The 9 Best Contractor Management Software to Ease Your Workload

Deel is a leading global workforce management solution and is best known for its robust payroll management system across countries and continents. When you work with many contractors, it becomes difficult to manage different payroll references alongside with contracts, timesheets, and invoices. Deel streamline all these processes and help you scale your team’s operations compliantly.

I picked Deel because of its ease of contractor payment dispersal across 150+ countries. You don’t need to keep track of payments, taxes, or currency exchange rates. You can ensure everyone is paid on time with a single click. 

Deel is GDPR-compliant and encrypts data at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS 1.2. Annual third-party audits ensure platform security.

Deel’s Key Feature

• Managed payroll solution: Deel offers one of the stronger payroll features that help you work seamlessly with contractors globally. It takes care of all the calculations, multiple currencies, and country-specific compliance requirements. So, you don’t need to hire additional local payroll specialists. (Every payment needs your approval so that you still have full control over how and when anyone gets paid!) Moreover, you get to see all payroll data in a single dashboard, giving you a complete overview of your payments.
• AI assistant: Deel’s AI is also one of its helpful features. With Deel’s AI assistant, you can have a conversation asking questions about local law compliance, pull payroll data for a specific period, or review your contracts. The AI tool reduces the need to review different dashboards to find an answer.

Deel’s Pros and Cons

Pros

• A single platform to manage all the tasks, reducing the need to keep track of payments or local compliance.
• Integrates with HR and finance software such as BambooHR, Quickbooks, and Xero.
• Intuitive dashboards and customized reporting. 

Cons

• Huge learning curve as it’s an advanced software. But you can get around the tool by going through their helpful resources.

Deel Pricing

Deel’s independent contractor contracts (Fixed, Pay As You Go, and Milestone) are $49 per monthly active contract.

Ironclad is a contractor management software with AI capabilities for handling contracts. Ironclads’s AI helps you analyze and compare contract terms and extract various data points (contract value, renewal dates, counterparty information, and clauses). With AI, you can also rewrite, rephrase, or replace contract terms, sentences, or the whole clause.

I picked Ironclad because it transforms the traditional contract reviews and signature process into an automated one with AI assistance. Such a process saves a ton of manual work of going through a pile of documents and helps you finish the paperwork faster. The tool also makes collaboration easy among HR, finance, and legal team members, ensuring transparency and smooth communication.

Ironclad's GDPR compliance program includes Standard Contractual Clauses and the Data Processing Addendum. The company also complies with US HIPAA to keep Protected Health Information (PHI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data safe.

Ironclad’s Key Features

• Contract repository: Not only storing all of your contracts in one place, Ironclad's AI pulls out important information into a summary table aside, so you can easily find what you need later. This makes it much easier to manage all of your executed agreements quickly and efficiently.
• AI playbooks: You can create your company’s playbook defining acceptable terms and clauses in a contract. These playbooks offer much deeper insights into Ironclad AI while reviewing freelancer contracts to flag potential risks.

Ironclad’s Pros and Cons 

Pros

• Intuitive in-built AI-assist included in all the paid plans.
• Set up different workflows for the contractor’s contract and stakeholders with 190+ contract properties. By doing so, you can make contract negotiation and analysis a streamlined process.

Cons

• Some users reported that the software has a huge learning curve making it difficult to get familiar with when starting.

Ironclad Pricing

Ironclad offers custom pricing based on your business size, the number of contractors you work with, and the features you’ll use.

Rippling is a unified workforce management software that stands out for its integration of HR, IT, and finance processes into a single platform. Rippling extends its capabilities to contractor management with global payroll and tax compliance features to streamline how you onboard, manage, and pay global freelance and contract workforce. 

I picked Rippling because of its powerful automation features that can significantly offload complex tasks of managing contractors, such as contract drafting, compliance checks, and payment processing. The team has kept usability as its top priority while offering various solutions for better contractor management, for example, 90-second onboarding, automatic tax filing, payroll in 50+ countries, and 1099 generation.

