Project-based work, under 6 months
A specialized contractor for a clearly-scoped deliverable. PoC, design sprint, security audit, content marketing engagement. Real contractor relationship.
Hire, onboard, and pay India talent with one trusted EOR partner. Reply within 24 hrs (business hours · IST).
Engage Indian contractors compliantly without Employer of Record overhead.
$19/contractor/month. No misclassification risk.
I read every form personally. You will hear from me on email within 4-6 hours, with a draft offer letter attached.
By submitting, you agree to our privacy & terms. First month is on us. Or email our team directly.
Used by 59+ global companies hiring engineers, designers, and operators in India
Each route speaks your tax authority, your currency, your data regulator, your entity type. Click your flag to see the EOR setup your finance and legal teams will read first.
Not sure which fits? See the full country router.
Used by 59 companies hiring engineers, designers, and operators in India
If your relationship with an Indian engineer looks like full-time employment · fixed hours, your branded laptop, your roadmap · Indian tax authorities can reclassify the engagement retroactively. Contractor of Record (CoR) prevents that by structuring the engagement properly from day one.
A specialized contractor for a clearly-scoped deliverable. PoC, design sprint, security audit, content marketing engagement. Real contractor relationship.
The Indian engineer is running their own consulting practice with multiple clients. They invoice you (and others) on their own terms. Genuine B2B.
Principal-level engineers or domain experts who advise multiple companies. CoR keeps the engagement clean, the IP assignment tight, the payment compliant.
Use CoR for the first 90 days. If the fit is right, convert to EOR. We support the conversion at zero cost · same vendor, same Indian entity.
No PF, no ESIC, no gratuity provisioning. The contractor handles their own tax filings. Simpler engagement, lower per-month cost.
The Code on Wages (2019) and the Industrial Relations Code (2020) tightened the contractor-vs-employee definition. We structure the engagement to comply with the new tests.
Contractor name, role, scope of work, monthly fee in USD, engagement length. We draft a compliant India contractor agreement.
The contract is between Foo Falcon Pvt Ltd and the Indian contractor. IP assigned to your US/UK parent via Versatile.
You wire USD to Versatile. We convert and pay the contractor in INR. Contractor handles their own TDS / Income Tax filings.
If the engagement is going long-term or starting to resemble employment, we convert to EOR in one payroll cycle. Same vendor, zero migration friction.
| Dimension | CoR (Versatile) | EOR (Versatile) | Direct contractor on Deel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Worker status | B2B contractor | Full-time employee | B2B contractor |
| PF / ESIC / Gratuity | Not applicable | All three handled by us | Not applicable |
| Misclassification risk | We absorb it (Versatile is the deemed employer) | Zero · full-time employment is the answer | Sits with you |
| Best engagement length | Under 6 months | Indefinite / 1+ years | Any (but PE risk grows with time) |
| Pricing | $19 / contractor / month | $99-$399 PEPM | $49-$99 / contractor / month + FX |
| India compliance depth | Foo Falcon is the Indian entity | Same | Routed through Deel's local partner |
EOR is the contract layer. The other seven things that make India hiring work are also on our books. One MSA, one invoice, one accountable entity.
Offer letter, PF UAN, ESIC IP all under Foo Falcon's PAN. Your hire is on our books, not a partner's.
Sourcing, screening, interviews. $99/position, $1,199/mo dedicated recruiter, or contingent on placement.
Group health (₹5L floater, family), accident, term life. Day-1 coverage, no waiting period, no separate vendor.
Laptop, monitor, peripherals. Locally procured, delivered before Day 1. Pass-through cost, no markup.
Welcome call, document collection, policy walkthrough, first-paycheck schedule. Five-day SLA. Three-day fastest.
Monthly run, PF + ESIC + PT + TDS, Form 16, gratuity. Eight statutory items on every payslip.
EPFO + ESIC inspections, Section 7A inquiries, audit-ready records. Inspectors come to us, not you.
Notice, F&F, gratuity, asset recovery, experience letter, UAN continuity. Clean exit, every time.
Four operational benchmarks, refreshed monthly. These are not aspirations. They are the floor.
