Deel vs HourSquare: a global payroll and EOR platform against a self-serve HRIS

What Deel costs

Deel's pricing page lists some products and not others. On 2026-09-05 it showed Contractor management at USD 49 per contractor per month, US PEO at USD 125 per employee per month, EOR at USD 599 per employee per month and the ATS (Find Talent) at USD 14 per worker per month. It did not list Deel HR, Global Payroll or Engage. Deel's HR page shows Deel HR Core at USD 5 per employee per month, with Advanced and Elite tiers above it; on 2026-10-05 neither the HR page nor the pricing page named a free plan, although some older third-party guides still call Deel HR free below 200 employees. Third parties also report a USD 1,000 entity setup fee per country for Global Payroll and USD 20 per worker per month for the Engage add-on. HourSquare is free for now, with every module in one bundle. On Deel, payroll, time tracking and the other modules are separate products.

Where Deel is stronger

• Payroll in 150+ countries and employer-of-record in 130+, from one vendor. HourSquare ships tax packs for 24+ countries and has no EOR or contractor payments.
• Performance reviews and goals, which HourSquare does not have.
• An applicant tracking add-on (Find Talent); HourSquare has no ATS and onboarding starts at the signed contract.
• A broader public developer API and iOS and Android apps; HourSquare's public API covers time clocks, employees and time entries, and it is a responsive web app with no native app.
• Time tracking with geofencing and rotating schedules feeding payroll.
• A very large review base: 4.9 on Capterra from 4,308 reviews.

Where HourSquare is stronger for a self-serve team

• Everything is free for now, and there are no per-worker add-ons: surveys, pulse surveys, announcements and the anonymous whistleblowing channel are in the one bundle rather than a USD 20-per-worker Engage product.
• Self-serve signup and setup, with no implementation project. Deel does not state whether you can sign up without a sales conversation.
• Documented security controls for customers: per-company SSO (Okta, Microsoft Entra, Google) with enforce mode, 2FA and passkeys, and an audit log of sensitive-data reads and record changes. Deel's public pages do not confirm customer-facing SSO or an audit log.
• One employee record for directory, time off, timesheets, shift schedules, payroll, onboarding and offboarding, without a product built around global EOR.
• EU hosting on both sides; HourSquare adds personal-data export and erasure you run yourself.

Moving from Deel HR

There is no automated migration. Export your worker list, documents and time-off records from Deel, sign up for HourSquare and configure the company yourself; setup is self-serve. Leave policies, reporting lines and onboarding templates are re-created rather than transferred. If you also use Deel for EOR or contractor payments, those relationships stay with Deel; HourSquare does not replace them. If you later leave HourSquare, you can export the employee list and reports as CSV or Excel, and each person's data, from the product.

How to decide

1. Count the countries where you employ people through your own entities. Many countries, or EOR needs, point to Deel; one or a few, within HourSquare's 24+ tax packs, point to HourSquare.
2. Work out what you would actually pay. Confirm with Deel the USD 5 per employee per month for Core at your size, and add the Engage, ATS or payroll fees you would use. Compare that with HourSquare, which is free for now.
3. Check the security rows you need documented: SSO for your staff and an audit log are confirmed on HourSquare and not on Deel's public pages.
4. Decide whether performance reviews, an ATS, a broad public API or a native mobile app are must-haves. HourSquare has no performance reviews, ATS or native app, and its API covers time clocks, employees and time entries only.
5. Consider who will run it. HourSquare is built for a team to set up and operate itself; Deel's breadth suits a buyer with a global payroll problem.