Summary and recommendation
Remote user management can be run manually, but complexity usually increases with role models, licensing gates, and offboarding dependencies. This guide gives the exact mechanics and where automation has the biggest impact.
Remote is a global HR and Employer of Record platform built for companies hiring across borders. It handles employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance in supported countries - all from a single dashboard.
The HRIS tier is free; costs scale based on whether workers are managed as contractors, global payroll employees, or full EOR employees.
Access control uses four fixed roles: Owner, Admin, People Manager, and Finance. There are no custom roles.
The People Manager role supports scoped access limited to an assigned subset of employees, which is the closest Remote gets to granular delegation.
Every app in your stack that treats Remote as the employment source of record is only as accurate as the roles and records inside it.
Quick facts
| Admin console path | Dashboard → Company Settings → Team Members |
| Admin console URL | Official docs |
| SCIM available | No |
| SCIM tier required | EOR: $599-$699/employee/mo |
| SSO prerequisite | No |
User types and roles
| Role | Permissions | Cannot do | Plan required | Seat cost | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owner | Full access to all company settings, billing, user management, and all employee/contractor records. Can invite and remove team members, manage integrations, and configure SSO. | No additional seat cost; included in platform access. | Only one Owner per account. Ownership transfer requires contacting Remote support. | ||
| Admin | Can manage employees, contractors, onboarding, offboarding, payroll approvals, and invite other team members. Access to most company-level settings. | Cannot manage billing or transfer ownership. | No additional seat cost. | Admins can invite other Admins; care should be taken to avoid over-provisioning. | |
| People Manager | Can view and manage a defined subset of employees assigned to them. Can approve time off, expenses, and view payslips for their direct reports. | Cannot access employees outside their assigned group, cannot manage billing or company-wide settings. | No additional seat cost. | Scope is limited to assigned employees only; must be explicitly assigned by an Admin or Owner. | |
| Finance | Access to payroll, invoices, billing information, and financial reports across the company. | Cannot manage employee records, onboarding, or offboarding. | No additional seat cost. | ||
| Employee / Contractor (end user) | Access to their own profile, documents, payslips, time-off requests, and expense submissions via the employee self-service portal. | Cannot access other employees' data or any admin/company settings. | Billed per EOR employee ($599–$699/mo), per contractor ($29–$325/mo depending on tier), or per global payroll employee ($50/mo). HRIS-only employees are $0. | Employee accounts are created automatically during onboarding; they are not manually invited as 'team members' in the admin sense. |
Permission model
- Model type: role-based
- Description: Remote uses a fixed set of predefined roles (Owner, Admin, People Manager, Finance). Permissions are assigned at the role level. People Manager role supports scoped access limited to assigned employees. No fully custom roles are available.
- Custom roles: No
- Custom roles plan: Not documented
- Granularity: Role-level with limited scope assignment for People Manager role (employee subset assignment). No field-level or object-level custom permission configuration.
How to add users
- Log in to Remote as Owner or Admin.
- Navigate to Company Settings → Team Members.
- Click 'Invite team member'.
- Enter the invitee's email address.
- Select the appropriate role (Admin, People Manager, Finance).
- For People Manager role, assign the specific employees they will manage.
- Click 'Send invite'. The invitee receives an email to set up their account.
Required fields: Email address, Role selection
Watch out for:
- Invitations expire if not accepted; a new invite must be sent if the link expires.
- Employee/contractor accounts are created through the onboarding flow, not the team member invite flow.
- Only Owners and Admins can invite new team members.
| Bulk option | Availability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CSV import | No | Not documented |
| Domain whitelisting | No | Automatic domain-based user add |
| IdP provisioning | Yes | Enterprise (EOR $599–$699/employee/mo tier; SSO/SCIM available on Enterprise plan) |
How to remove or deactivate users
- Can delete users: No
- Delete/deactivate behavior: Remote's official help documentation describes removing a team member as deactivating their access. The account is deactivated rather than permanently deleted. Historical records associated with the user are retained.
- Log in as Owner or Admin.
- Navigate to Company Settings → Team Members.
- Locate the team member to remove.
- Click the options menu (three dots) next to their name.
- Select 'Remove' or 'Deactivate'.
- Confirm the action in the dialog.
| Data impact | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Owned records | Records created or managed by the deactivated user (employee records, approvals) are retained in the system and remain accessible to remaining Admins and Owners. |
| Shared content | Shared documents and employee data remain accessible to other authorized users. |
| Integrations | Any integrations or API tokens associated with the removed user's session are invalidated upon deactivation. |
| License freed | Removing an admin/team-member user does not directly affect billing, as admin seats are not separately billed. Billing is based on active employees/contractors, not admin user count. |
Watch out for:
- Removing a team member does not offboard or terminate any employees they managed; employee records remain active.
- The Owner account cannot be removed without first transferring ownership.
- Deactivated team members cannot log in but their historical activity is preserved.
License and seat management
| Seat type | Includes | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| HRIS Employee | Core HR, document storage, self-service portal for employees managed via Remote HRIS only (no EOR or payroll). | $0/employee/mo |
| Contractor (Basic) | Contractor onboarding, contract management, invoice payments. | $29/contractor/mo |
| Contractor (Plus) | Enhanced contractor management features. | $99/contractor/mo |
| Contractor of Record | Full contractor of record compliance and management. | $325/contractor/mo |
| Employer of Record (EOR) Employee | Full EOR service: employment, payroll, benefits, compliance in supported countries. | $599/employee/mo (annual) or $699/employee/mo (monthly) |
| Global Payroll Employee | Payroll processing for employees hired directly by the company in supported countries. | $50/employee/mo |
- Where to check usage: Dashboard → Company Settings → Billing or Dashboard → Reports for active employee/contractor counts.
- How to identify unused seats: Review the Team Members list under Company Settings for inactive invitations; review employee/contractor lists for terminated or offboarded individuals who may still be counted as active.
- Billing notes: Billing is per active employee or contractor, not per admin seat. No platform fee, onboarding fee, or setup fee. Month-to-month contracts available at the higher monthly rate. Annual contracts available at the lower rate. Same pricing applies across all supported countries.
The cost of manual management
Remote does not charge per admin seat, so adding or removing team members carries no direct licensing cost. Billing is tied to active employee and contractor records, not to the number of dashboard users who manage them.
The operational cost of manual provisioning shows up elsewhere. When a People Manager leaves or changes scope, their assigned employees must be manually reassigned by an Owner or Admin; there is no automated handoff. Invitation links expire without a clearly communicated deadline, which means delayed onboarding can silently stall access.
Re-sending invites and tracking acceptance status adds low-visibility overhead that compounds across a growing headcount.
The decision
Manual management in Remote is workable for small, stable teams where the Owner or a single Admin handles provisioning. The role model is simple enough that onboarding a new admin takes minutes once the process is understood.
The model strains under three conditions: frequent manager changes that require People Manager scope reassignment, organizations that need permission granularity between Admin and People Manager, and multi-entity setups where a single API credential covers only one Remote company account.
Every app downstream that depends on Remote staying current inherits the cost of any lag in manual updates. If any of these conditions apply, plan for the operational overhead before it accumulates.
Bottom line
Remote's manual access layer is straightforward but rigid. Four fixed roles, no custom permissions, and a clear separation between admin users and employee records keep the model simple - but that simplicity has a ceiling.
Teams managing frequent role changes, growing headcount across multiple countries, or complex manager hierarchies will find the manual workflow increasingly brittle. Every app that depends on Remote staying current is only as accurate as the last time someone logged in and made a change.
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