# Plane

> Plane (formerly Pilot) is a San Francisco-based global payroll, HR, and compliance platform that lets fast-growing companies pay U.S. employees, international employees, and contractors from a single system. Founded in 2017 out of Y Combinator's Winter 2017 batch, Plane runs domestic payroll, hires people abroad through employer-of-record services, and pays contractors in 240+ countries and 130+ currencies - pitching itself as the easiest-to-set-up multi-country payroll tool, with an unusual approach of charging foreign-exchange fees at cost rather than marking them up.

- **Founded:** 2017
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founders:** Matt Drozdzynski (Co-founder & CEO), Staszek Kolarzowski (Co-founder), Matt Pelc (Co-founder)
- **Team size:** Approximately 30-82 employees (sources vary; company describes a deliberately lean operations team of roughly 6-7 people)
- **Products:** Global Payroll, Contractor Payments, Employer of Record (EOR), Benefits & Expense Management, Compliance & Onboarding Automation
- **Notable:** Went through Y Combinator (Winter 2017 batch)., Pivoted from a vetted-developer marketplace (Pilot) into a global payroll and compliance platform., Enabled contractor payments in 240+ countries and employee payroll in 100+ countries.

## Products & services

- **Global Payroll** — Run US employees, international employees, and contractors in a single payroll run, with automated tax filings and multi-currency payments.
- **Contractor Payments** — Hire, onboard, and pay contractors in 240+ countries using 138 currencies, with local payments in 78 countries and no fees to send or receive; deposits go straight to bank accounts, no e-wallet required.
- **Employer of Record (EOR)** — Legally employ full-time workers in 100+ countries without setting up a local entity; Plane handles contracts, compliance, and local law.
- **Benefits & Expense Management** — Administer employee benefits and manage expenses alongside payroll within the same platform.
- **Compliance & Onboarding Automation** — Local contract templates, automated tax filings, worker classification, and multi-level permissions to keep companies compliant across jurisdictions.
- **AI Assistant & Open Platform** — AI-powered support answers payroll and HR questions, runs reports, and handles routine back-office tasks; an open API, MCP, and CLI connect payroll to external agents and tools.

## Achievements

- Went through Y Combinator (Winter 2017 batch).
- Pivoted from a vetted-developer marketplace (Pilot) into a global payroll and compliance platform.
- Enabled contractor payments in 240+ countries and employee payroll in 100+ countries.
- Rebranded from Pilot to Plane in 2026 to resolve long-standing name confusion.
- Reported helping 1,000+ startups scale their people operations.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Announced its rebrand from Pilot to Plane, moving to plane.com with pilot.co domains redirecting automatically.
- **2026-05** — Held a live launch event unveiling the all-in-one people platform for paying US and international employees and contractors.
- **2026-01** — Positioned an open platform with API, MCP, and CLI plus an AI assistant to automate payroll, HR, and compliance busywork.

## Links

- Website: https://plane.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/planehr
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/pilotcreative

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/plane
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-03