Three engagements that show how this works in practice. Different ICPs, different scales, same EOR mechanics.
How ePublishing switched EOR providers inside one payroll cycle. UAN continuity, gratuity vesting kept intact, engineers never noticed the swap.
Read the full case →How a global tech leader scaled an India design team through Versatile, with compliance handling that held up to internal audit.
Read the full case →How Swiggy consolidated their India design and engineering hiring under one EOR. 33 invoices in 26 months, single consolidated USD invoice.
Read the full case →Foo Falcon Pvt Ltd. Running India payroll since June 2022. Four years on the books. The team behind the numbers below is the same team you email.
Named compliance lead on every account. Email replies in 4-6 hours from the same India payroll specialists who run your filings · not from a tier-one help desk.
Founder & CEO · Bengaluru
Ex-[prior employer]. Director of the entity since incorporation. DIN 09654072. On every client Slack channel.
Compliance Lead · Bengaluru
Named on every client account. Drafts EPFO replies, reviews every payslip, signs the statutory filings. The reason zero notices have landed in 36 months.
Senior Payroll Specialist · Bengaluru
Runs payroll on the first of every month. Forty-seven payslips, zero misses in the last twelve cycles. Owns UAN, ESIC, and gratuity continuity.
Most India EORs do not publish their CIN, their GSTIN, or their ESI code. We do, plus the Udyam registration, the PAN, the TAN, and the actual government-issued certificates as PDFs. Click any of them to verify the entity is real, current, and active on the official Government of India portals.
Most "EORs" pass through to a third-party Indian entity you never see. We are the entity. The CIN, GSTIN, ESI code, and Udyam registration above are all on the contract counterparty of every offer letter we issue.
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India-native EOR. Four years on the books. Foo Falcon Pvt Ltd.
Read → More from Versatile$99-$399 EOR. $19/contractor. $49 payroll. $99-$1,199 recruitment. Same range as India-native peers.
Read → More from VersatileSpecialized recruitment for engineering, design, growth, finance. $99 to $1,199/mo or contingent.
Read → More from VersatileThe definitive 5-step guide. 8 statutory items. 5-day onboarding.
Read → More from VersatileWhen does EOR end and entity begin? Breakeven at 25-30 hires. Cost math included.
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Read →Dear founder,
If you are hiring your first engineer in India, the part nobody warns you about is not the talent. It is the eight statutory filings, the New Labour Code rebase, and the EPFO inspection notice that arrives in month three.
Versatile exists so a US founder can hire in India the way they hire in California. Sign a contract on Monday. Have a payslip on the first. Get a USD invoice that an auditor can read. Our compliance team owns every step.
If that is the kind of partner you want, our team email is on every contract: [email protected]. Write to us before you sign. We reply in 4-6 hours.
CoR fits when the engagement is genuinely B2B contractor work · project-based (under 6 months), multi-client contractors, senior specialists who advise multiple companies, or pre-hire trials before EOR conversion. If the relationship looks like full-time employment (fixed hours, your laptop, your roadmap), use EOR. CoR for the wrong engagement triggers misclassification risk.
Versatile (Foo Falcon Pvt Ltd) is the deemed employer of record from the Indian tax authority's perspective in the CoR structure. The contractor invoices Foo Falcon; Foo Falcon invoices you. If misclassification is challenged, the deemed-employer relationship sits with us.
3-5 business days. We draft the contract, the contractor signs from Foo Falcon, IP assignment + confidentiality + non-solicit clauses included. First payment cycle is the same calendar month if onboarded by the 20th.
Yes. One payroll cycle. We issue a new full-time employment offer letter, back-date the employment start (or forward-date as you prefer), enroll the employee in PF + ESIC, and continue the engagement seamlessly. Most clients use CoR for the first 90 days as a trial, then convert.
Every CoR contract includes IP assignment to your US/UK parent entity, with sub-clauses for confidentiality, trade secret protection, post-termination NDA, return of materials, and a covenant on pre-existing IP. Same IP clause shape as our EOR offer letter.
Tell me about your first hire. I will reply on email inside 4-6 hours, with a draft offer letter attached. Then my support team takes the depth.