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Employer of Record & PEO
Published:
November 25, 2025
Last updated:
November 25, 2025
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AYP Group consistently helps travel and hospitality companies achieve significantly lower total employment costs compared to aggregator-based EOR platforms—especially in environments with high turnover, multiple properties, and complex seasonal workforce needs.
This advantage comes from AYP’s owned-entity model, which removes the added margin layers built into aggregator pricing. AYP also includes essential services—like onboarding, offboarding, amendments, and payroll changes—as part of its standard offering, preventing the continual add-on fees that inflate costs with other providers. In addition, AYP’s highly accurate payroll operations greatly reduce the time finance teams typically spend on error correction and follow-up.
For hospitality companies operating across several APAC markets, AYP’s consolidated approach typically results in meaningfully lower overall employment costs once all direct fees, compliance requirements, administrative workload, and provider performance differences are taken into account.
Most EOR cost comparisons focus narrowly on per-employee-per-month base rates, but this captures only 40% to 55% of actual total cost for travel industry operations. A comprehensive TCE analysis includes seven cost categories, several of which remain hidden until you've operated with a provider for 6 to 12 months:
The advertised PEPM rate or percentage of gross salary. AYP's transparent tiered pricing starts at competitive rates and decreases automatically as headcount grows, with volume discounts kicking in at thresholds relevant to multi-property hospitality groups (typically 30, 60, and 100+ employees). Aggregator platforms often advertise attractive entry rates but maintain static pricing or require annual renegotiation to access volume benefits.
For a 75-person operation, AYP's volume-tiered rate typically falls within the competitive range, sometimes several percent higher than the lowest advertised aggregator rates. However, this base rate comparison proves misleading because of dramatic differences in what's included versus charged separately.
Aggregator platforms typically charge per-employee onboarding fees, adding significant cost with high-turnover hospitality operations. At 65% annual turnover across a 75-person team, you're onboarding approximately 49 employees annually. Per-employee setup charges create substantial unbudgeted costs that don't appear in base PEPM comparisons.
AYP includes onboarding within the base service fee for all standard transitions. New employee setup, documentation processing, compliance review, contract generation, and benefits enrollment all complete within the quoted PEPM with no additional charges. For travel operations replacing 45 to 55 employees annually, this structural difference alone creates savings worth thousands to tens of thousands annually.
The mirror of onboarding costs, often overlooked until you experience your first wave of seasonal terminations. Aggregator platforms frequently charge per-exit processing fees for final pay calculations, statutory exit filings, benefits cancellation, and documentation. When you terminate 20 to 30 seasonal staff simultaneously in March, these charges multiply into significant costs.
AYP includes unlimited offboarding within base pricing. Whether you process 5 terminations annually or 55, the cost remains identical. This unlimited structure directly addresses hospitality business reality where 60% to 80% turnover creates constant exit processing needs.
All EOR providers apply a markup above base insurance premiums to cover the cost of benefits administration. The size of this markup can vary significantly: aggregator platforms often add higher percentage layers due to subcontracted carriers and intermediaries, while direct-entity providers like AYP typically maintain more efficient and predictable markups because they work directly with local insurers.
For mid-sized teams, even small differences in markup practices can result in meaningful annual cost variations once total benefits spend is aggregated. AYP supports informed decision-making by clearly separating the base insurance premium from the administrative markup, giving clients full visibility into how pricing is structured and ensuring that benefits costs remain competitive and verifiable.
When funding payroll across multiple currencies, the FX conversion spread becomes a meaningful cost—yet many finance teams overlook it because it’s often buried inside “market rate” calculations. Aggregator platforms commonly apply broad, undisclosed spreads, which can significantly inflate your effective payroll expense over the course of a year.
AYP takes a different approach. As a direct-entity provider, AYP offers transparent FX practices with openly communicated spreads and clearer visibility into how conversion rates are applied. This transparency helps companies avoid hidden currency-related costs and maintain better control over their cross-market payroll budgeting.
AYP discloses exact exchange rates and spreads (typically 0.3% to 0.6%) for every currency conversion. Finance managers can verify competitive rates by comparing to interbank rates on conversion dates. The transparency enables budget accuracy, and the lower spreads directly reduce costs by thousands to tens of thousands annually depending on payroll volumes.
