Employ
RecruitGlobal Expansion (GX) In-Depth Review
Global Expansion Review Summary
Score 8 out of 10
Currency
100+
Monthly fees
Not publicly discosed
Payment options
SWIFT/ACH
Global Expansion is a subsidiary of Equus Software and primarily serves startups and SMBs, offering global HR support through PEO and EOR services. Headquartered in Denver, it helps businesses with limited HR resources quickly and affordably hire and manage international teams by functioning as an outsourced HR department.
Global Expansion Company Overview
Founded in 1999, Global Expansion (also known as GX) is relatively well-established in the HR services field. This company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of cloud-based mobility software solutions provider Equus Software with offices in the US, Portugal, England, and the Philippines. Global Expansion shares these locations and is also headquartered in Denver, Colorado. This company’s goal is to help simplify HR tasks for its clients and to enable them to hire workers around the globe quickly and cost-effectively.
While this company is open to clients of all types, it’s primarily aimed at startups and small and medium businesses (SMBs). It’s specifically designed to support businesses that have small HR departments with limited resources or even no HR staff at all. The services it provides include outsourcing the management of whole teams distributed across the globe so that it essentially works as an HR team replacement.
Global Expansion provides several services to help clients hire and manage their teams around the world. It works as both a PEO (Professional Employment Organization) and an EOR (Employer of Record) service to meet its clients’. Its prices are not available in its online materials, but we’ve managed to uncover clear pricing elsewhere. In this review, we’ll also look into the services this provider offers and the platform it uses to deliver them so you can decide if this is the best choice of a partner for your organization.
Global Expansion Key Features
1. Global Expansion Employer of Record
Global Expansion stands out for its extensive EOR (Employer of Record) capabilities, enabling clients to hire employees worldwide—even in countries where they lack an established presence. With an impressive reach of 214 countries and territories, Global Expansion manages local employment compliance, employee onboarding, and payroll, making it a robust partner for international hiring.
Worldwide Hiring Capacity: Offers EOR services in 214 countries and territories—significantly broader than many competitors—ensuring comprehensive global coverage for clients.
Local Compliance: Through a network of subsidiaries and partners, Global Expansion serves as the legal employer, signing contracts directly with employees to guarantee compliance with local tax and labor laws.
Speedy Onboarding: Utilizes a fast, automated self-onboarding system, allowing new hires to upload documents directly, which can reduce onboarding times from days or weeks to just hours.
Integrated Time and Attendance Tracking: Employees log into the platform’s portal to record time, attendance, and PTO; this data syncs with payroll, allowing seamless salary, tax, and benefit deductions.
Payroll in Local Currencies: Ensures employees receive their wages in their local currencies, with all records accessible to both clients and employees for transparency.
Pricing: Services are priced at a flat $850 per employee per month, with optional add-ons for benefits management like pension plans and comprehensive medical and life insurance for an additional $59 per employee monthly.
2. Global Expansion PEO
In addition to its EOR services, Global Expansion offers PEO (Professional Employment Organization) services, which support clients that already have established entities in various countries. Through this service, Global Expansion acts as a co-employer, handling the HR and compliance tasks that come with managing an international workforce, making it a valuable partner for businesses seeking streamlined global HR operations.
Co-Employer Model: Unlike EOR, where Global Expansion directly employs workers, the PEO model involves clients employing staff directly while Global Expansion manages HR on their behalf.
Comprehensive HR Support: Provides a full range of HR functions, including onboarding, payroll management, benefits administration, and offboarding—covering all administrative needs for international employees.
Local Compliance Expertise: With local specialists in each country, Global Expansion ensures employees are classified accurately, work conditions meet local standards, and wages and benefits comply with local labor laws.
Regulatory Reporting: Handles essential reporting to agencies, such as social security and tax administrations, to maintain regulatory compliance and alleviate administrative burdens for clients.
Outsourced Global HR Solution: Acts as a virtual HR team, offering robust support that helps client organizations efficiently manage staff across multiple countries.
3. Global Expansion Contractor Management
Not every international hiring situation involves full-time employees. Often, independent contractors can be used to complete one-off tasks or supplementary work that’s needed over the long term but not on a full-time basis. Contractors have fewer legal protections than employees as they manage their own hours and means of work, so there’s less to manage on their behalf.
