Employer-of-record or direct payouts? How to decide what your team in Africa, Latin America and Asia actually needs

Two categories get mixed up in every "how do we pay our team abroad" conversation. Employer-of-record (EOR) platforms employ people on your behalf in a country where you have no entity, and handle contracts, payroll tax and benefits. Payout platforms move money to people and companies you already have a relationship with. They overlap on one screen — the one where money leaves — and nowhere else.

When you need an EOR

When the person is, in substance, an employee: fixed hours, your equipment, your management, indefinite term, working in a country with strict misclassification rules. An EOR carries the employment risk and the statutory obligations. That is worth its monthly per-head fee.

When you need a payout platform

When the people you pay are contractors, agencies, suppliers, field staff on stipends, cooperatives, partner clinics, or your own subsidiary's payroll account — anyone you already have a contract or invoice with. Here an EOR is the wrong shape: you are paying an employment fee for a money transfer, and often still getting a wire underneath.

Where the cost hides

EOR platforms typically charge a fixed monthly fee per person plus a percentage or a spread on the payout itself. For a contractor invoicing US$2,000 a month, a $300–$600 per-head fee is 15–30% on top of the money. A payout platform charges on the money only — Storspay is 2% all-in at the mid-market rate, so that same $2,000 costs $40.

A common setup

• EOR for the three full-time engineers in Lagos and São Paulo who need employment contracts and benefits.
• Storspay for the forty contractors, two agencies and six suppliers across ten countries, paid in one monthly batch by bank, mobile money, SPEI or PIX — and for collecting from customers in those same countries.

What Storspay does not do

Storspay does not employ anyone, does not file payroll tax, and does not advise on classification. If you are unsure whether someone is an employee, ask an EOR or local counsel first. When the answer is "contractor" or "supplier", Storspay is the cheaper, faster way to pay them.

Work out the payout side on the calculator.

Who this is for — and who it is not for

Storspay is for businesses, and a sole trader counts as one. If you are a freelancer or sole proprietor trading in your own name, you open a business account of the sole-trader type. You can be paid by companies abroad, and you can pay other businesses on Storspay — including other sole traders — for work they have done for you.

What Storspay is not is a personal money-transfer service. We do not open personal accounts, and every payment has to be a business transaction: an invoice, a contract, work delivered. Money to family, gifts and personal transfers are not what this is, and we would rather say so now than at verification.