Hospitality operations experience frequent changes: salary adjustments, role promotions, benefits modifications, headcount additions. Aggregator platforms often charge per-amendment processing fees that accumulate across hundreds of annual transactions in dynamic environments.
AYP includes all standard contract amendments within base pricing. Salary changes, title updates, benefits adjustments, and reporting structure modifications process without additional charges. For travel companies making 8 to 15 changes monthly across their workforce, this eliminates recurring costs while accelerating change implementation.
The hidden cost categories that only become visible through operational experience. Aggregator platforms relying on third-party local partners show higher error rates that create correction cycles consuming finance and HR team time. Each payroll error requires investigation, coordination with the provider, employee communication, and amendment processing, typically consuming 4 to 8 hours per incident.
Additionally, compliance failures from local partner mistakes generate penalties. Late statutory filings, incorrect tax calculations, or misclassified compensation trigger regulatory penalties across APAC markets. While these events appear infrequent (perhaps 1 to 3 annually), their cost impact significantly affects total TCE.
AYP’s strong payroll accuracy and direct compliance oversight significantly reduce the volume of payroll errors compared to aggregator-based EOR platforms. With far fewer issues requiring correction, finance teams spend only a small fraction of the administrative time typically needed when working with providers that rely on third-party partners.
This improvement in accuracy and workflow efficiency allows finance and HR teams to recover substantial monthly hours that would otherwise be spent on error resolution, back-and-forth with local partners, and manual reconciliation. The operational impact is especially meaningful for organizations managing multi-country payroll cycles, where even small inaccuracies can create cascading workload.
Additionally, AYP’s entity-owned model greatly minimizes compliance risk. Because statutory filings, calculations, and regulatory submissions are handled directly by in-house specialists, organizations experience far fewer compliance-driven disruptions—reducing both operational stress and the potential financial impact of penalties or corrective actions.
In combination, these advantages translate into more predictable operations, improved cost efficiency, and significantly reduced administrative burden for teams managing regional payroll at scale.
Aggregator-based EOR platforms layer multiple margins into their pricing: the platform takes a substantial markup, and the local partner adds another on top of it. This means clients effectively pay for two separate profit layers before any operational work is performed.
AYP avoids this entirely. Because AYP operates its own legal entities across the region, pricing reflects a single, transparent operational margin tied directly to service delivery—without intermediary markups.
This structural difference consistently results in a meaningful cost advantage for companies comparing AYP’s model against aggregator-based alternatives, especially as team size or country coverage expands.
Aggregator platforms generate revenue through base fees plus dozens of ancillary charges: onboarding, offboarding, amendments, platform access, premium support tiers, custom reporting. Each seems modest individually but compounds across high-turnover operations with frequent changes. AYP bundles comprehensive services within base pricing, creating predictable costs that improve budget accuracy.
Hospitality compensation structures (tips, service charges, commissions) create error opportunities with generic payroll systems. Each mistake triggers investigation, correction processing, employee communication, and potential compliance exposure. These operational friction costs don't appear on invoices but consume substantial finance team capacity. AYP's hospitality-specific payroll templates with 99.7% accuracy on variable compensation eliminate most of this burden.
Many finance managers don't realize their EOR provider applies 1.5% to 2.5% currency conversion spreads, viewing conversion as zero-cost administrative function. On multi-market operations, this hidden cost reaches thousands to tens of thousands annually. AYP's disclosed 0.3% to 0.6% spreads with transparent rate reporting transforms this from hidden cost to verified competitive pricing.
Traditional EOR pricing assumes 10% to 20% annual turnover. Hospitality's 60% to 80% reality breaks these economic models, triggering per-transaction charges that multiply with volume. AYP designs pricing specifically for high-turnover environments, including unlimited onboarding and offboarding that directly addresses hospitality business patterns.
A 40-person beach resort with 75% annual turnover cycles through 30 employees. Per-transaction onboarding and offboarding fees with aggregators create significant annual costs. AYP's unlimited inclusion eliminates this expense entirely while delivering faster processing that prevents service quality gaps.
Operating 6 small properties across 4 markets with aggregator platforms means coordinating separate local partners, reconciling disparate invoicing, managing fragmented compliance. The administrative burden consumes 25 to 35 finance hours monthly. AYP's unified platform reduces this to 8 to 12 hours monthly, recovering 17 to 23 hours (204 to 276 annually) worth substantial labor value that often exceeds base rate differentials.
