The 8 Best Remote People (formerly Horizons) Alternatives for Global Payroll & EOR (2026)

Summary:

• Remote People is the rebranded Horizons, and both names still turn up on contracts, invoices and review sites — so the first job is confirming which company you are evaluating. It is not Remote.com.
• Their core product is EOR headcount at a published $199 per employee per month, with no minimum headcount and no lock-in on the entry tier. For 5 to 30 scattered hires and no entities, that is a strong, cheap offer.
• Companies look elsewhere once they have entities: their own pages promise finance ‘Excel-ready reports’, with no published GL journal output and no route to keeping your existing local payroll providers.
• The strongest Remote People alternatives in 2026: TopSource Worldwide, Deel, Remote, Multiplier, Oyster, Globalization Partners, Papaya Global and Safeguard Global.

Quick answer: Remote People (formerly Horizons) is a low-cost, price-transparent EOR: $199 per employee per month, 150+ countries claimed, no minimum headcount on the entry tier. If your problem is employing 5 to 30 people where you have no entity, it is a strong answer. Companies look elsewhere when the problem is the opposite one: operating multi-country payroll on entities they already own, with journals posted into the ledger and existing local providers kept in place. The best alternatives are TopSource Worldwide for payroll on your own entities, Deel for platform depth, Remote for owned entities, Multiplier for a like-for-like switch, Oyster for SMB experience, G-P for procurement, Papaya Global for finance reporting and Safeguard Global for reach.

You are here for one of two reasons. Either you are pricing an EOR to employ a few people where you have no entity, and Remote People (formerly Horizons) came in cheapest. Or you already have entities, and you are asking whether the provider everyone recommends for hiring is also right for running payroll.

Housekeeping first, because the search results are a mess. Remote People is not Remote.com. Two separate companies, confusingly similar names. Remote People, at remotepeople.com, is the rebranded Horizons. If Remote.com is the one you are comparing, read our best Remote.com alternatives guide instead.

Disclosure: we are a competing global payroll and EOR provider (TopSource Worldwide), so read our claims about ourselves sceptically. We will be straight about the one thing Remote People does that we do not, which is publish their pricing in full.

If you searched for Horizons alternatives, you are in the right place. Horizons rebranded to Remote People, announced by press release in February 2026, and joinhorizons.com now points at remotepeople.com. Their own about page dates the change to 2024, contradicting the press release, so ask directly if the timing matters for a contract.

The company was founded in November 2018 and has been a pure-play EOR ever since, led by co-founder and CEO Antoine Boquen. It claims 250+ professionals across 30 countries, 3,000+ customers and 97% annual retention, and it is bootstrapped, has never raised outside capital and says it has been profitable since 2020. Recruitment, US PEO, incorporation and mobility were added at the rebrand: EOR is the origin, not the bolt-on.

Two things follow for a buyer. The published country claim moved down, from 180+ as Horizons to 150+ today. And years of reviews, references and contracts now sit under a name that no longer exists, with both names reported on contracts and portals during the transition.

Give them their due first, because it is real: Remote People publishes a full price list in a category that mostly hides it, the entry EOR is genuinely cheap at $199 per employee per month, recruitment and EOR can sit on one contract, and the company has been profitable since 2020 with no investor clock forcing a pricing reset. None of that is in dispute.

The pattern behind switching is about the shape of the product, not its quality. Remote People is built to employ people for you. It is not built to run payroll for you across entities you already own. The low headline price reflects that: it buys EOR headcount, not multi-country payroll operations.

• No published GL journal output. Their own finance deliverable is “Excel-ready reports”. Fine for a 12-person EOR population; for a finance team closing books in 14 countries it is a re-keying job every month.
• Consolidate onto us, not work with what you have. Their global payroll page says: “With Global Payroll, you have your own entities in each country—we simply process payroll for your employees.” So they will run payroll on your entities, which many EOR-first providers will not. What is nowhere published is a route to keeping the local providers you already use.
• Global Payroll is the newer, narrower product — 150+ countries for EOR against 100+ for payroll. The centre of gravity is EOR headcount.
• The owned-entity question is unanswered in public. Their EOR page says employment runs through “our owned local entity in each country”; their comparison page hedges to “owns local legal entities across its core footprint”. No country register is published. That is the question to ask any provider, us included.
• Reported gaps. The most repeated complaint is no mobile app, then basic reporting, cumbersome time tracking and fees on some payment methods. Their promise is a dedicated account manager and “no support tickets, no chatbots”, but several reviewers report replies taking one to two weeks after go-live.

