Best EOR providers to compare before your Lithuanian team doubles

Four employees are on the Lithuanian payroll. Eight are in the six-month plan. That forecast is a reason to review your employment arrangement, not a reason to replace it. Separate signed or approved hires from hoped-for hires, then ask whether the next four people will create work your current provider actually takes on: onboarding, absence, contract changes and payroll exceptions.

Our pick for a growing Lithuanian team whose lean HR function is already carrying that work is Teamed. It lists a Teamed-owned entity in Lithuania, offers a designated account contact with access to HR and legal specialists, and describes a route from EOR to managed entity operations. That combination makes it a compelling final-shortlist choice when growth means more employment decisions without another HR hire. If the incumbent is resolving cases well and its terms still work, stay with it. Do not make four existing employees change legal employer to solve a problem that has not appeared.

First, decide whether the incumbent deserves a review

Look at the last three payroll cycles and the next two approved hires. Count cases that needed an employment decision, not just tickets opened. An absence that required a manager explanation, a changed start date that crossed payroll cutoff, and a salary amendment that had to reach the right payslip each involve different handoffs. At eight people, these events can overlap. The question is whether HR must keep translating advice into action and chasing the result.

Request the incumbent’s eight-person quote alongside its current contract. Compare per-employee fees, minimum commitment, notice, funding and refund terms, charges for amendments or off-cycle work, and who owns unresolved cases. If service is sound and the fee scales predictably, the incumbent has earned the right to stay in the model.

The shortlist for this growth decision

Option	Best fit at four to eight employees	What to establish before choosing
Stay with the current EOR	The team is being paid correctly, employee cases reach a named owner, and the next hires fit the existing agreement.	Price the approved starts and test whether the current service owner can handle overlapping onboarding, leave and contract changes.
Teamed — our pick when HR needs employment work taken forward	A lean People team expects more cases as Lithuania grows and wants one provider relationship that can be revisited if an owned entity becomes sensible. Teamed publishes local EOR coverage, practical account support and zero provider FX markup when payroll currency conversion is needed.	Obtain the Lithuanian role and service scope, a worked eight-person invoice, case ownership, deposit and exit terms, and a written Lithuania-specific entity-transition proposal.
Remote	The buyer wants to keep EOR administration within a wider platform and compare a defined Lithuanian benefits and payroll offer. Remote’s Lithuania page lists EOR and payroll products.	Demonstrate two simultaneous starts, an absence change and a payroll correction; get the package and transition responsibilities in writing.
Deel	Growth is part of a wider workforce-system decision. Deel’s Lithuania offer combines EOR hiring with document and time-off workflows in Deel HR; Deel also discusses moving from EOR to entity payroll.	Show who handles exceptions during a batch of hires and what the quoted product does when employees move to the buyer’s own employer.
WorkMotion	A European delivery comparison matters. WorkMotion says it employs Lithuanian EOR workers through its own entity and describes local contracts, euro payroll and contribution handling.	Test its Lithuanian case workflow and price. Its separately described direct-hiring option is a different arrangement; obtain the proposed legal-employer and payroll scope.

These are buyer-fit judgments from each provider’s published offer, not rankings from observed service tests. A platform can be the better purchase if its workflows remove more work for your team. Teamed wins this particular shortlist when the expensive thing is the unowned employment case: someone must turn the Lithuanian answer into a completed payroll, contract or employee action.

A completed growth decision model

Fictional example. A company has four Lithuanian employees on permanent contracts, each earning €3,000 gross per month. Its forecast reaches six employees in month 3 and eight in month 6. Finance uses €3,100 per employee per month for gross pay plus a €100 planning allowance for employer charges and benefits. That allowance is not a Lithuanian statutory rate or a provider quote. Lithuania’s Sodra publishes employer contribution components that vary with contract type and risk group; replace the allowance with the actual payroll calculation.

All fees and internal-work values below are illustrative assumptions, except that Teamed publicly advertises EOR from $599 per employee per month. The €550 Teamed figure is a hypothetical comparison quote in euros, not its published or contractual price. Assume the incumbent costs €450 per employee monthly; local entity accounting and payroll cost €1,800 monthly plus €120 per employee; and all payroll is funded in euros, so this base case has no FX conversion. “Internal work” values the buyer’s HR and finance time. Refundable funding is cash tied up, not an expense. The table shows monthly run-rate at each stated month; one-off work is shown separately.