Tour operators or seasonal resorts employing 50 year-round staff and 30 additional November through March face 60% headcount swings. Aggregator platforms with minimum commitments charge for phantom headcount during off-season. AYP's flexible terms align costs with actual monthly headcount, improving cash flow and eliminating waste.
Operations where 60% to 80% of staff receive tips, service charges, or commissions face elevated error risk with generic payroll systems. Each mistake costs 5 to 8 hours investigating and correcting. At 3 to 5 errors monthly with aggregators versus 1 error quarterly with AYP, the error correction burden differential reaches 120 to 180 hours annually worth notable labor cost savings.
Revenue optimization through base fees plus extensive ancillary charges. The business model succeeds by maximizing transaction volume and upselling premium tiers. Local partner margin stacking and undisclosed FX spreads create hidden profit centers. This structure works acceptably for low-turnover stable operations but becomes expensive with hospitality's dynamic employment patterns.
Revenue from transparent service fees covering comprehensive included services. Success depends on operational efficiency and client retention rather than transaction multiplication. The owned-entity infrastructure requires higher fixed investment but eliminates margin stacking, creating sustainable cost advantages particularly for high-volume, high-turnover operations common in travel and hospitality.
Understanding provider business models explains pricing structures and helps predict where costs will emerge. Aggregator platforms maximize profit through volume transactions and hidden charges, directly conflicting with high-turnover hospitality operations. AYP's model aligns economically with hospitality reality, creating structural cost advantages that compound as operational complexity increases.
Provide AYP with your current provider's recent invoices, headcount distribution by market, turnover rates, typical seasonal patterns, and variable compensation structures. Within one week, you'll receive comprehensive TCE analysis showing line-by-line cost differences, quantified savings across all categories, and scenario modeling for your projected growth and seasonal fluctuations. The comparison reveals where costs hide with aggregator platforms and demonstrates how AYP's owned-entity model delivers hefty cost reductions while improving operational performance across your Asia Pacific travel and hospitality operations.
Request comprehensive cost modeling from each provider including: base fees, all onboarding/offboarding charges, amendment fees, benefits markup percentage, FX conversion spreads with example rates, any platform or access fees, and payment processing costs. Then add internal cost estimates: finance team hours spent on payroll administration monthly × hourly labor cost, plus estimated compliance penalty exposure based on provider track record.
AYP's inclusive model bundles services that aggregators charge separately. A 8% to 15% higher base PEPM that includes onboarding, unlimited offboarding, and all amendments delivers lower TCE than a seemingly cheaper base rate layered with per-transaction charges. The crossover point typically occurs around 40% to 50% annual turnover, with AYP's advantage expanding as turnover increases.
Yes. AYP provides fixed PEPM rates with volume tiers clearly defined. Your monthly cost equals that month's actual headcount × applicable PEPM rate. This creates predictable per-employee costs while allowing total budget to flex naturally with seasonal staffing patterns, unlike fixed minimum commitments that charge for phantom headcount during off-season.
On USD 1.5 million annual payroll across multiple markets, a 1.5-percentage-point spread differential equals USD 22,500 annually. For larger operations or companies paying in multiple currencies, this reaches tens of thousands. Request exact conversion rates for recent payrolls from your current provider and compare to interbank rates on those dates to calculate your actual spread exposure.
Calculate your finance team's burdened hourly cost (salary plus benefits divided by annual hours), typically USD 65 to USD 110 for mid-level finance professionals. Multiply by hours saved monthly. If AYP reduces payroll administration from 24 hours to 8 hours monthly, that's 192 hours annually. At USD 80/hour, recovered capacity is worth USD 15,360 annually, often exceeding base rate differentials for mid-sized operations.
For high-turnover hospitality operations, prioritize comprehensive TCE including all transaction costs and operational burden. Providers advertising lowest base rates often generate highest total costs through accumulated ancillary charges and error correction burden. Request full TCE modeling across 12 to 24 months including realistic turnover scenarios to identify true cost leader.
Calculate revenue per employee per day in revenue-generating roles (servers, tour guides, guest services). Multiply by onboarding time differential × number of seasonal hires. If AYP onboards 25 seasonal staff 20 days faster than aggregators, and average staff generates USD 180 daily contribution, the captured revenue opportunity equals USD 90,000 beyond the direct service cost savings.
