If you have tried to hire a full-time engineer in India from the US, you already know the problem. India has some of the best software talent in the world. Getting legal access to that talent, without setting up a local company, is a different matter entirely.
Setting up an Indian entity costs between $20,000 and $150,000 and takes three to six months. By the time you’re done, your hire has moved on. Kaamwork exists to solve exactly this problem.
What Is Kaamwork?
Kaamwork (kaam.work) is an Employer of Record (EOR) platform built for US, UK, and ANZ tech companies that want to hire full-time engineers, designers, and product managers in India, without registering a local entity.
As the EOR, Kaamwork signs the employment contract with your hire, runs payroll, handles tax deductions, manages statutory contributions (PF, ESI, PT), and keeps everything compliant with Indian labor law. You stay in control of who you hire, what they work on, how they are evaluated, and what they earn.
The fee is $599 per month, per employee, on top of the employee’s salary. No entity. No compliance overhead. No country head sitting between you and your team.
Who Is Kaamwork Built For?
Kaamwork is most useful for companies at a specific stage: you have validated your product, you know you need engineering capacity, and you want to hire in India without the three-to-six-month detour of entity setup.
That typically means:
- Seed to Series B startups adding their first offshore engineers
- US companies that have tried contractors and want full-time employment instead
- Founders who want a direct working relationship with their India team, not a vendor management layer
If you already have an Indian entity, Kaamwork’s EOR product is less relevant. But for companies that don’t, the alternative – setting up a private limited company, registering for GST, opening a bank account, hiring a local HR, and staying on top of Indian labor law, is a six-figure project before you’ve hired a single person.
How Kaamwork Handles Employment and Compliance
Indian employment law is state-specific, layered, and changes regularly. Payroll alone involves PF (Provident Fund) deductions, ESI (Employee State Insurance) contributions where applicable, professional tax by state, TDS (tax deducted at source), and Form 16 issuance at year-end.
Kaamwork handles all of it. Your hire gets a compliant employment contract, on-time salary in INR, all statutory deductions processed correctly, and payslips every month. You get a single monthly invoice in USD.
On the termination side, Indian labor law gives employees stronger protections than most US founders expect. Notice periods, severance calculations, and documentation requirements all apply. Kaamwork manages that process when exits happen.
The Model: No Country Head, No Middleman
Most EOR and staffing models in India insert a layer between you and your team. There is a relationship manager, a country head, an account director. Decisions filter through people whose job is to manage the relationship, not ship the product.
Kaamwork’s model removes that layer. Each US manager works directly with their India team. The engineer on your Slack is your engineer. They are in your standups, on your Jira board, and hearing your product priorities from the people who set them. Not from a regional head summarizing a summary.
That direct connection matters for retention. When an offshore engineer feels like part of the team rather than a vendor resource, they stay. Kaamwork’s attrition rate on their talent-centric model sits under 5%. The industry average for offshore teams runs closer to 25%.
What the $599/Month Fee Actually Covers
A lot of EOR fees are opaque. Here is what Kaamwork’s $599 per employee per month includes:
- Employment contract drafting and signing
- Monthly payroll processing in INR
- PF, ESI, and PT statutory contributions
- TDS computation and remittance
- Annual Form 16 issuance
- Compliance monitoring as Indian labor law changes
- Termination support when needed
The fee does not cover the employee’s salary. That is separate, paid at whatever CTC (cost to company) you and your hire agree on. The $599 is the cost of legal employment infrastructure.
Compare that to the alternative: an entity setup that costs $20,000 to $150,000 upfront, plus ongoing costs for a local HR, a payroll vendor, a CA (chartered accountant), and legal counsel every time a compliance question comes up.
Kaamwork vs. Setting Up a Wholly Owned Subsidiary
For companies thinking long-term, a Wholly Owned Subsidiary (WOS) in India gives you full legal ownership and more flexibility on equity, IP, and hiring volume at scale. But it is not a quick decision.
The timeline is three to six months from start to first hire. The cost is $20,000 to $150,000 before you have paid a single salary. You will need a local director, a registered office address, a company secretary, annual ROC filings, and ongoing CA support.
Kaamwork’s EOR model makes sense when:
- You want to hire in under 30 days
- You are hiring fewer than 10 to 15 people in India
- You want to test the offshore model before committing to entity infrastructure
- Your legal and finance team does not have India bandwidth
When you grow beyond 15 to 20 people in India, transitioning to your own entity often makes economic sense. Kaamwork supports that transition when you get there.
What the Talent-Centric Model Means in Practice
Kaamwork uses the term “talent-centric model” to describe its approach to retention. The logic is straightforward.
Employer Of Record overhead savings, the entity costs you are not spending, can go into better compensation for the India team. Better compensation drives retention. And because there is no country head layer extracting margin, more of the value reaches the engineer.
The result is a team that is paid competitively in India, working directly with the people making product decisions, and not cycling through every 18 months.
Is Kaamwork the Right Fit?
Kaamwork works well for US and UK tech companies that want full-time, employed engineers in India without spending six months on entity setup. The $599 per employee per month fee is a straightforward trade against entity infrastructure costs.
The model is not for everyone. If you need a large team quickly, want equity participation for your India hires, or are already operating at a scale where your own entity makes financial sense, a WOS or GCC model is worth examining.
But for a startup adding its first five engineers in India, or a Series A company that wants to move fast without a six-figure compliance project, Kaamwork is a direct, low-overhead way in.
To learn more or get started: kaam.work
