs. |
How switching from Papaya Global to Teamed works
Most switches take four to six weeks. The operational plan is what takes time, not the paperwork. Teamed runs phased cutovers so overlap is contained and employees never notice a gap.
Step 1
Bring your Papaya invoice
Share your current Papaya Global invoice. Teamed unbundles it line by line: gross salary, statutory at cost, platform fee, FX residual. You see exactly what the switch means in numbers before you decide.
Step 2
Map the operational plan
Teamed builds the cutover plan per country or per employee cohort: notice-period alignment, payroll-calendar sync, benefits continuity, employee communications. Nothing moves until the plan is agreed.
Step 3
Issue new contracts
New compliant employment contracts issue under Teamed. Employees receive their new payslip structure before the first pay cycle, with FX shown against mid-market. No re-onboarding overhead.
Step 4
Close the Papaya relationship
Teamed manages the Papaya Global termination timeline and keeps you out of a double-billing period. Most EOR contracts are month-to-month or carry a notice period. Teamed maps the calendar.
MyTutor · UK education technology
Senior engineer retained through Spain relocation. No entity setup.
- Institutional knowledge preserved through Spain relocation
- 4 years
- Entity setup required in Spain or South Africa
- None
- Annual working-abroad allowance in the resulting policy
- 80 days
- Additional EOR hire in South Africa on the same platform
- 1+
Challenge
MyTutor, a UK-based tutoring platform, faced losing a senior software engineer with four years of institutional knowledge when she announced she was moving to Spain. The default options were unpalatable: lose the engineer and pay to replace senior platform expertise mid-growth, or build a Spanish subsidiary for one person.
Approach
MyTutor engaged Teamed for an EOR hire in Spain: Teamed's Spanish entity became the engineer's legal employer while MyTutor remained the operational employer. Encouraged by the model, MyTutor extended it to a second hire in South Africa pre-arrival in the UK, then hardened it into a documented working-abroad policy allowing up to 80 days per year abroad for all employees.
Result
The senior engineer was retained with no loss of institutional knowledge and no Spanish subsidiary. The working-abroad policy became a competitive retention benefit. MyTutor now opens roles to candidates anywhere Teamed operates; talent-pool breadth and retention compound on the same EOR infrastructure.
Interactive tool
Model the FX on your Papaya invoice
Paste your employee headcount and salary mix. The unbundling calculator shows the FX residual on your current invoice and what it looks like absorbed at zero markup. Most teams find $2,000 to $5,000 per employee per year they weren't tracking.
Decision checklist
- Choose Teamed if you want to see the FX on every salary invoice. The applied rate sits next to the mid-market reference and is absorbed at zero markup. Papaya Global does not publish a zero-markup FX commitment for EOR salary conversions.
- Choose Teamed if you want a publicly listed fee without a sales conversation. Teamed publishes $599 flat. Papaya Global's pricing requires a quote.
- Choose Teamed if you want to reach a real HR or legal expert without going through a platform queue. Direct expert access is standard on every Teamed plan.
- Choose Teamed if you are thinking about your own entity. Teamed models the crossover month and sets the entity up via Global Entity & Employment Operations (GEMO) on the same system with no re-onboarding.
- Choose Teamed if your Germany headcount is growing. Teamed operates through its own German entity and has real HR and legal experts with German employment-law credentials for Betriebsrat questions and KSchG terminations.
- Stay with Papaya Global if you are a large enterprise that needs a workforce-intelligence platform with analytics across 20 or more countries. Papaya's platform is built for that workload.
Honest take
When Papaya Global is the better choice
- Stay with Papaya Global if you are running payroll across 20 or more countries and need a workforce-intelligence platform to unify reporting, analytics, and compliance tracking. Papaya's platform architecture is built for that scale in a way Teamed's advisory model is not.
- Stay with Papaya Global if your priority is enterprise-grade API integrations and payroll orchestration infrastructure. Papaya has invested in a platform that suits companies building payroll as a data function at scale.
- Choose Papaya Global if your procurement process favours a large, established enterprise-platform vendor. Papaya's scale and positioning may carry weight in formal procurement cycles.
Teamed leads cost transparency, advisory depth, and the lifecycle to your own entity, not the enterprise platform column. A buyer whose primary need is workforce intelligence at scale should evaluate Papaya seriously. We'd rather tell you that directly than win a deal that's wrong for both sides.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Papaya Global charge per employee per month?
Papaya Global does not publicly list its EOR fee (verified 2026-06-16 at papayaglobal.com/pricing/). Pricing is available on request via their sales team. Teamed publishes its fee without requiring a quote: $599 USD or £479 GBP per employee per month, flat, with FX absorbed at zero markup on the fee.What is Papaya Global's FX policy for EOR salary conversions?