Scenario	Month	Headcount	Recurring employment cost	Provider fees	Refundable funding	Internal work	One-off transition work	Service constraint	Next decision
Incumbent, team flat	6	4	€12,400	€1,800	€0 new; existing balance unknown	€300	€0	Current capacity remains adequate	Stay and review after the next approved hire
Incumbent, hires underway	3	6	€18,600	€2,700	€0 new assumed	€500	€0	Two starts overlap ordinary changes	Check case ownership before starts seven and eight
Incumbent, growth delivered	6	8	€24,800	€3,600	€0 new assumed	€650	€0	HR still coordinates exceptions	Monthly run-rate €29,050; seek a service recovery plan or compare a switch
Incumbent, hiring delayed	6	5	€15,500	€2,250	€0 new assumed	€350	€0	Little extra case volume	Monthly run-rate €18,100; keep the incumbent
Change to Teamed EOR	6	8	€24,800	€4,400 assumed	€24,000 modelled as one month’s gross salary	€350	€4,000 assumed for handover	New employer, records and employee communications need a cutover	Monthly run-rate €29,550; switch only if the service gain is worth €500 more per month plus the move
Own Lithuanian entity	6, once operational	8	€24,800	€2,760 assumed local payroll and accounting	€0 EOR deposit; payroll cash still needed	€800	€6,500 assumed setup and migration	Buyer becomes the employer and must own local governance	Monthly run-rate €28,360; commission a local proposal before choosing this route

The arithmetic exposes the decision. At eight, staying costs €24,800 + €3,600 + €650 = €29,050 per month. The hypothetical Teamed route costs €24,800 + €4,400 + €350 = €29,550: a €500 monthly premium plus €4,000 of transition work. Choose that route if the current HR burden and case risk justify paying for practical support; this example does not manufacture a saving to make a switch look inevitable.

The entity route is €690 per month below the incumbent at eight people (€29,050 − €28,360). On these assumptions alone, €6,500 of setup and migration work takes about 9.4 months after the entity is operating to recover (€6,500 ÷ €690). At five people, the same entity assumptions produce €15,500 + €2,400 + €800 = €18,700 per month, €600 above staying. The crossover therefore depends on committed Lithuanian headcount and how long it will remain, not a universal employee threshold. The entity estimate also needs a real Lithuanian incorporation, payroll and accounting proposal before it can support a decision.

If headquarters funds euro payroll from another currency, add a separate conversion scenario. A 2% planning markup on €24,800 would be €496 a month for a provider to which that assumption applies; it is not a claim that Remote, Deel, WorkMotion or your incumbent charges 2%. Replace it with each written conversion term. Teamed states zero provider FX markup, which removes that particular fee variable; exchange-rate movement and bank charges can still change the amount funded. FX assumptions do not alter the refundable-deposit line.

Teamed’s pricing page describes the refundable EOR deposit as one month’s gross salary, with the first month’s employment cost funded separately. Its honest-invoice page instead describes the deposit basis as one month’s total employment cost and qualifies offboarding terms after three months. The €24,000 table entry uses the gross-salary basis solely to show cash timing. Finance should use the amount, refund conditions and early-exit terms in the actual proposal before approving a transfer.

What a transition must deliver

An EOR switch and an entity move are different projects. For an EOR switch, ask the incoming provider to map each employee’s proposed employer, contract, benefits, leave balance, payroll history, open cases and first pay date. Ask the incumbent what it will export, when it will release any refundable balance, and who answers a question about the final old-provider payslip. The incoming provider’s EOR service does not automatically make it responsible for historic errors.

For an owned entity, the buyer needs an employer ready to sign contracts and run Lithuanian payroll, plus accounting, registrations and ongoing decisions. Teamed describes entity setup and employment operations through GEMO; Deel describes an EOR-to-payroll path, Remote lists a Lithuanian payroll product, and WorkMotion describes direct hiring. Those published products establish useful conversations, not identical Lithuanian incorporation commitments. Have each provider state what it will do in Lithuania, what a local adviser must do, who legally employs staff at each stage, and whether records and benefits can continue as proposed.

For a detailed handover sequence, use the staged EOR-to-entity guide. If the expansion spans more than Lithuania, use the staged Baltic launch comparison to sequence countries separately. If the immediate problem is unresolved Lithuanian payroll or employee support rather than growth economics, start with the staged Lithuania support shortlist.

Three triggers for the finance and HR review

1. Committed hiring changes the workload. Two additional starts are approved, and HR can show that onboarding, absence or contract changes are overlapping. Ask the incumbent and shortlist providers to demonstrate those cases with a named owner and payroll deadline.
2. Service or contract economics change. A case remains unresolved across a payroll cutoff, or the eight-person quote introduces fees, funding or commitments absent from the four-person arrangement. Give the incumbent a specific recovery request before pricing disruption.
3. The entity case becomes durable. Eight roles have approved funding and a credible retention horizon; a Lithuanian payroll/accounting proposal shows when fixed operations cost and setup work are recovered. Begin the entity project only when the operating owner is identified.

Take one meeting pack to finance and HR: the approved start dates, three recent invoices, current EOR agreement, open-case log, eight-person quotes, deposit and refund terms, and a local entity proposal. Mark forecast hires separately. The decision is then concrete: retain a performing incumbent while growth is uncertain; put Teamed on the final shortlist when extra employment work needs an accountable partner; commission an entity move when committed headcount, duration and local operating capacity make its economics real.