Three of the twelve EOR providers we track changed their name in the past 18 months. That’s not normal. And the pattern tells you something useful about where the EOR market is going — and what it means for companies that rely on these platforms.
What Happened
August 2024: Payoneer acquired Skuad for $61 million cash. The product became Payoneer Workforce Management (Payoneer WFM). Skuad was a Singapore-founded APAC-native EOR with strong coverage across Southeast Asia and Bangladesh. Payoneer is a NASDAQ-traded global payments company.
September 2025: Velocity Global rebranded as Pebl, dropping the “Velocity Global” name after ten years and pivoting to an AI-first messaging. New website at hellopebl.com. Pricing dropped from $599/mo to $399/mo.
February 2026: Horizons rebranded as Remote People, expanding its positioning from pure-EOR to “full-cycle global hiring” — recruitment, EOR, contractor management, entity setup, and global mobility under one brand.
None of these are routine rebrandings. Each signals something specific about the market.
What the Payoneer–Skuad Deal Means
$61 million for a 4-year-old APAC EOR startup isn’t a distress sale — it’s a fintech company buying compliance infrastructure.
Payoneer processes billions in cross-border payments annually, primarily for marketplaces and freelancers. Skuad’s EOR capability lets Payoneer offer a complete global workforce management stack: pay any worker anywhere, whether they’re a contractor, a marketplace seller, or a full-time employee. The combined product competes directly with Deel’s contractor-plus-EOR model.
For buyers, the acquisition means Payoneer WFM now has: a NASDAQ-traded parent with institutional capital, stronger global payment rails than any independent EOR can build, and more stable pricing (the $199/mo floor is unlikely to disappear in a public company’s product line). The trade-off: integration risk and potential product deprioritisation as Payoneer manages its broader roadmap. Worth monitoring, but not a reason to avoid the platform.
What Pebl’s AI Pivot Means
Velocity Global was a credible but unremarkable EOR provider. Pebl is a bet on AI being the next differentiator in the EOR category.
The Alfie AI assistant — instant compliance answers, self-serve onboarding, upfront cost visibility — is a direct response to the customer acquisition challenge every EOR provider faces: buyers don’t want to schedule a sales call to find out whether a provider covers Vietnam with an owned entity. They want the answer in 30 seconds.
The $200/month pricing reduction (from $599 to $399) is equally significant. Velocity Global couldn’t win on price against Multiplier or Deel. Pebl is trying to. If the AI tooling delivers on its promise and the pricing holds, Pebl becomes the most disruptive rebrand in this wave — not just a new logo, but a genuinely new competitive position.
Whether Alfie is as useful in practice as the marketing suggests remains to be tested. We’ll report back after six months of live usage data from reader feedback.
What Remote People’s Expansion Means
Horizons rebranded to Remote People in February 2026, the same month this was published — not for rebranding’s sake, but to reflect what the company has actually become.
Horizons was built as an EOR provider. Remote People is positioning as a full-cycle hiring platform: find the person (recruitment), employ them compliantly (EOR), pay contractors, set up entities when you’re ready, and manage global mobility when they relocate. It’s the same strategy Deel has pursued since 2022 and the direction most EOR platforms are moving.
The remote-first hiring market has matured enough that buyers increasingly want one platform to handle the full cycle rather than integrating an ATS with an EOR with a payroll tool. Remote People’s rebrand is a bet that this bundling preference has reached the SME segment (their primary market).
The Pattern
All three changes are variations of the same underlying dynamic: EOR as a standalone product isn’t defensible enough.
Payoneer added payments infrastructure. Pebl added AI and dropped price. Remote People added recruitment and entity services. The implicit message from all three is that pure-play EOR — process payroll, handle compliance, issue contracts — isn’t a sustainable competitive moat for a mid-tier provider. The winner in each segment has something else: Deel has brand and breadth, Remote has the owned-entity model and IP protection positioning, Multiplier has APAC pricing and local expertise. Everyone else is adding adjacent capabilities to justify continued relevance.
What This Means for Buyers
Three practical implications:
1. Evaluate the platform, not the name. Skuad’s compliance team and country coverage didn’t change because a NASDAQ company bought them. Velocity Global’s in-country legal experts are still at Pebl. Horizons’ account managers are still serving their clients as Remote People. If you’re evaluating these platforms, assess the product and team — not the brand refresh.
2. Expect more consolidation. The 12-provider landscape we review is likely to become 8–9 over the next 24 months. Mid-tier providers without a clear differentiation story (Atlas HXM, INS Global, Papaya Global at current pricing) are natural acquisition targets or face continued pressure.
3. The AI race is real but unproven. Pebl is the first EOR provider to make AI the centrepiece of its product positioning. Deel has quietly integrated AI into contract generation and compliance alerts. Remote’s compliance guides are increasingly AI-assisted. The providers that learn to use AI to reduce sales cycle friction and compliance query volume will have a structural cost advantage. Whether that creates a better product for buyers is still an open question.
We’ll be watching all three platforms closely over 2026. If your team is evaluating EOR options, read our updated reviews of Payoneer WFM, Pebl, and Remote People.
