Hofy (Now Deel IT) vs Firstbase: $49 per User a Month or $27,500 a Year for 100 Users

Anyone searching hofy vs firstbase is choosing between two platforms with two pricing models and, in one case, two names. Hofy was acquired by Deel in July 2024, and the product took the Deel IT name that September. Firstbase has belonged to AppDirect since December 2024.

For years neither vendor showed a price. That has changed. Deel's pricing page lists three Deel IT bundles from $49 to $149 per user a month, read in September 2026. Firstbase sells a $27,500 Starter Edition on AWS Marketplace, and that same listing says the company serves "40+ countries", while its website claims 150+.

The Deel IT rating comes from the old hofy.com profile, because its G2 page mixes in reviews of Deel payroll. Both ratings were read on 30 September 2026, and the newest Trustpilot review is from October 2025.

Who Is Deel IT Best For?

Deel IT claims coverage in 130+ countries and sits inside a payroll company with more than 40,000 customers. That parent is the reason to choose it. Three kinds of team get the most from it.

• Teams that already pay Deel for payroll, EOR or contractors: equipment becomes one more tab in an account they already use, with one supplier for contracts, payslips and laptops.
• Teams that want security software from the same supplier: every managed bundle includes MDM and endpoint protection, so a company without its own MDM gets one with the laptops.
• Teams that would rather rent than buy: Deel's help centre lists rentals of 12 or 24 months, extendable to 48, with free return at the end.

The fit gets weaker when the hiring map runs past Deel's strongest regions. A sysadmin who asked Deel IT for a quote for the Philippines found it too expensive for what was offered (a January 2026 Reddit comment). Price is also the most repeated complaint in the Deel IT reviews we collected.

For Whom Is Firstbase Useful?

Firstbase holds 4.7 out of 5 from 51 G2 reviews as of September 2026, the strongest public score of the two. Its own support documentation splits the world in two: owned warehouses in the US, UK, EU and Canada, and partners everywhere else. Three buyers fit it best.

• Companies whose staff sit mostly in those four regions: that is where Firstbase stores devices itself, accepts customer-owned hardware and offers custom imaging.
• Finance teams that want to lease: Firstbase sells devices outright, on lease terms of 24 to 36 months, or manages hardware you supply.
• Companies that already buy software through AppDirect: US marketplace customers can buy Firstbase-fulfilled hardware next to their software.

The limit shows up as a company grows into new countries. An IT support engineer at a mid-market firm wrote that "as we grow in new markets, Firstbase isn't always available yet - we occasionally have use cases where Firstbase simply isn't an option" (a February 2024 G2 review). Requests for more countries recur across Firstbase reviews from 2024 and 2025.

Tequipy: An Alternative

If neither profile describes your team, there is a third route. Tequipy buys each laptop from an authorized reseller in the employee's country and handles the rest of its life from one platform.

• Recommended retail price, delivery included: an $1,800 MacBook costs $1,800, checked against the local Apple Store.
• 180+ countries through 600+ resellers: no device crosses a border, so customs and duties drop out.
• No contract and no minimum: one laptop is a valid first order.
• Services that run on hardware from Deel IT or Firstbase: retrieval, storage, redeployment and sellback all work on devices you already own.

Deel IT figures come from Deel's pricing page and Firstbase figures from its AWS Marketplace listing, both read in September 2026. Every Tequipy rate is on the Tequipy pricing page.

A 100-person team pays Deel IT $58,800 a year, Firstbase $27,500 and Tequipy $2,856. Deel IT charges $49 per user a month (September 2026), so every new hire adds $588 a year, and its price includes MDM and endpoint protection. Firstbase's Starter Edition covers 100 users for a year, with prepaid actions. Tequipy's platform fee never grows with headcount, $99 a month flat and nothing for up to 100 devices, with services charged per use. HRIS sync is an optional $199 a month, and hardware is extra on all three. Enter what you pay today and see for yourself.

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Price

Both vendors now publish a list price, but one sells seats and the other sells a block of users plus prepaid work. Until 2026, a buyer had to piece together Firstbase pricing from buyer reports, because the website shows only a quote form.

Deel IT Pricing

• Three bundles: Starter is $49 per user a month for the platform, lifecycle management, MDM and endpoint protection. Growth at $139 adds 24/7 IT support, and Scale at $149 adds access management.
• A free ordering plan: Essentials has no fee and no contract, terms Tequipy also offers, but it covers ordering and asset tracking only, paid upfront by card.
• Hardware sits on top: laptops start from the American list price, then Deel adds a store fee, according to its help centre. A former customer recalls Hofy being "too expensive (used to lay 25% on top of market prices)" (a February 2026 Reddit comment), and Deel's own account replied in that thread that the "price delta vs direct suppliers is a fair callout too" (Deel's reply).

