Deel vs Velocity Global: Honest Employer of Record Service Comparison (2025)

General overview

Deel and Velocity Global are two of the most prominent players in the Employer of Record (EOR) space. Each offers extensive support services to legally hire international talent without setting up local legal entities or subsidiaries in each location.

Velocity Global provides EOR services in 185 countries using a mix of its own entities and in-country partners, with a greater reliance on partners. Its workforce management platform supports key areas like compliance, payroll, and onboarding for globally distributed teams.

Deel is known for being a complete global hiring, payroll, and compliance solution. It offers EOR services in over 150 countries through its own entities. It’s backed by in-house infrastructure, AI-powered tools, and a dedicated team of compliance, payroll, and HR experts. It’s ideal for small, medium, and large enterprises seeking a single, unified solution to global expansion and team management.

Let’s dive deeper into how these two Employers of Record stack up across key criteria.

Key features

Velocity Global

• Support for contractor-to-employee conversions, immigration services, and contractor management
• Includes around 15 built-in integrations, with support for custom integrations through an API
• Multi-channel customer support through Slack, email, and phone
• Access to international retirement plans

Deel

• Fully owned EOR and global payroll infrastructure that ensures greater accuracy, compliance, and faster issue resolution
• Partnerships with top-tier providers for health insurance and other benefits
• Multichannel customer support through 8+ channels, including tools like WeChat, Microsoft Teams, and Slack, plus an AI assistant, a dedicated Customer Success Manager, and onboarding support
• Free in-built global HRIS tool and global hiring tools like Salary Insights and Global Hiring Insights
• Proactive risk reduction through in-house legal experts and real-time compliance tracking through the Compliance Hub
• 120+ native integrations and accessible API
• Full suite of HR tools and services to legally employ, pay, and manage a global workforce within a centralized dashboard, including contractors, EOR employees, and direct employees
• White label services for users looking to offer Deel’s infrastructure under their own brand

See more: More Than a Service: EOR as a Strategic Partner in Business Growth

Pros and cons

Velocity Global

Pros:

• Broad global coverage using in-country partners
• Prioritizes one-on-one customer support
• AI-powered platform with strong compliance tools
• Offers personalized guidance on complex global payroll and compliance
• Transparent pricing with flat monthly fees

Cons:

• Less automated than other providers, which can slow down onboarding and payroll processing
• Limited self-service options for businesses that prefer independent management
• Slow customer support response time

Deel

Pros:

• Broad global coverage using owned entities
• Seamless automation in payroll and compliance across 150+ countries using in-house infrastructure
• Transparent and scalable pricing at $599 per employee, per month, with no hidden fees
• Industry-leading customer support available 24/7
• Highly rated for user experience and seamless platform integrations
• Real-time updates on global compliance changes via the Compliance Hub
• Powerful automation and AI capabilities to reduce manual admin work
• White glove support services for companies with complex global operations and advanced setup requirements

Cons:

• The platform’s depth can be intimidating for new users, but dedicated support helps you get up to speed fast
• Pricing may stretch lean budgets, but automation and built-in HR and compliance reduce long-term costs

See more: What Are the Pros and Cons of Hiring With an Employer of Record (EOR)?

Cost

Velocity Global

Velocity Global charges a transparent monthly fee of $599 per month per employee. This cost includes global payroll, compliance management, expense and leave management, permissions management, and access to legal and HR experts.

Velocity Global offers additional services, but the range is fairly limited. Its services include:

• Immigration and visa support
• Equity management
• Contractor management
• Talent sourcing

You may still need to rely on third-party vendors for services such as equipment provisioning or advanced workforce planning.

Deel

Deel’s EOR service cost also begins at $599 per month per employee. It’s a predictable and transparent pricing model with clear breakdowns per employee and service tier.

At this cost, you get global compliance management, global payroll processing, local tax filings, onboarding, benefits management, localized employment contracts, legal and HR assistance, and a free integrated HRIS.

A major advantage with Deel is the wide range of tools available within the same platform, including:

• Immigration and visa support
• Contractor management
• Contractor of Record services
• Workforce planning tools
• Compensation management tools
• Talent sourcing tools
• Equity consulting

Accessing all these tools and services through a single platform creates cost savings by removing the need for separate software subscriptions. It reduces reliance on multiple third-party providers and minimizes costly errors caused by fragmented processes.

Summary:

Deel and Velocity Global charge similar prices for their EOR services. However, Deel delivers more value by combining a broader set of tools and services into one unified platform. This reduces the need for multiple external vendors and simplifies international operations.

See more: EOR vs. Entity Costs: What’s More Affordable?

Compliance & legal reliability

Velocity Global

Velocity Global's compliance approach includes an in-house team of regional legal experts who monitor local labor laws, draft compliant employment contracts, and guide clients through labor regulations.

While the platform automates some tasks like localized contract generation, its compliance management relies largely on human expertise. It lacks advanced built-in compliance automation or AI-powered compliance tools.

