Oyster vs Remote: What actually matters

Yes. What’s important is that you’ll never feel the difference. In most cases (80%+ of hires), we employ team members directly through our own entities. In a few regions, we work with carefully vetted local experts to ensure full compliance and coverage. Either way, you and your team members always deal directly with Oyster — never with a partner.

Being 100% direct doesn’t guarantee a service delivery tailored to your needs. Oyster’s hybrid model combines broad global reach with consistent, centralized service so that you can access a global talent market compliantly and efficiently.

Oyster is built to help companies hire globally without compromising on intellectual property protection or data security. On the IP side, Oyster uses locally compliant agreements and legal frameworks designed to ensure that intellectual property created by team members is owned by, or transferred to, the customer to the fullest extent allowed under local law. Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach, Oyster works with local legal expertise to adapt IP protections country by country.⁠⁠⁠⁠​

On data security, Oyster combines privacy-by-design principles with enterprise-grade safeguards. Oyster completes annual SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II audits, applies technical and organizational security measures such as encryption and access controls, and supports compliance with major privacy standards including GDPR.

Yes. Oyster combines automation with expert support, so you don’t have to choose between efficiency and guidance. Oyster automates key parts of global hiring and employment management, including onboarding workflows, employment agreement generation, time off, expenses, payroll changes, and other core admin tasks. The difference is that Oyster doesn’t stop at automation: when the stakes are higher or local nuance matters, you also have real experts to guide you through it.⁠

From your first hire onward, you’ll have a consistent team that truly knows your business. Your Sales Executive and Customer Success Manager will be your go-to partners as you expand into new markets. For day-to-day questions, our Lifecycle Support Specialists respond through our ticketing system and ensure your requests go straight to the right expert, whether that’s HR, payroll, or benefits. Our expert HR team directly handles every sensitive situation with the attention to detail it deserves, empathy, and deep country-specific expertise. They’ll guide you through the nuances and advise on the best path forward.

We built our support structure to feel personal, not transactional, so you always know who to reach out to and can trust that someone with deep expertise is on the other side to provide you with timely and thorough answers.

For companies that want more than a self-serve platform, Oyster is a stronger choice because it combines modern automation with expert, human support. Unlike more self-service models, Oyster is designed to deliver both efficiency and hands-on guidance when the stakes are high. 

Companies choose Oyster over Remote for three main reasons: more dependable and accountable support, clearer and more predictable pricing, and more practical, country-specific guidance, especially in sensitive situations like terminations. In other words, Remote may appeal to buyers optimizing for a more self-service, transactional experience, while Oyster is better suited to companies that want a partner to support them as they scale globally with confidence.