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EOR platforms or Linkers

They employ the person. You still have to find them.

An employer of record is a licensed company in your team member’s country that becomes their legal employer, so you do not need your own company there. The large providers do that part well, and so do our partners. Here is the half the big platforms leave on your desk.

Short answer
You already found the personA platform may be enough
You employ 20+ people abroadA platform may be cheaper
You need the whole arrangement set up, not only the employmentYou need a partner
This is your first remote hireYou need a partner
You want one human to callYou need a partner

Plenty of companies use both: a platform for scale, a partner for the roles they cannot fill themselves.

Side by side

Where the two models divide.

This is not a criticism of the platforms. It is a difference in what you are buying.

What matters
Linkers
An EOR platform
Finding the person
We write the role with you, test for the skills you need, check references, and you meet two or three people with intro videos
Not included: you arrive with someone already chosen
Skills testing and references
Done before anyone reaches you
Yours to do
Employment and payroll
Handled, in all three of our hub countries
Handled, in a long list of countries
Country coverage
Three countries we know properly, and visit
A hundred or more, covered broadly rather than deeply
Who you talk to
One named account manager who knows your business
A support portal, with humans behind it
Check-ins with your team member
Regular, by us, which is why people stay
Not part of the service
If the person is not right
One free replacement in the first three months
Offboard them and start your own search again
Cost at one or two people
A single monthly fee per person, all in
Platform fee per person, plus your own time finding them
Cost at fifty people
We are not built for that and will say so
Likely cheaper per head at scale
Self-service dashboard
Yes, a client portal for your team, time off and requests
Yes, usually more features than you need

The honest summary: a platform is infrastructure, we are a service. If the hard part of your problem is finding and keeping the right person, infrastructure will not solve it. Accurate as of October 2026, and based on each company's publicly described service. These companies change what they offer, so check their current terms before you decide.

The gap

What the large providers leave on your desk.

The search

Writing the role, finding the right people in a country you do not know, working out whether their English and their experience are what they say. This is most of the work and all of the risk.

The judgement

Knowing that a given salary is generous in Myanmar and thin in Johannesburg, or that a role needs native English rather than fluent. Country knowledge you only get from working there.

The keeping

Nobody on a platform is checking whether your team member is happy, has the right equipment, or is quietly looking elsewhere. We are, every month.

Questions

Questions about the two models.

It is a licensed company in your team member’s country that becomes their legal employer on your behalf. They hold the employment contract, run the payroll, pay the local taxes and carry the local employment-law compliance. You direct the daily work exactly as you would with your own staff. It is how you employ someone in a country where you have no company of your own.
Yes. In the Philippines, South Africa and Myanmar we arrange employer of record cover through licensed local partners, so you do not need a company there. The difference is that we also find and manage the person.
At one or two people, usually yes once you count the time you would spend searching and testing people yourself. At large scale a platform is likely cheaper per head, and we will tell you when you have outgrown us.
Yes, and some clients do: a platform for staff they found themselves, and us for roles they cannot fill or countries they do not know.
Then a platform is the right tool and we will say so. We work in three countries properly rather than fifty superficially.
Yes. Your client portal shows who is on your team, their time off, their monthly pay and lets you request new roles. It is simpler than a platform's, deliberately.
On an employer of record arrangement the legal employer is our licensed partner in their country. Your agreement is with Linkers, we manage the whole relationship, and you direct the daily work exactly as you would with your own staff.

Rather talk it through?

Tell us the role and the hours you need covered. We will come back with a straight answer, usually the same working day.

Book a call
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