Global Expansion charges contractor management services starting at $39/month per contractor. These services include automatic generation and signing of contracts and storing documentation and invoices on the provider’s platform. Global Expansion lets clients hire contractors in 214 countries and territories around the world and can pay them in any of over 140 currencies, depending on their preferences.
4. Global Expansion Recruitment
There aren’t many EOR service providers on the market that also provide recruitment services. Global Expansion is one provider that offers direct recruiting through its network of international partners.
This recruitment is part of its tailored HR services packages and as such, doesn’t have pricing available. Instead, clients will need to contact the provider and meet to discuss their hiring needs. Global Expansion will then search its talent pools and create public job advertisements, if necessary, to find the talent that its clients require. Once workers are vetted and suitable candidates are found, Global Expansion’s recruiters will put them forward to the client.
If approved, it will arrange interviews so the client can select the people they need. From there, the provider will help with hiring under an EOR or PEO model, depending on whether or not the client owns an entity where the employee lives.
5. Global Expansion Payroll
Global Expansion’s standalone payroll service is an ideal solution for businesses that handle hiring and employee management internally but need reliable, compliant payroll processing across multiple countries. This service leverages Global Expansion’s expertise in international payroll to simplify and centralize payroll tasks, reducing the compliance risks and administrative load for clients.
Flexible Payroll Solution: Available as part of EOR/PEO packages or independently for clients who only need payroll support, offering adaptable services to meet varied business needs.
Automated Time and Attendance Tracking: Employees log hours directly in the platform, where Global Expansion’s system handles calculations for gross salary, tax withholdings, and benefit deductions.
Localized Compliance Expertise: In each country, local experts ensure payroll remains compliant with changing tax and employment laws, reducing the risk of penalties for clients.
Streamlined Approval and Payment Process: Payroll calculations are shared with clients for approval before processing, with employees paid in local currencies and tax and social security contributions remitted accurately.
Ideal for SMBs and Startups: This service supports smaller teams lacking dedicated HR resources or international compliance experience, providing a compliant, efficient way to manage global payroll.
6. Global Expansion HR Services
Global Expansion takes a comprehensive approach to HR management, setting itself apart from many competitors by offering tailored service packages.
Unlike platforms that provide HR management tools for companies to use independently, Global Expansion delivers end-to-end HR solutions, ensuring organizations have full support with every aspect of managing their workforce.
Their services are flexible and can be customized based on the specific needs of each company, offering both scalability and efficiency.
- Comprehensive HR service packages tailored to each client’s needs, covering everything from recruitment and onboarding to offboarding.
- Global payroll management, including all necessary tax filings and compliance services, with the assistance of international partners.
- Expert support for employee benefits, paid time off (PTO), and other essential HR functions to keep your global team running smoothly.
- Global immigration services, including visa assistance and consular support, to help your employees navigate the complexities of working across borders.
- Customizable solutions based on the number of employees and specific requirements, allowing clients to select only the services they need while ensuring cost-efficiency.
7. Global Expansion Platform
Centralized HR Management: GX1 combines all core HR functions—payroll, time and attendance, PTO tracking, and benefits management—within a single platform, reducing the need for multiple tools.
User-Friendly Interface with Support: While there’s a slight learning curve, GX1 is generally user-friendly and includes 24/7 live chat with Global Expansion staff for real-time support.
Integration with Popular Software: Pre-built integrations with tools like BambooHR, ADP, and Workday enable clients to sync GX1 data with other software, though the selection is smaller than what some competitors offer.
Enhanced Security Measures: GX1 uses secure cloud backup, SAML 2.0 single sign-on, and two-factor authentication, though it currently lacks industry-standard certifications such as ISO 27001 or SOC2 for added assurance.
Ideal for SMBs: GX1’s design aligns well with smaller businesses, providing essential HR functions in a single platform while ensuring data accessibility and security.
7. Global Expansion Resources
Most EOR providers offer resources and tools for their clients and even website visitors to use for free. Global Expansion does the same in an effort to increase the value of its services and attract new clients.
It offers a blog with in-depth articles on HR and international hiring, and its “CountryPedia” gives in-depth guides to hiring and compliance in the 214 countries and territories where it works.