Firstbase Pricing

• The public list price: the AWS Marketplace Starter Edition costs $27,500 for 12 months for 100 users and a committed pool of actions, with extra actions at $1 each. The listing adds: "All payments are non-refundable".
• The website still asks for a quote: the homepage says Firstbase charges one subscription per active seat, but no seat price is published. A G2 reviewer at an enterprise software company describes the result: "it charges based on tiers of hundreds of active users, but I would much rather see a per-seat pricing structure" (December 2025 G2 review).
• A third-party median: Vendr reports that the median buyer pays $62,500 a year, from 51 recorded purchases. That is an estimate, not a Firstbase price.
• A free US edition: AppDirect marketplace customers in the US can manage up to 50 employees free, a platform price Tequipy also offers below 100 devices, but that edition has no returns, services or integrations.

Verdict on Price

At 100 people, Firstbase is the cheaper list price: $27,500 against $58,800 for Deel IT Starter. Deel IT's figure includes security software that Firstbase leaves to your own MDM, so subtract what you pay for MDM before you compare. Buyers still question Firstbase's structure. A Firstbase customer of three years or more told us: "The platform fee is a little ridiculous."

Pro tip: name three countries in the quote request, not one. Pick your largest country, your newest, and one outside the US, UK, EU and Canada. Ask each vendor three things for that third country: is the device bought locally or shipped in, which services run there (repairs, returns of monitors, custom imaging), and how many business days a delivery takes. Firstbase's own support pages already list reduced services outside its core regions, so a written answer costs them nothing.

Ease of Use

Both platforms run a self-service catalogue. The difference sits in what happens when an order goes wrong.

Deel IT Ease of Use

• One login across HR and IT: for a team already inside Deel, ordering a laptop happens in the same place as approving a contract.
• Edge cases still need hands: an IT onboarding engineer reports that unusual joiners and other exceptions still fall back to manual work (a February 2026 G2 review, organic).
• Policies arrive from the centre: an end user at a large software company says device updates restarted his laptop during work, and he could not delay them (an incentivized August 2026 G2 review).

Firstbase Ease of Use

• Day-to-day work is simple: one reviewer says Firstbase "makes the whole remote equipment process feel simple" (a December 2025 G2 review).
• Mistakes go through support: another admin writes, "if I make a mistake, I have to email Support to cancel the order" (a December 2025 G2 review). Firstbase released inventory-level views and return cancellations in 2026, so check whether this still applies.

Verdict on Ease of Use

Firstbase is easier for an IT admin who orders often. Deel IT is easier for an HR team that already lives in Deel and rarely orders.

Customer Support

Support is where the two review records split most clearly.

Deel IT Support

• Pickups have gone wrong: a reviewer on Hofy's Trustpilot page wrote that the team "scheduled a DHL pickup at the wrong time/ date and had me waiting for hours in vain" (an April 2023 Trustpilot review).
• Current customers raise responsiveness in private: a current Deel IT customer told us "they haven't been as responsive as we would like".
• The paid support tier is a separate bundle: round-the-clock IT support starts at the $139 Growth plan, not at Starter.

Firstbase Support

• Support is the most praised theme: account contacts who follow up come up more often than any other topic in Firstbase's G2 reviews and in its Capterra reviews, where one of the ten reviews is about a different company with the same name.
• Leavers are handled for you: an IT support lead writes that "FirstBase acts as an effective intermediary between the company and the departing user, which is particularly helpful in challenging situations" (a December 2025 G2 review).
• The process does not bend: the only review below four stars, 0.5 out of 5, comes from a manager who kept a usable box and still had to wait for a new one: "I travel a ton, so I had to wait for a new empty box and trash the existing" (an August 2026 G2 review).

Verdict on Support

Firstbase wins on support, and its review record shows it. Deel IT's support improves only if you pay for the higher bundle.

At Tequipy, every customer gets a Slack channel with the team inside it, on every account and with no support tier. RemoFirst, which has worked with Tequipy for more than two years across 30 countries, describes the result in its case study.

Integrations

A connector to your HR system is what lets a start date trigger a laptop order without anyone typing it in.

Deel IT Integrations

• The suite is the integration: EOR, payroll and contractor records already sit in Deel, so hires and leavers reach Deel IT without a connector.
• Security modules are part of the deal: MDM, endpoint protection and access management are sold inside the bundles. One owner scored Deel IT 0 out of 5 after finding "active devices running no endpoint protection" and "no alerting for non-reporting devices" (an organic June 2026 G2 review).