Ratings are hard to read either way: the review base is split across “Horizons”, “Remote People” and “RemotePeople” listings, including duplicate G2 profiles, so figures range from roughly 4.7 on G2 to about 4 out of 5 on Trustpilot, and their own site headlines a figure no public platform shows. None of this makes them a bad provider. It makes them one optimised for a specific buyer: scattered headcount, no entities, price-sensitive. Figures reflect public information in July 2026.

1. Coverage and entity model — countries, and how many are owned entities.
2. Delivery model — own network, or an overlay that keeps your existing providers.
3. Pricing transparency — published or quote-only, and the all-in invoice.
4. Finance integration — GL-ready journals and ERP sync, or a spreadsheet.
5. Support model — a named team and a phone line, or tickets and chat.
6. Compliance depth — who carries the employment liability, and how it is evidenced.

Best for: finance-led teams that already have entities and local providers, and need multi-country payroll operated and reported across all of them.

Remote People takes employment off your hands: hand over the people, they become the legal employer, everything lands on their platform. We are built for the company that already has the entities and the providers.

• Keep the local payroll providers you already trust. We sit over your existing in-country providers as an overlay, instead of replacing them with our own network.
• Payroll journals posted straight into your GL, mapped to your chart of accounts, with sync to Workday, Oracle and NetSuite.
• A dedicated, named team and a real phone line, not a portal as the first line of support.
• 150+ countries through the Portico platform, 5/5 on Gartner Peer Insights, with EOR alongside global payroll — and we tell you when a country no longer needs EOR.

Payroll that closes the loop with finance, not just pays people.

Real support when you need it. No hidden fine print. No surprise renewal.

Pick TopSource over Remote People if you already have entities, have local providers worth keeping, or finance needs journals in the ledger rather than a spreadsheet. Remote People still wins if you have no entities, want the lowest published price on the market and want to sign this week.

Best for: teams that want the broadest self-serve platform and serious contractor tooling.

Deel covers 150+ countries with the category’s largest contractor product, a deep integration library and 40,000+ companies on the platform (G2 4.8). Strengths: platform maturity, integrations, a mobile app. Watch-outs: FX margins and add-ons push costs past the headline fee; chat and ticket support; EOR pricing starts well above $199. Pick Deel over Remote People if tooling decides it; Remote People still wins on price. See our TopSource vs Deel comparison and best Deel alternatives.

Best for: teams that want the employment liability inside entities the provider demonstrably owns.

This is the company people confuse with Remote People, so it belongs here twice over. Remote.com owns entities in 100+ countries and runs payroll in-house rather than through third parties, with published per-employee pricing. Strengths: owned entities, published pricing, strong IP and equity handling. Watch-outs: fewer countries, EOR-led rather than a payroll aggregator, more expensive per head. Pick Remote over Remote People when owned-entity compliance decides it; Remote People still wins on price. Our best Remote.com alternatives guide covers that side in detail.

Best for: buyers who like the Remote People proposition but want a better platform at a similar price.

Multiplier is the most likely real-world switch: similar price band, 150+ countries, a headline 99.95% accuracy claim, 24/7 support and real depth in APAC and emerging markets — the regions Horizons built its reputation in. Strengths: coverage, APAC depth, better software than the price band suggests. Watch-outs: less finance and GL depth, and like Remote People it is a consolidate-onto-us model. Pick Multiplier over Remote People for a stronger platform at a comparable price; Remote People still wins if you want recruitment and EOR on one contract.

Best for: small teams where the hiring experience and benefits matter as much as compliance.