Deel

Deel’s global compliance framework is extensive. It includes in-house legal teams and compliance experts in over 100 countries, providing region-specific guidance tailored to your workforce.

The platform reinforces this human expertise with Deel Compliance Hub, which offers real-time monitoring that most providers don’t match. It automatically tracks regulatory changes and flags potential violations in the countries where you operate.

The Compliance Hub provides real-time alerts, monthly workforce insights based on your risk profile, and an AI-powered classification tool to reduce misclassification of employees.

An AI assistant is also available that acts as a compliance consultant. It provides compliance insights tailored to your workforce data.

All these compliance features work together to give you confidence when hiring and managing workers globally without relying on third-party legal support.

Summary:

Deel’s built-in automation ensures compliance is continuous, not dependent on manual intervention. This model is particularly ideal for businesses that need to expand rapidly across multiple markets while keeping compliance risks low and legal costs predictable. In contrast, Velocity Global’s approach relies heavily on manual support from experts.

See also: Best Regulatory Compliance Management Software for Companies

Onboarding speed

Velocity Global

Velocity Global provides a localized, generally quick onboarding process but offers a basic level of automation, mainly at the contract stage. Capabilities like advanced onboarding workflows are missing.

The platform also relies on Juro, a third-party provider, for its contract automation process. This dependence can slow down onboarding. It often leads to limited customization tied to vendor capabilities and fragmented workflows that require extra coordination.

Deel

Deel’s onboarding is fast, automated, and built for scale. The platform generates compliant, localized employment contracts in minutes, which new hires can sign digitally.

Through a self-service portal, employees can upload required documents like tax identification numbers. If anything is missing, Deel automatically sends reminders, minimizing delays and manual follow-ups.

Deel’s Workflow Builder and plugin for Slack lets you build onboarding workflows tailored to employees’ roles and departments. In one streamlined flow, you can assign equipment, update payroll, and activate localized benefits. This reduces back-and-forth and keeps onboarding tasks organized within the tools your team already uses.

The platform also offers AI-powered learning management features to build and automatically assign onboarding courses to new hires.

Summary:

Deel streamlines onboarding with automation at every step. It minimizes manual coordination and reduces time-to-productivity. Velocity Global’s process is less automated. It relies on external tools for contract handling, which can slow things down.

See more: 6 Employee Onboarding Best Practices: Your Essentials Guide

Benefits & payroll management

Velocity Global

Velocity Global provides a centralized and localized system for managing payroll and benefits, delivered through in-country partners.

Its payroll offering is solid and includes reporting and analytics, but it lacks flexibility and real-time automation. For example, gross-to-net (G2N) payroll calculations are not accessible in real time, limiting transparency for both employers and employees. Additionally, employees cannot access on-demand pay.

The platform includes an employee cost calculator, but it only offers payroll cost comparisons at the country level.

Benefits administration is supported, but employers must rely on the platform’s internal teams or manual research to design competitive packages. It lacks a self-serve research tool.

Additionally, reviews on trusted platforms like G2 suggest that Velocity Global’s benefits are not fully aligned with employee needs:

Deel

With in-house payroll engines and local tax experts, Deel supports compliant global payroll and benefits administration. The owned infrastructure supports flexible payroll, including off-cycle payments, easy payroll adjustments, and the ability to process one mass payment for your entire team.

Deel supports 15+ payment methods and all currencies, including crypto. Employees benefit from a self-serve platform where they can access payslips and request on-demand pay, boosting transparency and convenience.

The platform also includes advanced payroll reporting and global workforce analytics to support strategic workforce planning. Through Deel Equity, you can offer equity-based compensation, with all compensation data centralized for easy management.

An Employee Cost Calculator is also available to analyze payroll costs by region, enabling detailed comparisons to support informed decisions for your global expansion.

On the benefits side, Deel provides localized benefits administration. Through partnerships with top-tier providers, you can offer your workers enterprise-level benefits like health insurance at discounted rates.

An in-house team of local experts helps design competitive, compliant benefits packages tailored to your budget and talent goals. Alternatively, you can use Deel’s built-in Global Benefits Tool to easily review and compare country-specific packages independently.

Summary:

Deel offers greater flexibility, real-time payroll visibility, and built-in tools to design competitive, localized compensation packages. It also provides a wide range of competitive, localized benefits, giving employees more choices.

Velocity Global's payroll and benefits features are less flexible compared to Deel's. Important capabilities that enhance the employee experience, like access to on-demand pay, are missing.

See also: Paying Your Contingent Workforce: Optimizing Payroll and Payment Methods

Support & user experience

Velocity Global

Velocity Global offers 24/7 support through Slack, email, and phone, along with a dedicated account team. However, response times can take several hours, reflecting a more traditional support model.

Employers can also use a Jira Service Management portal to route requests to teams like IT, Finance, and Privacy.

The platform’s user interface has been slower to evolve compared to more modern, automated designs. Navigation is less intuitive, and reliance on manual processes can slow down task completion.

