Methodology

This page sets out how providers are assessed, what earns a tick in the comparison tool, what counts as evidence, and how we are funded. Every review and comparison on this site links here.

Last updated 10 September 20265 min read

Our mission

More than sixty companies will employ someone in South Africa on your behalf. A search returns perhaps eight of them, ordered by marketing budget. Employer of Record SA exists to make the rest visible and comparable: to research every provider we can identify, record what each one actually publishes about employing in South Africa, and let a buyer filter on the three things that matter to them rather than on who ranks first.

We cover one country, and that is the point rather than a limitation. A global comparison has to describe South Africa in a paragraph. We can hold a provider to whether it names the CCMA, the UI-19 form, the COIDA registration window and the medical aid scheme its employees would actually join, and record it when it does not.

We would rather publish a finding a provider dislikes than a recommendation we cannot evidence. Where we do not know something, the site says so.

Who we are, and what we are not

Employer of Record SA is an independent research and comparison service for businesses employing people in South Africa.

Independent means something specific here.

NO PAID PLACEMENT
No provider can pay for a position, a tick, a badge or a mention.
NO PREVIEW
No provider sees an assessment before it is published.
NO ORDERING
Nothing on this site is ordered by what a provider pays us, because nothing on this site is ordered by us at all.

We are not an Employer of Record. We do not employ anyone, we do not run payroll, we hold no employment contracts, and we do not act as a recruitment agency.

How we are funded

The site is free to use and carries no advertising. Some providers pay us a referral fee when a reader requests a quote or a call through this site. Most do not, and several of the providers that appear most often in results pay us nothing.

A referral fee buys nothing else. It does not affect a provider’s scores, whether it receives a tick, where it appears in your results, whether it is listed at all, or what a review says about it. Scores are set from published evidence before any commercial conversation ever happens.

We do not sell placements, sponsored listings or featured positions, and no provider can pay to be left out of the comparison either.

What we assess

Every provider is assessed against the same ten needs, and those ten are the columns in the comparison tool. They replaced an earlier set of superlative labels, because a criterion like “most flexible” turned out to be true of almost every provider and therefore told a reader nothing.

  1. Low costA fee of around $300 per employee per month or less, or up to 10% of salary, published so you can budget against it.
  2. 48-hour onboardingStates it can onboard an employee you have already chosen within 48 hours. Three to five days is recorded and does not earn the tick.
  3. RecruitmentFinds and screens South African candidates as part of the service, rather than referring you to an agency.
  4. Local HRAn office and HR staff in South Africa, not a country page.
  5. ComplianceEmploys through its own South African entity and handles CCMA and disciplinary matters.
  6. Account managerA named contact you can phone or message.
  7. Benefits managementSets up and administers South African benefits such as medical aid and a provident fund, named rather than described in the abstract.
  8. Office and equipmentWorkspace and IT equipment for your hires in South Africa.
  9. PlatformA self-service employer platform with an employee app.
  10. Global coverageCan also employ for you in 50 or more other countries.

The ten describe things a buyer has to solve, not features a provider wants to sell.

How a provider earns a tick

Each provider is scored from zero to three on each need, with the reasoning and a source recorded for every score.

The distinction that matters most is between two and three.

A SCORE OF TWO
The service exists and is described globally. No tick.
A SCORE OF THREE
It is evidenced for South Africa specifically: a rate that applies here, a registration number you can check, a named medical aid scheme, a stated position on the CCMA, an office address in the country.

That distinction exists because most global platforms describe capable services in general terms and publish almost nothing about South Africa. Treating those two things the same would make the comparison useless. A score of three earns a tick.

What counts as evidence

WE USE

  • The provider’s own published material: its site, its South Africa pages, its pricing pages, its terms and its help documentation. This is the basis of almost every score on the site.
  • Registration numbers, office addresses and telephone numbers as the provider publishes them, recorded so you can check them yourself.

WE DO NOT TREAT AS EVIDENCE

  • Marketing language and self-awarded badges.
  • Claims that appear in a third-party listing but nowhere in the provider’s own material.

A provider stating that it is compliant, expert or trusted is not evidence of anything. A provider naming the UI-19 form, the COIDA registration window or a Discovery plan tier is.

Where the record is silent

We record silence. We do not assume a service is missing because it is not described, and we say so on the page rather than filling the gap with an inference. Several providers almost certainly do things they have never written down.

That is why our reviews carry so many instances of the phrase “not published”. It is a finding about the available evidence, not a judgement about the provider.

Every review and comparison page carries the date it was checked. Provider websites change frequently, and some of the findings on this site concern pages that may since have been amended.

How the comparison tool works

You tell us where you are in your hiring, choose the three things that matter most, and see the providers that meet them side by side. All ten needs are shown in the results, so you can see what a provider does beyond the three you picked.

There is no ranking. No positions, no match percentages, no best-match label, and no way for a provider to buy a place in your results. Where several providers meet the same three needs, that is the finding rather than a problem to be solved with an ordering: the choice between them turns on detail the tool cannot hold, which is what the review pages are for.

See every provider that can employ in South Africa, matched against the three priorities you choose.

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Corrections and right of reply

If something on this site is wrong, tell us, and we will fix it.

How to raise a correction
Email [email protected] with the specific claim, the page it appears on, and a source we can check it against. Factual errors are corrected quickly and without argument.
What we will change
Anything inaccurate, anything out of date, and anything where you can show us evidence we missed, including services you offer but had not published at the time we checked.
What we will not change
An accurate assessment because a provider dislikes it. A tick will not be added to a criterion on the strength of a sales claim without documentation.
Right of reply
Where a review contains a finding a provider disputes, we will publish a short response alongside it on request.

Not advice

Everything on this site is general information. It is not legal, tax or financial advice, and it does not account for your circumstances. South African employment, tax and exchange control rules change, and thresholds are revised annually.

Take advice from qualified South African professionals before you commit to an employment structure, and check statutory figures against the Department of Employment and Labour and SARS rather than any vendor page, including ours.

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General information, not legal, tax or financial advice.

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