Rippling adheres to GDPR and meets SOC2 standards. For login security, the team has set up Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO) to ensure strict access control.

Rippling’s Key Features

• Automatic payroll: Rippling’s automatic payroll feature helps you disburse payment to all contractors with a single click.  With multi-currency support, you don’t need to worry about FX rates or transaction fees.
• Take care of tax compliance: Rippling helps you stay in compliance with tax laws by automatically generating and distributing 1099 tax forms (tax documents outlining payments made throughout the year) to your contractors. Rippling also keeps a record of all current and past 1099 forms stores to make it easy to access them if needed.

Pros and Cons list

Pros

• Connects with various communication, accounting, and project management tools. Such integration makes it efficient and time-effective to automate tasks such as sending a Slack message, delivering emails, creating meetings, and updating spreadsheets. 
• User-friendly interface while offering various advanced features.
• Oversee your entire workforce in one place

Cons

• Some users reported that Rippling is expensive compared to other software, especially for small-sized businesses.

Rippling Pricing

Rippling has various plans for its products, depending on what processes you need to streamline: Rippling Unity (Workforce Management), HR Cloud, IT Cloud, and Finance Cloud. Its pricing starts at $8/month per user. To get more accurate pricing, contact their sales team for a custom quote.

Plane makes it easy to hire contractors globally without worrying about compliance with local laws. Plane offers localized contracts that follow local laws ensuring that both you and the contractor are compliant.

I picked Plane as it divides various contractor-related tasks into milestones and steps (like Prepare contracts > Sign contracts > Set up payments > Collect compliance documents and likewise). Such a presentation makes it super easy to make sure you didn’t miss any step in contractor onboarding. You also get the flexibility to assign required tasks to contractors and see the progress in the same dashboard. 

I love the way Plane provides checklists in the overview dashboard to highlight and keep track of all the pending tasks and tasks in progress. Clear recommended to-do lists like these help you stay on track and complete the work more efficiently.

Plane completes GDPR and CCPA compliance and has 2-factor authentication (2FA). Access to sensitive data, including PII (Personally Identifiable Information), is limited only to relevant team members. 

Plane’s Key Features

• Streamline communications: Plane’s dashboard facilitates HR, finance, and accounting departments to stay in sync. The software offers visibility into contract signatures, onboarding, payment requests, and approvals to all the teams.

• Automatic contract updates: Whenever there is a change in local laws, or you tweak a contractor’s duties or payment, Plane automatically adjusts them and also suggests required changes.

Plane’s Pros and Cons

Pros

• Custom localized contracts reduce the need to create and update contracts based on local laws manually.
• Intuitive dashboard which reduces the learning curve.

Cons

• There might be sometimes delays in payment processing and deposits.

Plane’s Pricing

Plane charges $39/month per active contractor.

Remote is one of the best contractor management software that helps you work with contractors in 200 countries. The tool is best known for reducing contract-related risks such as misclassification, non-compliance with local laws, and mismanagement of contracts. 

You can upload your own contract or use Remote’s pre-reviewed contracts, which are localized to different countries. When you upload your contracts, Remote will flag potential risks. By flagging such issues, you can avoid non-compliance and modify it for future use.

I picked Remote because it offers a transparent way of working for both you as an employer and your contractors. Contractors will have a clear view of all their invoices, transaction history, and payment schedules. Conversely, you can settle payments in bulk, avoid the risk of non-compliance, and maintain a positive relationship with all contractors.

Remote is GDPR compliant, meaning your data is end-to-end encrypted. Additionally, they are SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certified.

Remote’s Key Features

• Self-service onboarding: Contractors can add all the details simultaneously on the same platform. This means you don’t have to communicate important contract details over Slack or email, which can sometimes result in them being lost or overlooked if there are too many messages.