Deel

Deel’s customer support is top-rated. The platform provides 24/7 support through multiple channels, including:

• Email
• Phone
• Video calls
• Live chat
• WhatsApp
• Slack
• WeChat
• Microsoft Teams

Deel’s AI assistant also provides support in over 50 languages. It answers compliance and workforce-related questions, tailoring responses based on the specific page the user is viewing.

Deel also provides a dedicated Customer Success Manager and onboarding support.

The quality of support is high. Chat support responds in about a minute, and 91% of issues are sorted in the first interaction.

Deel’s platform is modern and intuitive, with automation that guides users through tasks. All functions are accessible from a single dashboard. If any support is required, Deel’s team provides step-by-step guidance through screen sharing.

Summary:

Compared to Velocity Global’s limited support channels, Deel provides a more modern and responsive support experience with 24/7 multilingual support across 8+ channels. The platform is also user-friendly. It’s a practical choice for busy teams that need to resolve issues quickly and manage global operations with minimal back-and-forth.

See also: 8 Essential Questions to Evaluate a Payroll Provider’s Customer Support

Integrations

Velocity Global

Velocity Global’s integration options are limited. It has fewer than 15 built-in integrations, including popular tools like Workable and Greenhouse.

Velocity Global does not offer direct, independent access to its API. Custom integrations require submitting a request through customer support.

Deel

Deel offers 120+ built-in integrations. It integrates with tools like Workday GPC, BambooHR, Greenhouse, QuickBooks, Workable, Lever, and SAP SuccessFactors. But with Deel’s built-in HRIS, benefits administration, legal, and workforce planning tools, you may find you no longer need to rely on legacy systems.

Deel’s Workflow Builder lets you automate key processes and sync employee data across systems through custom workflows built without code. For example, you can trigger contract generation when an employee is marked as hired in the HRIS.

For a more hands-on approach to your integrations and automations, you can use the publicly documented and accessible Deel API. A readily available sandbox lets you build and test custom integrations independently.

Summary:

Deel offers powerful integration capabilities, including 120+ native integrations, an open API, and a Workflow Builder. It makes it easy for users to automate processes across multiple systems. Velocity Global is limited in this area, offering fewer than 15 built-in integrations and no direct API access.

Scalability

Velocity Global

Velocity Global supports scaling across 185 countries and provides key features, such as contractor-to-employee conversions, immigration services, and contractor management.

As your team grows, you can increase headcount and expand usage, but your ability to centralize operations may be limited. The platform has few integrated workforce management features, such as equipment provisioning and performance management, and a limited Contractor of Record offering.

Deel

Deel leverages owned entities and in-house infrastructure in 150+ countries to centralize the management of a growing global team of contractors and full-time employees.

Its wholly-owned model gives it the agility to roll out updates, launch new features, and stay ahead of tech innovations and local compliance changes without delay. This responsiveness is key to supporting businesses as they scale rapidly.

As your needs evolve, you can easily add employee capacity and activate new features to match your growth.

For startups beginning their global hiring journey, Deel provides critical features such as Contractor of Record services, visa sponsorship and immigration support, and equipment provisioning through Deel IT.

As the business grows, you can make contractor-to-employee conversions and manage employees’ performance and career development through Deel Engage.

Your enterprise can use Deel’s white label services to give talent a native experience, including onboarding portals and dashboards that carry your organization’s branding.

Through its white glove services, Deel lets you work closely with the support team to configure custom workflows, integrations, and platform settings that align with your internal processes.

Summary:

Deel is the more scalable platform. It’s equipped to support growing businesses of all sizes. With a broad feature set, your organization can manage diverse workforce types, customize the platform as your needs evolve, and maintain full control over global workforce operations from a single system.

Velocity Global has fewer built-in workforce management tools, making it harder to scale your workforce without relying on third-party HR solutions.

See more: How to Scale a Startup Business in the US with Deel

Review ratings from review sites:

Velocity Global:

• Trustpilot: 3.2/5
• G2: 4.6/5

Deel:

• Trustpilot: 4.8/5
• G2: 4.8/5

Bottom-line

While both Deel and Velocity Global offer strong EOR services, Deel stands out for its advanced automation, user-friendly platform, and global scalability. With its full range of hiring, payroll, and compliance services, exceptional customer support, and deep integration capabilities, Deel is the superior choice for organizations looking to scale globally with minimal hassle.

Velocity Global relies more on manual processes and third-party partners, which limits flexibility and speed. For companies seeking a more self-service, tech-driven solution with extensive global coverage, Deel is the clear winner.

Hire, pay, and manage a global workforce with Deel

Trusted by 20,000 organizations and named the best EOR by G2, Deel empowers SMBs and enterprises to scale effortlessly by simplifying every step of global workforce management.

With Deel’s all-in-one global people platform, you stay fully compliant, deliver a consistent employee experience worldwide, reduce administrative burden, and control costs—without juggling multiple vendors.

Curious to see how it all works together? Book a 30-minute demo.