Finally, it has a salary calculator that covers wages, additional benefits, payroll taxes, and total costs. This tool can help companies accurately determine how much it will cost to hire employees in over 140 different countries worldwide.
Global Expansion Pricing
| Plan | Price per employee/contractor per month |
|---|---|
| Global Expansion EOR | Not publicly disclosed, but G2 reviews indicate that prices start at $850 per full-time employee per month |
| Global Expansion EOR Add-ons | By customized quote. |
| Global Expansion Contractor Management | According to G2 reviews, starting at $39 per contractor per month |
| Global Expansion GX1 | Free |
Global Expansion Reviews
The average scores (as of the time of writing) were:
- Global Expansion G2 = 4.9/5 (100 reviews)
- Global Expansion Trustpilot = 3.9/5 (23 reviews)
- Global Expansion Glassdoor = 4.9/5 (38 reviews)
Global Expansion Pros and Cons
- Pros
Global PEO services
A lot of EOR providers don’t offer PEO services but Global Squirrels does in several countries. This allows it to manage payroll, benefits, and HR administration for companies that own entities in multiple countries.
Recruitment
Few EORs provide recruitment services, but Global Expansion does as a part of its outsourced HR service packages. It can look into its talent pools to find suitable employees for its clients quickly.
Complete global coverage
While other EORs can hire in 150-180 countries, Global Expansion pushes that number to 214 countries and territories for employee and contractor hiring.
- Cons
No fees posted online
While we’ve managed to uncover many of Global Expansion’s fees and starting prices, these are not clearly posted on its website. This can make it difficult to compare this provider with competitors.
High prices
While its fees aren’t publicly posted, we’ve found that the EOR service price is $850/employee per month. This is at the very high end of the price range for this industry and can represent a serious investment for SMBs.
Limited integrations
While the GX1 platform features a dozen useful integrations with popular apps, this is far less than the hundreds some competitors offer.
No mobile app
Global Expansion has no app for iOS and Android devices to allow employees and admins to access the platform while on the go.
Global Expansion Unique Selling Point
Global Expansion’s unique selling point is its customizable service packages. While its EOR and PEO packages are standardized, clients can also pick and choose the individual HR services they need to manage their global teams with just the right amount of help.
RemotePeople Score for Global Expansion
8.0/10
Our expert score for Global Expansion
Our team came to this score by considering the following components in the following weightings:
Employer of Record features
25%
Payroll features
10%
HR features
10%
Compliance features
10%
Platform features
10%
Pricing
20%
User reviews
15%
For each component, Global Expansion received the following score:
Employer of Record features
20/25
Payroll features
8/10
HR features
8/10
Compliance features
10/10
Platform features
9/10
Pricing
12/20
User reviews
14/15
Global Expansion — Our Take
Global Expansion is an established company that has decades of experience supporting international hiring. With bespoke services and high prices, this provider can be a good choice for well-funded startups, mid-sized businesses, and organizations that own entities around the world.
Global Expansion Alternatives
Horizons
Horizons is rated as the best global EOR in 2024, standing apart through genuine local expertise and customized solutions. Their pricing model is based on a per employee fee, which varies depending on the country and specific services required. Horizons EOR pricing starts from $299 per employee per month.
💡 Read our in-depth review: Horizons Review
Deel
Deel is recognized as one of the leading provider for managing global hiring, payroll taxes, and compliance risks. Deel’s pricing is also based on a per employee model, with fees starting at around $599 per employee per month. Additional services, such as benefits administration and visa support, may incur extra costs.
💡 Read our in-depth review: Deel Review
Velocity Global
Velocity Global is a leading provider of global workforce solutions that specializes in helping companies expand internationally without the need to set up legal entities in foreign markets. Their comprehensive services include Employer of Record (EOR), payroll management, compliance, and immigration support, enabling businesses to onboard and manage employees in over 185 countries.
💡 Read our in-depth review: Velocity Global Review
Remote
Remote is a modern, technology-driven provider of Employer of Record (EOR) and global workforce management solutions. The company enables businesses to hire, manage, and pay employees or contractors across 170+ countries without the need to establish legal entities in those regions. It’s an ideal solution for startups, small businesses, and enterprises aiming to scale their international workforce seamlessly and cost-effectively.
💡 Read our in-depth review: Remote Review
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