Wisemonk's Employer of Record becomes the legal employer in India, so your team gets ESOPs, statutory benefits, clean IP, and a clean diligence schedule.
These are not aspirations. These are operational benchmarks we've maintained across 300+ companies from 20+ countries.
Most teams discover them when they receive a tax notice in the mail. Here's how keeping contractors can backfire.
If your contractors look, work, and report like employees, India's tax office can reclassify them and bill three years of back-taxes, plus penalty and interest. Most teams have no idea this is on the table until the notice arrives.
A handful of engineers in Bangalore can trigger a taxable presence for your US, UK, or Singapore parent, exposing the revenue to Indian corporate tax and creating a filing burden you weren’t budgeting for.
Series B+ investors and acquirers price contractor risk into the deal. Expect a valuation haircut, an indemnity escrow held back at close, or a condition that you convert your India team before signing.
Your best engineers want a real job. ESOPs, gratuity, insurance, paid leave. Contractors by default can't legally hold any of it.
A contractor stack quietly closes doors. Convert your team onto Wisemonk's Employer of Record, and these open the same week the first compliant payroll runs.
Today, with contractors
Indian law won't enforce equity grants to people you classify as contractors.
Acquirers carve out India contractors or demand an indemnity escrow.
PF, gratuity, insurance, ESOPs. Contractors can't offer any of it.
Contractor IP assignments are routinely challenged. A Series B law firm will flag it.
Misclassification carve-outs appear on every term sheet from a top-tier fund.
The two documents Indian banks, landlords, and embassies always ask for.
After conversion to FTEs on Wisemonk EOR
Vesting schedules, trust structures, and tax treatment handled.
Your India team appears as employees on every diligence schedule.
Statutory benefits, insurance, ESOPs, the full package.
Clean chain of title from each employee to your parent company.
Employment contracts, statutory filings, audit-ready records, all in one room.
Your team can rent a flat, open a bank account, apply for a visa.
From the day a contractor signs their FTE offer to the day they leave, we hold the legal employer relationship. You stay focused on company's growth.
Fully compliant across all 28 Indian states.
A named HRBP for onboarding.
ID, education, employment, address, and criminal checks completed in 4–5 days.
PF, ESI, TDS, professional tax, gratuity, with audit-ready records.
State-specific policies, legally compliant, ready from day one.
Health, accident, life, and flexible allowances.
Notice periods, final settlements, gratuity, experience letters, asset recovery.
Laptops, monitors, sourced locally and delivered to their door.
Clean migration of employees, compliance, and payroll to your own India entity.
Every India contractor moves onto Wisemonk's Employer of Record as a full-time employee, with statutory benefits, signed IP, ESOP eligibility, and a take-home that matches or beats their old rate.
Today
In under a week
Founders, Leaders and HR heads of fast growing startups across US, Europe, SEA and Oceania trust our services to manage their India teams.
The Wisemonk team played a key role in helping us hire for specialized B2B SaaS marketing skills. We were able to build the team within four months, and hire experienced professionals from Tier 1/major B2B SaaS brands. This includes SEO, digital marketing, business development, product marketing, content marketing, and GTM roles. They are a great partner providing integrated services for EOR and recruitment/hiring and I’d recommend them to any B2B SaaS vendor.
We've been using WiseMonk to support our India team for the past six months, and the experience has been excellent. They've handled everything from payroll and statutory compliance to equipment procurement and benefits enrollment — all with a level of responsiveness and professionalism that makes managing a remote India team from Canada feel seamless. Nileena and the team are always quick to reply and proactive about flagging anything we need to know. We'd happily recommend WiseMonk to other companies looking to hire and manage talent in India.
Wisemonk is a key partner for EOM-Energy O&M Services, playing an essential role in supporting our operations. Their seamless payment solutions make transactions not only simple and fast but also reliable. The team’s responsiveness, professionalism, and proactive approach give us complete confidence in every interaction. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration, using Wisemonk both for Employer of Record services and for recruitment support, to help us expand our team in India in the short and medium term.
Process was professional & very smooth. We've worked with Wisemonk to source developers in India and it's worked incredibly well for us. We are very pleased with the talent of the developers and the Wisemonk process was professional and very smooth. We highly recommend using Wisemonk for talent sourcing!
I'm very Happy that I discovered Wisemonk. They have been a pure pleasure to work with, and their attention to detail is impressive. They helped us understand their pricing model, find top-qualified individuals, interview them, and then onboard them. I gave them criteria for the type of people we sought, and they delivered. The individuals they were able to find have been some of the best engineers I have ever worked with. I recommend Wisemonk to anyone who is in need of staffing assistance.
I highly recommend them. Wisemonk helped us tap into the vibrant and top-notch Indian talent market and hire our first couple of founding engineers in record time. We've been able to accelerate our roadmap and deliver terrific value to our customers thanks to Wisemonk's efforts. They are easy to work with and very transparent about the process. I highly recommend them to any company looking for talent located in India.
Seven questions we get on every kickoff call. Answered directly, no marketing-speak.
Almost always the same or better, because we build the salary structure around India's tax-efficient allowances (HRA, LTA, NPS, food, fuel, books and periodicals). A contractor on a flat ₹2L per month invoice typically lands on a ₹2L+ in-hand structure with ₹40k+ of statutory benefits on top. We model this for each individual before they sign, so nobody is signing blind.
Different country, different rules. We focus only on India.
No. That's the whole point of using us as the Employer of Record. Your contractors become employees on a Wisemonk-owned Indian entity, and you stay on a flat per-employee fee. When your headcount in India gets large enough that an entity makes financial sense (usually around 25 to 30 hires), we'll model the breakeven and run the migration to your entity.
Yes, and we draft this into the conversion. The new employment agreement includes a backwards-looking IP assignment that covers everything the person worked on while they were contractors.
Rare, but it happens. Two options. One, we structure a clean contractor-of-record relationship for that individual, which gives you a legitimate contractor framework rather than a homemade invoice. Two, you offboard them.
Our team is ready to assist you with anything you need.
Tell us how many contractors you want to give employee benefits to and we'll walk you through how the EOR model fits your function, timeline, and compliance requirements.
You wire money to workers in India — this newsletter covers everything that comes with it. Tax, GST, IP, ESOPs, cross-border compliance, worker classification, and every regulation in between.
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