• Contract risk management: Full-time employees and contractors should go into separate contact groups because of differences in work duties, payroll, and benefits. Remote provides an Employee/Contractor misclassification risk analysis tool to help you save time on manual adjustments and avoid misclassifying contracts.

Remote’s Pros and Cons 

Pros

• User-friendly dashboards and easy-to-use interface.
• Rich integrations: Remote offers pre-built integrations with HR-related systems like BambooHR, Greenhouse, or HiBob. It also allows Zapier integrations to connect Remote with other tools like Slack, project management software, and other 5,000+ apps.

Cons

• Some user reports that the customer service team often lacks local laws and regulations. It can hinder the smooth process, causing delays in payments.

Remote Pricing

You can use Remote as an HRIS system for free. For contractor management, Remote has two paid plans:

• Remote Contractor Management: 30-day free trial, then $29 per contractor per month
• Contractor Management Plus: $99 per contractor per month with guaranteed indemnity coverage up to USD 100k per contractor and up to USD 1M per client.

Papaya Global is one of the advanced contractor management software companies. It automates the payroll across 160+ countries. You can integrate Papaya Global with any payroll and ERP system, streamlining payroll summary, payment, and reconciliation.

I picked Papaya Global because of its automated payment handling feature. It offers complete transparency in payment processing and claims to deliver payment within 15 seconds to one day (compared to other platforms which take 1-3 days), depending upon the country of the contractor.

Papaya Global is certified with ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 and holds SOC 1, Type 2, and SOC 2, Type 2 audit reports — covering overall security, financial controls, and general safeguards.

Papaya Global’s Key Features:

• Custom payroll dashboard: You can customize the payroll dashboard to get a deeper insight into your payments, the location of the receiver, the time frame, and related metrics. The tool also generates a report detecting any anomaly or trend that might affect your payroll structure.
• Single-click approvals and bulk payments: You can approve all the payments in a single click using the bulk payment feature. It doesn’t matter if you work with a domestic contractor or international, this feature takes care of transaction fees, FX, and timely delivery.
• Personal portals for contractors: Papaya Global creates a personal portal for all the contractors to issue invoices. The contractor can see all the payment details — the total amount they’ll receive in their local currency, the due date, and so on. Thus the portal helps maintain transparency and lets contractors flag any issue or query they might have about the payments.

Pros and Cons list

Pros

• Enable your team to recruit and manage contractors across 160+ countries.
• Custom dashboards for onboarding, payroll management, and reporting.
• Integration with top-level HR, finance, and accounting software such as Workday and BambooHR.

Cons

• No free trial is available.
• If you’re managing a large number of contractors, the pricing can get expensive as it’s a charge per contractor.

Papaya Global Pricing

Papaya Global has various product plans. For Contractor Payments & Management, the pricing starts at $30/month per contractor.

From onboarding to payments, Worksuite is a complete freelancer and contractor management software. With the tool, you can find talented freelancers across 190+ countries, onboard them with custom workflows, and communicate without delays.

I picked Worksuite because of its ability to streamline the entire process of collaborating with freelancers, from onboarding to project management and payment processing. This specialization makes it an ideal solution for teams that leverage the talent marketplace and regularly work with many freelance talents. It saves time by reducing dependencies and fosters team collaboration for quick approvals within a centralized management system.

Worksuite adheres to both GDPR and CCPA regulations for data privacy and security and is also compliant with SOC2 standards. 

Worksuite’s Key Features

• Automated and centralized database location: Worksuite offers a central location to store all the documents such as contracts, invoices, and negotiation terms. With an in-built automation feature, you can send quick reminders and follow up with team members and contractors instead of sending emails.

• Customized onboarding: Worksuite offers a customized onboarding dashboard to suit your team’s requirements. You can add as many details as you need to ensure a smooth onboarding for new project-based team members. You can leverage this feature to collect essential information such as work samples, agreement signatures, and payment forms in the beginning. 
• In-app project management: You don’t need to have a separate project management tool to keep track of PIC, working/turnover time, and contractor payments. All these tasks can be done with Worksuite’s management feature. 

