Payroll
Stablecoin payroll orchestration
Fund one run in USDC. Every worker takes it the way they asked to be paid — USDC in seconds, or their local bank rail same day. You approve one number and one set of fees.
One dollar, two forms. Moving between them is 1:1.
USDC is dollar-denominated, and on Glide a USDC balance and a US dollar balance are two views of the same money. Moving between them is a one-to-one exchange of units — there is no currency pair, so no FX rate and no spread applies. A payroll run funded with 50,000 USDC pays out 50,000 dollars of obligations, whichever rail each worker chose.
What can cost money is the rail, not the parity. Turning on-chain USDC into a bank-settled dollar means a partner has to move it over ACH, SEPA, Faster Payments, PIX or wire, and that fee is published per rail and quoted with the run before you approve it. It is why the same funding event can land as USDC for a contractor in Buenos Aires and as a same-day euro payment for an employee in Lisbon, and why both of them are paid the number on their contract.
- ✓No FX rate applies between USDC and USD — they are the same unit of account
- ✓The amount you approve is the amount the worker is owed, on every rail
- ✓Rail fees are published per rail and itemised per worker before you execute
- ✓Workers can hold the USDC, convert it, or spend it from a card without a round-trip
Glide is a financial technology company. Payment execution, currency conversion and custody of fiat balances are performed by licensed partner fintechs and banks. Stablecoin balances are not bank deposits and are not deposit-insured.
How a run works
Create contracts for your team
Add workers individually or import a CSV. Templates cover US contractors, EU employees and LATAM teams. Set rate, frequency and dates once.
Each worker picks how they are paid
Every worker gets an invitation, opens an account, accepts the contract and chooses their settlement rail: USDC on a supported chain, or their local bank. They can change it later without telling you.
Fund once. Glide routes the rest
Generate the run from active contracts, review the per-worker fee breakdown, and execute. One USDC funding event fans out across every rail your team chose — seconds on-chain, same day to three days on fiat.
Why orchestration beats a payout API
One funding event, many rails
You hold and approve in one currency. Glide handles USDC, ACH, SEPA, Faster Payments, PIX and wire underneath, per worker, in the same run.
No banking delays on the crypto leg
USDC settles in seconds, at any hour, on any day. Fiat legs settle same day on SEPA and Faster Payments — against three to five days for a traditional payroll cycle.
The fee is visible before you execute
Per-worker cost is itemised on the preview screen, by rail. Transfer fees are published per rail and quoted with the transfer, before you confirm it. No FX markup buried in the rate, no per-employee monthly seat.
Vendor failover, not stuck payments
If a payment partner is down, the run routes through an alternative rather than halting. Payments that cannot route surface as a named failure, not a silence.
Approvals that match your controls
Large runs can require sign-off, and treasury behind an M-of-N vault still pays on the first of the month — the run creates a proposal instead of a broadcast.
Off-cycle without a special case
Bonuses, corrections and urgent one-offs use the same path as the scheduled run, with the same receipts.
Both sides of the run
For the company
- ·Contract management: fixed rate, hourly, or milestone
- ·Automated schedules — weekly, biweekly, monthly
- ·One-click run generated from active contracts
- ·Per-worker fee breakdown before you execute
- ·Cost analytics by country, by rail, by team
- ·Approval workflows on large runs
- ·Off-cycle payments for urgent needs
For the worker
- ·Choose USDC, a local bank rail, or a split of both
- ·Rail suggested from their country, changeable any time
- ·A receipt for every payroll run
- ·A full account behind it: cards, conversion, spending view
- ·One account across every employer paying them through Glide
What each rail costs
| Rail | Fee per payment | Settlement |
|---|---|---|
| USDC (Solana) | Free | Seconds |
| USDC (Base, Ethereum, Polygon) | $0.50 | Seconds |
| ACH (United States) | $1.00 | 1–2 days |
| SEPA (Euro area) | Free | Same day |
| Faster Payments (United Kingdom) | Free | Same day |
| PIX (Brazil) | $0.50 | Instant |
| Wire (international) | $25.00 | 2–3 days |
Fees are charged per payment, not per worker per month. Network gas on the USDC legs is sponsored where gas sponsorship is enabled. The full schedule, including card and conversion lines, is on the pricing page.
What it costs at your headcount
Payroll tools price one of two ways: a seat per employee per month, or a fee per payment. Glide charges neither — you pay the rail. Put your own numbers in.
That is $280/month less than a per-employee seat at this headcount.
Illustrative, not a quote. The Glide column assumes a blended $1.00 per worker per run, which is the ACH end of the table above; teams paying in USDC pay less and teams paying by international wire pay more. The comparison columns are the two pricing shapes the market sells — a $29 per-employee monthly seat and a $2.50 per-payment fee — not the current list price of any named provider. Check the provider you are comparing against before you rely on the difference.
Run your first payroll this week
Set up a contract in a couple of minutes. Workers onboard themselves and pick their own rail.