Firstbase Integrations

• More than 20 connectors: Workday, BambooHR, HiBob, Okta, Jamf and Intune among them, with a public API and webhooks.
• IT service desks are the gap: one reviewer would "like to see more official integrations with things like ITSMs" (a June 2025 G2 review), and another says "Their API could use some improvements, but the product team is extremely open to feedback" (a December 2025 G2 review).

Verdict on Integrations

Deel IT wins if your HR runs on Deel. Firstbase offers the longer connector list for everyone else. For $199 a month Tequipy reads new joiners and leavers straight from HiBob, BambooHR or Workday. Any other HR tool can use the REST API. Before dispatch, the team adds each Mac to your Apple Business Manager account and each Windows laptop to Autopilot. That is how zero-touch deployment reaches Jamf, Intune, Kandji or JumpCloud alike.

Buy, Rent or Lease: Who Owns the Laptop

Both vendors sell a way to use a laptop without buying it. For some finance teams, that is the whole decision.

Deel IT Ownership Options

• Purchase is the default: the store fee on each device also pays for a 12-month manufacturer warranty.
• Rentals of 12 or 24 months: Deel's help centre lists terms extendable up to 48 months, with free return at the end and a monthly price set after a credit check. Deel's leasing FAQ says renting is currently the only option, so there is no buy-out.
• Switching takes work: a small-business reviewer warns that "Once everything runs through Deel IT, switching providers or bringing processes fully in-house later can require some unwinding" (an incentivized February 2026 G2 review).

Firstbase Ownership Options

• Three routes: buy outright, lease on 24 to 36 month terms, or supply your own devices for Firstbase to manage.
• Your own devices, in four regions only: partner warehouses in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa do not accept customer-supplied hardware, according to Firstbase's support documentation.

Verdict on Ownership

If your CFO wants laptops off the balance sheet, Firstbase's lease is the cleaner answer of the two. Over a full term, a lease normally adds up to more than the purchase price, so put both numbers side by side. Tequipy does not lease or finance hardware at all. The customer owns each laptop from the day it arrives. The one form of payment flexibility is a $5,000 credit line, paid seven days after delivery.

Countries Each Vendor Serves

Coverage claims are where both vendors' marketing runs ahead of their own documents.

Deel IT Coverage

• 130+ countries claimed: Deel also reports 99% on-time delivery and 96% device recovery, both its own figures with no published method.
• Buyers describe the edges: one team that evaluated Deel IT told us it had "no warehouse in Germany, can't ship from EU to UK, unreliable promises", and another said it "Doesn't cover Armenia."

Firstbase Coverage

• Three numbers in its own materials: 150+ countries on the website, 40+ on its AWS listing, and local invoicing only in the US, UK, EU and Canada.
• Two service tiers: outside those four regions, partners offer zero-touch setup only, repair only Firstbase-supplied or warranty devices, and take back laptops and docks but not monitors or phones.
• Latin America is a named gap: "I wish they could handle more countries in the LATAM region" (a December 2025 G2 review).

Verdict on Coverage

Firstbase is the stronger choice inside its four core regions. Deel IT's 130+ claim comes with no country list, so ask for one. Returns matter as much as deliveries here: Capterra's 2022 survey of 287 HR workers found that 71% had at least one leaver keep company equipment. Tequipy buys and collects inside 180+ countries through local partners, and its global laptop procurement delivers in three business days on average, ten at most.

How to Choose a Device Lifecycle Platform

Three questions separate these two vendors faster than a feature grid.

Start From the Systems You Already Pay For

The strongest reason to pick Deel IT is a Deel payroll contract. The strongest reason to pick Firstbase is an AppDirect relationship or a lease budget. If you have neither, those advantages do not apply to you, and you are paying for an ecosystem you do not use. Tequipy fits next to the HR system and MDM you already run, without replacing either.

Test the Security Layer Before You Pay for It

A new IT or security lead often asks first who controls the device on day one. Deel IT sells its own MDM inside the bundle, and the 0 out of 5 review above shows what happens when coverage is not checked. Firstbase registers devices so they enrol into your own MDM. Tequipy enrols every device through Apple Business Manager or Windows Autopilot into your existing MDM, holds ISO 27001, keeps a chain of custody for each device, and wipes returned laptops with Blancco software when you need a certificate.

Ask Which Services Run in Your Hardest Country

A delivery promise in Berlin says little about Bogotá. Ask both vendors for the list of services they run in your most difficult country, and ask for it in writing. Booksy picked its hardest region, Latin America, for its first test of Tequipy and then expanded, as the Booksy case study describes.

