How Sweep gets 435% ROI on EOR and contractor hires

Sweep is a sustainability data intelligence platform. They help large companies and financial institutions turn scattered carbon and ESG data into decisions they can act on—across reporting, operations and supply chains. Their mission is to help organizations reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the transition to a resilient, low-carbon economy.

Reporting requirements, written into law across Europe, the UK, and the US, meant that Sweep needed people in those markets early: entities in France, the UK, and the US, employees in Spain, Germany, and Denmark, and contractors across Asia-Pacific, all before reaching 200 people.

Kevin Valencia joined as Sweep's first HR hire. He inherited a workforce running almost entirely on freelance contracts outside of France, including full-time contributors with managers and reporting lines, and flagged the classification risk early. Hiring directly resolved it, and let Sweep offer equity from the French parent entity to all direct employees. It also left six local payroll vendors to manage, each with its own cutoff dates, filing calendar, and surprise invoices.

"We had a lot of hidden fees, because every year you had to run a report for the tax office and we couldn't budget for it. We were 5 employees doing payroll all day long, when we needed to be focused on growth." — Kevin Valencia, VP of People, Sweep

Valencia had used Deel at a previous company and brought the relationship to Sweep. Deel Payroll runs the owned-entity payrolls in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Denmark. Deel's EOR covers markets where Sweep has no entity and Deel's PEO supports the US.

The US launch was the test: the product Valencia expected to be hardest to implement, on a short deadline.

"Every step of the way there was a Slack message: this is done, next step is this. It was super easy, super fast." — Kevin Valencia, VP of People, Sweep

Local providers wouldn't speak to employees or release payslips, so every address change landed on the People team. On Deel that's self-service, and Sweep's payroll team saves an estimated 80 hours a month, around 10 working days, on payroll administration alone.

"I've lost some knowledge, because I don't have to get up to speed on every new country. But I gain time on strategic thinking, I gain peace of mind, and I know everything is compliant." — Kevin Valencia, VP of People, Sweep

New markets, no new headcount

Seven payrolls, plus EOR and contractors, run through a single payroll administrator, as part of a broader HR remit. Opening a country doesn't change that.

"If we open a new entity, or a new country through EOR, I don't have to hire someone else. That person can do it." — Kevin Valencia, VP of People, Sweep

For workers with no Sweep entity behind them, where the realistic alternative was standing up an entity for a single employee, Sweep estimates a 435% return. For direct payroll and PEO, measured against local vendors, the estimate is 69%.

"Payroll is the most important thing in HR. Everything else can be corrected or negotiated. What matters is that someone's salary is in their bank account on the day it's supposed to be." — Kevin Valencia, VP of People, Sweep

What's next

Singapore and potentially Australia are next, on the back of demand across Asia-Pacific. Valencia expects the People team to stay flat as the business grows.

"AI isn't just a new tool, it's a transformative shift, like the cloud was. Deel was one of the first to bring serious AI into a platform like this, and that's a signal for how we should be running our own team." — Kevin Valencia, VP of People, Sweep