Shor

What do they actually do

Shor provides a contractor payroll and cross‑border payout service that runs from a chat‑style interface. Teams add contractors, approve runs in chat, and Shor executes the payouts; the company markets "near‑instant settlement" for contractor payments compared with traditional providers (site, launch post).

Today, Shor is focused on contractor payments; full Employer‑of‑Record (EOR) support is on the roadmap but not yet live. Public pricing lists contractor payroll at $20/month, with EOR "coming soon" at $99/month (site, launch post).

The team says they use autonomous AI agents and stablecoin‑based settlement to speed up payments and reduce costs, and they are a YC Summer 2025 company at an early launch stage (YC, Circle partner page, Crunchbase).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Early-stage startup founders paying a few remote contractors: Manual approvals, slow international transfers, and variable fees make monthly payouts error‑prone and time‑consuming.
• Growth-stage startups scaling international contractor headcount: Late or slow payouts hurt contractor trust and slow hiring; they need predictable, faster settlement across countries.
• Finance/payroll leads at SMBs: High FX and payment fees plus tedious reconciliation for each cross‑border payout; need cost control and cleaner accounting.
• Agencies/consultancies paying many freelancers: Current workflows are manual (tracking, receipts, fixing payout mistakes) and don’t scale to repeated global payments.
• Remote‑first companies considering full‑time hires abroad: Lack of local entities and the cost/complexity of compliant employment (EOR) stop them from hiring in new countries.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Direct outreach to founders and finance leads in YC/accelerator networks with concierge onboarding, waived first‑run fees, and a live demo where Shor runs the first payroll. Turn pilots into brief case studies to inform outreach.
• First 50: Publish 3–5 short case studies and launch a two‑sided referral credit; target outreach in remote‑work communities and LinkedIn ads to finance/payroll titles, plus one newsletter/community sponsorship. Keep concierge onboarding for larger accounts and systematize the onboarding checklist.
• First 100: Stand up inbound with practical blog guides, SEO, and a small PPC test; add a self‑serve trial and automated onboarding emails. Pair with two partnership tracks (accounting/payroll service resellers and remote‑work platforms/agencies) and a paid pilot for high‑volume agencies.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Relevant vendor markets today include payroll software (~$8.4B in 2024), payroll outsourcing (~$9–12B), and EOR (~$4–5.5B). Adjacent cross‑border payments revenue is roughly ~$200–213B in 2024, with total cross‑border flows around ~$194T as context (Apps Run The World, IMARC, Straits Research, MarketGrowthReports, Grand View Research, FXC Intelligence).

Bottom-up calculation:

As an initial wedge, anchor on SMB contractor payroll: for example, if 200k SMBs paying cross‑border contractors adopt a lightweight tool and each runs 5 contractors at $20/contractor/month, that implies ~$240M in ARR from software alone, with additional payment margin possible on the underlying flows. This sits within the broader payroll outsourcing pool and does not rely on the entire cross‑border payments market.

Assumptions:

• 200k SMBs globally are serviceable for cross‑border contractor payouts in the next several years.
• Average of 5 active contractors per SMB; $20 per contractor per month subscription pricing.
• Payment revenue depends on payout volumes and net take rate; illustration excludes any EOR revenues.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Deel: Full‑stack global HR/payroll and EOR with contractor management; broad country coverage and separate pricing for contractor plans and EOR (pricing, payroll overview).
• Remote: Global contractor payments and EOR with relatively simple pricing; offers fast contractor payouts and surfaces crypto/stablecoin payout options (pricing, contractor payments).
• Papaya Global: Enterprise payroll + EOR + contractor management with an embedded payments layer; emphasizes same‑day payment coverage via Payments OS (pricing, EOR/Payments).
• Rippling: All‑in‑one HR, IT, and payroll platform with global payroll, contractor payments, and EOR as modular add‑ons (pricing, global/EOR features).
• Wise (Wise Business): Multi‑currency business account and mass payouts (BatchTransfer) used for low‑cost contractor payments; does not provide EOR/compliance (BatchTransfer, contractor guidance).