Alternative to Both: Tequipy

As Head of IT at Revolut, Tequipy's co-founder scaled IT operations from 100 people in two offices to 5,000 in 17, and every laptop stayed accounted for. Tequipy turned that playbook into a service for companies hiring across borders.

Key Features

Three features answer the gaps this comparison found.

Bought in the Employee's Own Country

A laptop for a hire in the Philippines comes from a reseller in the Philippines, one of 600+ partners in the network. Because the device never leaves the country, customs and import duty play no part. The average delivery takes three business days, the slowest ten, and a late one earns a discount on the laptop. Booksy's case study reports 99% of devices delivered before the employee's start date.

Lifecycle Services on Laptops From Any Vendor

Offboarding, storage, redeployment and sellback all work on hardware bought elsewhere, including laptops from Deel IT or Firstbase. A team can hand Tequipy the leavers in one country while its current contract runs, then decide at renewal. Our laptop retrieval service collects from the employee's home, wipes the device and stores it in that country.

Every Standard Rate Published

There is no seat count and no prepaid pool of actions. Tequipy earns mainly on hardware, bought below retail through its resellers, and second on per-use services, not from a markup on your invoice. Manual pre-configuration, certified wiping and repairs are quoted case by case.

Tequipy Pricing

Where Tequipy Shines

• Retail price everywhere: the price on the platform is the most you pay, with delivery and enrolment included.
• Coverage in the countries other vendors leave out: the Philippines, Colombia, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan are covered, and Tequipy has delivered into Ukraine during the war.
• A first order with no commitment: one laptop in one country is a complete first order, with every standard service rate already public.

Where Tequipy Falls Short

• No leasing or financing: Tequipy sells hardware outright only, so a finance team that wants devices off the balance sheet is not served.
• No SOC 2 report yet: Tequipy holds ISO 27001 and shares penetration test reports, and the SOC 2 audit is in progress. Ask the team where it stands before you send a security questionnaire.
• A small public review base: four G2 reviews is a thin sample. Ask for reference customers in your own regions.

Tequipy Customer Reviews

Tequipy holds 4.9 out of 5 from four G2 reviews as of October 2026. A mid-market reviewer writes: "I find Tequipy's platform extremely intuitive and simple" (an August 2026 G2 review). Lera Lykholiet, People Operations Specialist at RemoFirst, says the team does not "have to worry about device logistics at all" since it handed deliveries, repairs and retrievals in 30 countries to Tequipy, in the RemoFirst case study.

Who Tequipy Is Best For

• Globally distributed teams: whether you hire in three countries, fifteen or more, the prices and delivery times stay the same.
• Teams about to hire abroad for the first time: the first employee in a country with no entity and no supplier is where an office process breaks.
• Teams with a Deel IT or Firstbase renewal coming: a buyer told us that with Deel and similar vendors "it's a subscription, and they want to try and get everybody on the subscription." A test order before that date gives you a real invoice to compare.

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Does Deel IT or Firstbase Have a Free Plan?

Yes, both do, with limits. Deel IT Essentials has no fee and no contract, terms Tequipy also offers, but it covers ordering and asset tracking only, with no MDM or lifecycle services. Firstbase's free edition is for US companies on the AppDirect marketplace, up to 50 employees, with no returns or services.

What Is the Smallest Contract Each Vendor Publishes?

Firstbase's smallest public contract is the $27,500 Starter Edition on AWS Marketplace, 12 months, non-refundable. Deel IT's bundles start at $49 per user a month, and its help centre says the Pro plan requires a signed order form. Tequipy needs no contract at all, and a single order is enough to start.

How Many Countries Do Deel IT and Firstbase Really Cover?

Deel IT claims 130+ countries and does not publish a country list. Firstbase says 150+ on its website and 40+ on its AWS listing, with full services only in the US, UK, EU and Canada. Ask both for the services they run in your specific countries.

Who Owns Deel IT and Firstbase in 2026?

Deel owns Deel IT, after buying Hofy in July 2024, and in 2026 it added Sastrify, a SaaS procurement company, and Clarity, an identity security company, to feed Deel IT. AppDirect has owned Firstbase since the December 2024 acquisition.

Can Another Provider Handle Laptops Bought Through Either One?

Yes. Tequipy's offboarding, storage, redeployment and sellback all work on devices bought from Deel IT, Firstbase or anyone else. You can upload existing devices in a CSV file and use IT asset lifecycle management in one country first, while your current contract runs.