- OfficePortal Standard is free for the first 5 users, then ₹60 per user per month (about $0.62), with Indian statutory payroll included.
- Deel HR (basic HRIS) is free for up to 200 employees, but has no Indian statutory payroll of its own.
- Deel's main product, Employer of Record, costs $599 per employee per month (about ₹57,815), with India-specific surcharges reported to push the effective rate to $649–$749 per employee per month.
- Deel Global Payroll, a separate product for companies with their own entities, is $29 per employee per month (about ₹2,799), but is not confirmed to include full Indian statutory compliance.
Why teams compare OfficePortal and Deel
Deel is one of the best-known names in global hiring, so it appears in HR software research even though its core product, Employer of Record, solves a different problem from running payroll for a company you already own in India. The comparison usually comes down to one question: do you have an Indian entity, or are you trying to hire someone in India without one?
If you have an entity, you need payroll and compliance software, which is what OfficePortal is. If you don't, you need an employment intermediary, which is what Deel's EOR product is. The two aren't close substitutes, even though both show up under "HR software" searches.
Pricing compared
A note on Deel's pricing: Deel publishes its headline rates clearly, but several independent sources report India-specific surcharges on its EOR service that push the effective per-employee cost higher than the advertised $599. Confirm your exact rate directly with Deel's sales team for India specifically.
With that caveat, OfficePortal Standard costs ₹300 a month for a ten-person team, since the first five users are free, and that includes full statutory payroll. Deel's free HR tier would cost nothing for the same ten people, but it does not run Indian statutory payroll. If those ten people need to be employed in India without your own entity, Deel's EOR would cost roughly $5,990 a month (10 × $599) before any reported India surcharge, which independent sources suggest could push the effective rate to $6,490 to $7,490 a month for the same ten people.
Payroll and statutory compliance
OfficePortal's payroll software calculates PF, ESI, Professional Tax, Labour Welfare Fund and TDS, generates Form 16, and reads directly from attendance and leave, included in every plan.
Deel's free HR module does not include payroll. Its separate Global Payroll product, at $29 per employee per month, is designed for running payroll where a company already has an entity, but public sources don't confirm it produces the specific Indian statutory outputs (PF, ESI, PT, TDS, Form 16) the way a dedicated Indian payroll platform does; confirm this directly with Deel if you're considering it for an Indian entity. Deel's EOR product does handle local compliance, but as the employer of record itself, not as software for your own company's payroll.
Where Deel may suit you better
- You want to hire one or a few people in India, or any other country, without setting up a local entity there.
- You are comfortable paying a premium (reported $599 and up per employee per month) for the convenience and legal cover of an employment intermediary.
- You already have a free Deel HR account for a global team and want everything under one platform.
- You need to manage international contractors alongside EOR employees from a single dashboard.
Where OfficePortal fits better
- You have, or are setting up, your own Indian entity and want to run payroll and compliance directly. This particularly suits startups and IT companies hiring their own staff in India.
- You want to avoid paying hundreds of dollars per employee per month for employment intermediation you don't need.
- You want attendance with GPS and biometric check-in built in, through attendance tracking, feeding directly into Indian payroll.
- You want one predictable, published price rather than a premium per-employee EOR fee plus reported country surcharges.
How to choose
- Decide first whether you have an Indian entity. This single fact determines whether you need payroll software (OfficePortal) or an employment intermediary (Deel EOR).
- If you do have an entity and are only using Deel for its free HR module, check whether it can actually run Indian statutory payroll, or whether you'll need a second product regardless.
- If you are considering Deel's EOR for India, get a written quote, since several sources report a surcharge above the $599 headline rate specifically for India.
- Compare the true annual cost of EOR against the cost of setting up your own entity plus OfficePortal, especially past a handful of employees.
- Run one month of payroll in parallel before you switch any payroll provider.