At the heart of the debate surrounding how to pay remote workers lies the issue of fairness – what’s the best way to pay your team members, when they live in different locations with different costs of living? While we’d love to let you know which model is the most fair, the bad news is that no one strategy is more fair than another. Every strategy has its pros and cons, and each one will be unfair in its own way. Kevin Kirkpatrick, former CEO of the world’s largest remote job board We Work Remotely, says, “One of the common misconceptions is that it’s a one-size-fits-all world when it comes to compensation strategies. Even if we have the same business or compensation model [as another company], we don’t have the same company.”

Which model you choose to adopt will depend on your company’s values and culture, what you can afford, and what will make you competitive and attractive as an employer.