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Contractors are independent workers. They set their own hours, use their own tools, and typically work for multiple clients. This guide covers hiring and paying contractors through Shor.

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Before You Start

Have the following ready:
  • The contractor’s full legal name and email
  • The scope of work and rate you’ve agreed on
  • Your preferred payment cadence (per invoice, milestone, monthly retainer, etc.)
You don’t need the contractor’s country, tax ID, or bank details. They provide those themselves when they accept your invite.

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Adding a Contractor

1

Start

From Talent → People, click Add person. Pick or invite the contractor by email, then choose Contractor and the contract type:
  • Fixed Rate: set scope, set price, typically a project or retainer
  • Milestone: paid when deliverables are accepted
  • Pay-As-You-Go: paid by the hour against submitted timesheets
  • Creator: a recurring retainer, paid content deliverables, or both (see Creator Contracts)
2

Agreement

Define the project:
  • Project name: what you’re hiring them for
  • Department: which team the work sits under
  • Start date: when the engagement begins. For Fixed Rate and Pay-As-You-Go contractors, you can set a date earlier in the current month if work already started; Shor will hold a separate payment for review for each pay period that’s already passed
  • Milestones (Milestone contracts only): titles, deliverables, and amounts
Add any custom clauses on top of Shor’s localized template.
3

Compensation

Enter the rate and currency for the contract type you chose:
  • Pay-As-You-Go: hourly rate, paid against approved timesheets
  • Fixed Rate: the recurring retainer amount
  • Milestone: individual milestone amounts (set in the Agreement step)
For Pay-As-You-Go contracts, pick weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Fixed Rate also offers Daily: one payout every calendar day, including weekends.
4

Summary

Review everything, eyeball the contract Shor generates, and click Send for signature.

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Creator Contracts

Choose Creator for a content engagement with a retainer, paid deliverables, or both.
  1. On Scope of Work, set the contract-wide rights first: exclusivity, intellectual property ownership, and usage. Ownership defaults to Assigned to the business; you can instead choose Creator keeps ownership and describe the agreed usage. These rights apply across the engagement, not separately to each deliverable.
  2. Add any deliverables with their platform, format, brief, and optional due date. Prices are entered on the payment step.
  3. On the payment step, choose the currency, price each deliverable, and add a retainer and payment frequency if needed. With at least one paid deliverable, leave the retainer blank or enter 0 for deliverables-only work. For retainer-only work, leave the deliverable list empty. You must have at least one of the two.
  4. Review the creator agreement before sending it. The deliverable schedule and rights are included in its Statement of Work.
Retainer payments follow the recurring schedule. Deliverables use the milestone review and payment flow. If you upload your own agreement, make sure its payment terms match the fields you enter in Shor. Shor uses those fields to calculate payments; it does not read payment instructions from your PDF.
Creator contracts cannot currently be amended in Shor. Review the rights, retainer, and deliverable prices before sending.

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What the Contractor Does Next

Once you send the contract, your contractor receives an email to:
  1. Create a Shor account
  2. Pick whether they’re signing as an individual or through a business entity (this affects the contract template and which US tax form applies)
  3. Complete identity verification: a single secure session that collects their government ID, selfie, residential address, and phone number. Country of residence comes from the ID’s nationality.
  4. Sign the contract, including the correct US tax form (W-9, W-8BEN, or W-8BEN-E) if required for your engagement
  5. Optionally link a bank account for withdrawals. Each payment lands in their Shor account within minutes, and they can withdraw to their own bank when they want
You’ll see their progress on the worker’s profile in real time.

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Paying Contractors

Depending on the contract type:
Payments are auto-generated on the schedule you set and appear on the Payroll page as upcoming. Process them manually, or enable auto-pay so they process on the due date without you clicking in.

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Contractor Classification

Misclassifying a worker as a contractor when they should be an employee can create serious tax and legal liability, especially in countries with strong worker-protection laws.
If you’re unsure whether to hire as a contractor or employee, reach out to support@shorpay.com before sending the contract. Our team can walk through the engagement and recommend the right classification based on the country and scope.

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Tax Forms

For US tax reporting:
  • W-9: collected from US persons (citizens, residents, US entities)
  • W-8BEN: collected from foreign individuals
  • W-8BEN-E: collected from foreign entities
Shor collects the right form at contractor onboarding and stores it on the worker’s profile.

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Next Steps

Contracts & Compensation

Deeper look at every compensation type.

Milestones

Set up and manage milestone-based work.