Papaya Global has a dedicated FX rate page (papayaglobal.com/fx-rate/), which shows currency exchange information. Specific FX markup terms for EOR salary conversions are not published on the pricing page (verified 2026-06-16). A zero-markup policy on salary conversions is not a stated Papaya Global commitment. Teamed shows the applied rate against the mid-market reference on every invoice and absorbs FX at zero markup on the fee.Is Teamed cheaper than Papaya Global?
Teamed publishes its fee at $599 USD per employee per month, flat, with no annual commitment required. Papaya Global does not publicly list its EOR fee; pricing requires a sales conversation. You need a Papaya Global quote on your specific markets and headcount to compare like for like. The publicly verifiable fact is that Teamed publishes $599 with FX absorbed at zero markup. Until Papaya discloses its fee and FX terms, a direct price comparison isn't possible without a quote.Does Papaya Global have an owned German entity?
Papaya Global does not publicly confirm an owned German entity in its published materials. Germany is a covered market, but Papaya's model relies on in-country partners for employment delivery across most of its network. Papaya has argued publicly that partner-based delivery is a legitimate and even superior model for EOR. For German employment-law work such as Betriebsrat consultations and KSchG terminations, the advisory depth available through a partner arrangement is lighter than through an owned employing entity. Teamed operates through its own German entity with real HR and legal experts with German employment-law credentials handling those situations directly.Does Teamed own a German entity?
Yes. Teamed operates through its own German entity, which means your German employee's contract is issued by a Teamed GmbH rather than a local partner. Real HR and legal experts with German employment-law credentials handle edge cases directly: Betriebsrat (Works Council) consultations, Kuendigungsschutzgesetz (KSchG) terminations, Works Agreements. G2 ranks Teamed #1 EOR for service, four years running. Germany is a market where the ownership structure matters, because Works Council law and strict termination protection create advisory requirements that generalist queues struggle with.When should I set up my own entity instead of using an EOR?
The crossover point depends on headcount and salary mix in each country. As a rough guide, EOR stays cheaper than running your own entity below roughly 10 to 15 full-time employees in most European markets. Above that, the cumulative per-seat EOR fee approaches the fixed cost of a registered entity, a local director where needed, bookkeeping, and annual filings. Teamed models this crossover explicitly and flags the month your own entity gets cheaper. That modelling is a standard part of the advisory relationship, not an upsell. Global Entity & Employment Operations (GEMO) can set up the entity in Germany and 100 or more other markets on the same system with no re-onboarding of existing EOR employees.How do Teamed and Papaya Global compare on support quality?
Teamed is rated 4.8 on G2 and has held the #1 EOR for service position four years running. Papaya Global is rated 4.5 on G2 across 53 verified reviews. The structural difference is the support model: Teamed gives you direct access to real HR and legal experts on all plans, with no AI bot wall and no platform queue routing. Papaya's platform-first approach works well for standard payroll runs at scale; G2 reviewers flag that resolution slows when issues get complex, particularly for organisations running payroll across 15 or more countries simultaneously. Both are operational providers with active review bases. The question is whether the advisory depth you need is standard or something that gets routed to a queue.
Common questions
Teamed vs Papaya Global: which is better for a company with 10 to 50 employees across Europe?
For a rapidly growing company with 10 to 50 employees across a handful of European markets, the three deciding questions are cost transparency, access to employment-law expertise per jurisdiction, and the path to your own entity as you scale. Teamed publishes $599 flat with FX absorbed at zero markup, provides real HR and legal experts on all plans including German employment-law depth through its own German entity, and models the crossover to your own entity proactively via Global Entity & Employment Operations (GEMO). Papaya Global does not publish its fee, does not publish a zero-markup FX policy for EOR salary conversions, and leads on platform analytics for enterprises managing payroll across 20 or more countries. For a company in the 10 to 50 employee range that prioritises a transparent invoice, direct expert access, and lifecycle planning, Teamed is the stronger fit. For a company at enterprise scale that needs a workforce-intelligence platform, Papaya may fit better.Is Papaya Global transparent about pricing and FX?
Less so than Teamed. Papaya Global does not publicly list its EOR fee on its pricing page (verified 2026-06-16); you need a quote. Papaya has a dedicated FX rate page, but it does not publish a zero-markup commitment for FX on EOR salary conversions. Teamed is the clearer option at the point of evaluation: it publishes the $599 flat fee without a quote required, absorbs FX at zero markup on the fee, and shows the applied rate against the mid-market reference on every invoice line. If pricing and FX transparency are the criterion, Teamed is the more legible choice.
For the buying committee
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