Oyster keeps cross-border hiring simple, with EOR, contractor management and global payroll on a well-designed platform. Strengths: clean UX, published pricing, benefits depth. Watch-outs: thinner enterprise payroll and finance-integration depth; leans on partners more than owned entities. Pick Oyster over Remote People when employee experience is the priority; Remote People still wins on price and the recruitment bundle.

Best for: enterprises whose legal and procurement teams need a mature, owned-entity EOR.

G-P is one of the original global EOR players, covering 180+ countries with owned entities, 50+ currencies and an AI compliance assistant (Gia). Strengths: broad owned-entity footprint, mature legal muscle, procurement-friendly. Watch-outs: premium pricing, fully demo-gated, EOR-first rather than a payroll aggregator. Pick G-P over Remote People when scale and compliance evidence outweigh cost; Remote People still wins on price and on published costs.

Best for: finance teams that want payroll orchestration, embedded payments and analytics together.

Papaya covers 160+ countries with an AI validation engine that checks totals before money moves, automatic journal entries, embedded payment rails and drill-down analytics — precisely the reporting layer Remote People does not publish. Strengths: automatic journals, payment rails, real analytics. Watch-outs: enterprise pricing, implementation weight, and payroll funds moving through its rails, which is a treasury decision. Pick Papaya over Remote People when finance reporting is the buying criterion; Remote People still wins below Papaya’s price floor. See the best Papaya Global alternatives guide.

Best for: companies paying people across a very long country list who want it fully managed.

Safeguard runs managed payroll across 187 countries with consolidated reporting and pre-configured country templates. One piece of context: it sold its enterprise payroll division to Deel in March 2025, per its own newsroom, so its payroll now runs through an agreement with Deel. Strengths: widest coverage, fully managed, long payroll heritage. Watch-outs: delivery runs through their network, so it cannot sit over the providers you already have. Pick Safeguard over Remote People for reach; Remote People still wins on price and speed.

Honourable mention: Remofirst — the only provider we found matching Remote People’s $199 per employee per month price point. If the published number is the whole decision, shortlist both.

• No entities, 5 to 30 scattered hires. Remote People is hard to beat on price. Compare against Multiplier and Remofirst, and make all three show you the entity register for your countries.
• Entities already in place. TopSource, Papaya Global or Safeguard Global — this is the case Remote People’s global payroll product is newest at.
• Local providers you do not want to lose. An overlay is the only model that keeps them.
• Finance is the blocker. Make GL-ready journals a hard requirement in the RFP.
• You need to hire as well as employ. Remote People’s “Recruit + EOR” structure is unique in this list.

These apply to Remote People, to us, and to everyone else here.

• Which of my target countries are your own entities, and which are partner-served? Country by country, in writing, in the contract.
• What does finance receive each month? A GL-ready journal mapped to our chart of accounts, or a spreadsheet? If it is Excel, cost the re-keying before comparing per-employee prices.
• Can I keep my existing in-country providers? If not, you are budgeting for a migration, not a subscription.
• What is the deposit policy? Their published material is inconsistent across sources, so get the amount, trigger and release terms in writing.
• Minimum term, notice period and renewal uplift? And what does the $399 tier include that the $199 tier does not?
• What is the FX margin, what does offboarding cost, and who is my named contact after onboarding?

Moving EOR employees is harder than moving payroll, because the legal employer changes and the employee has to agree. In this order:

1. Check which term you are on. Flex is monthly with no lock-in; Plus is an annual commitment.
2. Decide whether you are switching providers or leaving EOR. If headcount now justifies your own entity, incorporating and moving to a payroll provider is often cheaper than another EOR.
3. Export everything while you still have access — employee records, contracts, year-to-date figures, filings, benefits and GL mappings.
4. Confirm the new provider’s entity position country by country before you give notice, so you are not mid-transfer when a country turns out to be partner-served.
5. Plan the employee transfer. New contracts, continuity of service, accrued leave and benefits need handling per country. Their pay date should not move.
6. Run one parallel cycle, reconcile gross-to-net, GL postings and filings country by country, then agree who files what at year-end.

For the wider landscape see our best employer of record providers and best global payroll providers comparisons, plus the multi-country payroll implementation guide. If you have entities and local providers and just want payroll consolidated with journals into your GL, that is what our global payroll service does.