# Deel vs Factorial

> Deel scores 69.1 (B) on agent readiness against Factorial's 66.3 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Factorial leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do hr employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-factorial
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-factorial.md (~2,050 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-factorial.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-factorial.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Deel scores 69.1 (B) on agent readiness against Factorial's 66.3 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Factorial leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do hr employees.

- Deel: grade B, 69.1/100, rank #168 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deel.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deel.json
- Factorial: grade B, 66.3/100, rank #239 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/factorial.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/factorial.json

## Which one, for what

### Deel (B)

Good for: A company that already runs HR, contractors, EOR or payroll on Deel and wants an agent to read the directory, update personal information, file and review time off, follow onboarding and fetch compliance documents.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 77
- Agent ergonomics, 65 against 58
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 10

Watch for: 5 requests a second shared by every token in an organisation, with no rate limit headers on REST responses per the rate limits page

### Factorial (B)

Good for: An agent working for a company that already runs Factorial and needs employee records, leave requests with approval, attendance clock-ins, recruiting or expenses through one API.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 70
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 69

Watch for: An API key grants every scope, cannot be narrowed and does not expire


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Deel | Factorial | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 88 | 88 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 77 | Deel +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 58 | Deel +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 65 | Factorial +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 10 | Deel +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 84 | Factorial +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 78 | Factorial +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.1 · B** | **66.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Deel | Factorial |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Deel, Inc. | Everyday Software, S.L. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.letsdeel.com/rest` | `https://api.factorialhr.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Deel's platform terms. The Deel CLI on GitHub is MIT | Proprietary service under Factorial's terms and conditions. The TypeScript and Python SDKs are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 86 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-01-01 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 17 npm/wk | 7 stars, 1.4k npm/wk, 1.1k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Deel.** The API has 506 operations in public OpenAPI 3.1 specs, about 90 read and write OAuth scopes, a sandbox and a dated versioning policy with one year of deprecation notice. The limit is 5 requests a second for a whole organisation, and the legal documents load only with JavaScript, so data handling terms weren't read.

**Factorial.** A public OpenAPI 3.1 definition covers 615 operations, including leave approval and employee termination, and OAuth apps can be limited to 33 scopes. API keys always grant every scope and never expire. No idempotency keys exist, and a request to an expired API version is answered in an older schema with no error.

## Before you call either

### Deel

1. Queue calls to stay under 5 requests a second for the whole organisation. Other integrations on the same account share the limit
2. Send `X-Version: 2026-01-01` on REST calls, and watch `X-State`, `Deprecation` and `Sunset` response headers
3. Send a UUID `Idempotency-Key` on POST and PATCH. Only retry a 5xx on a write when the request carried one
4. Test against https://api-staging.letsdeel.com/rest with a sandbox token. Production and sandbox tokens aren't interchangeable
5. Request read scopes only (people:read, time-off:read) for a read-only agent. Rejecting a time-off request is irreversible

### Factorial

1. Send an API key in `x-api-key` and an OAuth token in `Authorization: Bearer`. The key is JWT-formatted but is rejected as a bearer token
2. Pin the version in the path, such as `/api/2026-10-01/resources/...`, and migrate within a year. Expired versions answer in an older schema without an error
3. Treat a 200 with an empty body as a credential from the other environment. Production is `api.factorialhr.com` and demo is `api.eu2.demo.factorial.dev`
4. Page with `limit=100` and pass `meta.end_cursor` as `after_id`. A larger limit is capped at 100
5. Check whether a record exists before retrying a create. Retry only 429 and 5xx with backoff, and branch on `code` for 422 because messages are localised

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Deel or Factorial?

Deel scores 69.1 (B) on agent readiness against Factorial's 66.3 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Factorial leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do Deel and Factorial need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Deel and Factorial without installing anything?

Yes. Deel has a hosted endpoint at https://api.letsdeel.com/rest and Factorial at https://api.factorialhr.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-factorial.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-factorial.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "deel", "b": "factorial"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare deel factorial`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deel.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/factorial.json

## Other comparisons with Deel or Factorial

- [BambooHR vs Deel](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-deel.md)
- [BambooHR vs Factorial](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-factorial.md)
- [Deel vs HiBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-hibob.md)
- [Deel vs Humaans](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-humaans.md)
- [Deel vs Rippling](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-rippling.md)
- [Deel vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-zoho-people.md)
- [Factorial vs HiBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-hibob.md)
- [Factorial vs Humaans](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-humaans.md)
- [Factorial vs Rippling](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-rippling.md)
- [Factorial vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-zoho-people.md)