Worksuite’s Pros and Cons 

Pros

• It allows you to manage a large pool of freelancers in a single tool, including project and time management features.
• Worksuite offers customization options (onboarding, dashboards, etc.) to suit your team’s requirements.

Cons

• You might have to do a lot of manual work to set up the system.
• There is no bulk editing option, so you might have to enter the same details.

Worksuite Pricing

Worksuite has three pricing plans - Core, Plus, and Enterprise. They offer custom pricing for each plan depending on your requirements.

Talent Desk is an intuitive contractor management software to manage and work with freelancers globally. Talent Desk makes payment hassle-free with transparent FX (Foreign Transaction) charges. You’ll see only one consolidated invoice that includes all your contractor payments in the currency of your choice.

Why I picked Talent Desk: The ease of use is what made Talent Desk stand out. From custom onboarding forms to a central view of freelancer payments and tasks, the software offers enough features with a user-friendly experience for anyone to source talent and keep track of all the projects.

Talent Desk is GDPR compliant and supports SAML-based Single Sign-on (SSO) to authenticate users. Additionally, to avoid losing client data, the team has set up automated backups that run often.

Talent Desk’s Key Features:

• Customize onboarding forms: You can create as many custom forms as you want to collect all the required details from freelancers. You can also keep a check on important documents such as W-9 tax forms, social security numbers, etc. to make sure freelancers have completed their profiles.
• Time tracking tool: The time tracking tool helps you keep track of an hour a contractor (when working on a per-hour basis) spent on a particular project. Based on the number of hours you get an accurate estimate of the amount to pay. Such transparency helps avoid going over budget and keeping both you and the contractor on the same page. To use this feature, contractors must be connected to the tool. 

Talent Desk’s Pros and Cons

Pros

• Takes care of tax withholding, payments, and compliance, reducing your administrative burden
• The interface is easy to navigate and understand.
• Talent Desk integrates with major accounting software, including Xero, ClearBooks, and Microsoft Dynamics 365, which makes it easy to sync invoices and get a more centralized view of freelancer payments.

Cons

• May be overkill for businesses with minimal freelance needs

Talent Desk Pricing

TalentDesk offers 3 pricing tiers for their contractor management software: Starter for basic onboarding and directories, Growth adds features like time tracking and payments automation, and Enterprise is their full-featured plan including tax filing, multiple entities, and full compliance tools. You need to Book a Call for detailed quotes.

Fiverr Enterprise takes away the pain of managing processes related to freelancers with its unified workspace. The workspace gives a 360-degree view of all the processes. The software also makes communication fluent and less dependent among marketing, HR, legal, and finance departments.

Why I picked Fiverr Enterprise: One key reason why I decided to put Fiverr Enterprise on the list of best contractor management software is because of its vast pool of talented freelancers. By having such access, you can shorten the sourcing time and ensure you get vetted freelancers for your project instead of looking externally.

Fiverr Enterprise complies with GDPR and is SCO2 certified. The data is end-to-end encrypted and hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Fiverr Enterprise’s Key Feature

• Centralized freelance workspace: Fiverr Enterprise stands out with its one-single platform approach that gives you transparency in your freelancer management operation. From recruiting to invoice payment, you get to see everything under a single tool. 

For instance, HR can filter out data for contractors that are a perfect fit for a role. The finance team can have a look over invoices and automate them.

Fiverr Enterprise’s Pros and Cons

Pros

• User-friendly software with one place to view active contracts, contractor details, and payment information.
• A global pool of vetted contractors makes recruiting easier in less time.

Cons

• Limited customization options compared to software with a similar pricing structure.

Fiverr Enterprise Pricing

Fiverr Enterprise doesn’t disclose its pricing details. It will charge a percentage of your monthly spending for every successfully paid freelancer. You can leave your needs and the size of your freelance workforce on its pricing page to get a customized quote.