Panther's Path to Borderless Payroll
Matt Redler, co-founder and CEO of Panther, on building a modern employer of record
Panther started as a specialist layer on top of domestic payroll, not a full rip and replace. In practice, a U.S. company kept Gusto or Rippling for W-2 payroll, taxes, benefits, and HR inside the U.S., then used Panther only when it needed to legally hire someone in Brazil, Germany, or another country without setting up a local entity. That made Panther easier to adopt, but it also left the core system of record in someone else's hands.
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The product split matched the workflow split. Domestic payroll is mostly one tax regime and one benefits system. International employment means country by country contracts, payroll rules, tax filings, translations, and local compliance. Panther handled that hard cross border layer while domestic platforms handled the U.S. base.
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This side by side setup was common across the market. Global payroll vendors like Deel, Remote, Oyster, Papaya Global, and Panther were built around international hiring, while Gusto and Rippling were the default home base for domestic payroll and broader HR workflows.
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The strategic problem with being the international add on is that the domestic platforms can move into global. Later market evidence showed Gusto going global, Rippling launching employer of record and contractor products, and pressure building toward a single system for both domestic and international headcount.
The market is moving toward one borderless people platform. The winning product will start by solving the hardest international edge cases, but over time it will also need domestic payroll, HR data, and adjacent workflows so companies do not have to split their org chart, approvals, and payroll operations across multiple systems.