Contingency Recruiting: How the Fee Works, in Real Numbers

Contingency recruiting is an agency arrangement where you pay a fee only if you hire a candidate the recruiter introduced. The fee is usually a percentage of the new hire's first-year pay, and your agreement sets when it falls due.

We build Talent Summoner, which searches public profiles and gives you a ranked shortlist so you can run the search yourself. As of 3 October 2026 your first Role is free with no card, then US$29 per Role or US$59 a month for 10 Roles (pricing); the fee math below stands on its own.

If you have no time to contact and interview candidates yourself, an agency may be the right call, and this page shows what it costs. If you can run interviews but struggle to find people, compare the third option in the table.

Contingency vs retained recruiting fees

Reported fee ranges, checked in October 2026. The salary column is our arithmetic on a US$100,000 first-year base salary.

Model	When you pay	Reported fee	On a US$100,000 salary
Contingency recruiting	Only if you hire the agency's candidate	15% to 25% of first-year base salary (AllVoices); 20% to 25% of first-year cash pay (SHRM)	US$15,000 to US$25,000
Retained search	In stages; most of it whether or not you hire	25% to 33% (AllVoices); about 33% (SHRM)	US$25,000 to US$33,000
Talent Summoner (our product)	Nothing for the first Role; then per Role or monthly	First Role free, then US$29 per Role	US$29, plus your own time to contact and interview

Sources: SHRM (article last updated December 2023) and AllVoices, both checked on 3 October 2026.

The rows do not buy the same work. An agency screens, contacts and sells the role to candidates; with a sourcing tool, you do those steps yourself.

How contingency recruiting works

A typical contingency search runs in four steps:

You sign a fee agreement with one or more agencies.
Each agency sends you candidate profiles.
You interview the people you like and make an offer.
If a candidate from that agency accepts, you pay that agency's fee.

Because you can use several agencies at once, each one is racing the others. AllVoices notes this makes contingency faster but less exclusive than retained search, and some agreements add a replacement guarantee if the hire leaves within 90 days.

Contingency fee math on a real salary

The percentage is only half the number. The other half is what the fee is a percentage of.

What the fee is based on	Example pay package (made up)	Fee at 20%
Base salary only	US$100,000 base	US$20,000
First-year cash pay	US$100,000 base + US$15,000 bonus + US$5,000 signing bonus	US$24,000

SHRM describes the fee base as salary, bonus and signing bonus. Before you sign, ask the agency which one it uses; on this made-up package the difference is US$4,000.

Our agency fee break-even calculator runs the same comparison with your own numbers. If you plan to hire in-house instead, our guide to recruiting software total cost of ownership shows what tools cost beyond the licence.

When contingency recruiting is worth the fee

Contingency recruiting earns its fee in a few clear cases:

You need to fill the role fast and have no one free to source, contact and screen.
The agency already knows the candidates in a narrow market you do not.
You hire for the role once, so building your own process may cost more of your time than the fee.
You want to pay nothing unless someone is hired.

Retained search fits a senior or specialist role where you want one firm's full attention. Most of the fee is due whether or not a hire happens.

When contingency recruiting is wrong for you

It is a poor fit when:

You hire for the same kind of role several times a year. One fee of US$20,000 would cover many sourcing searches.
You already have candidates you found yourself. Check the agreement's candidate-ownership clause, so an agency cannot claim a fee for someone you already knew.
The agency sends profiles you could have found in an afternoon. Then you are paying a fee for a search, not for access.

Our comparison of recruitment agency vs direct sourcing covers the trade-off in more depth.

Where Talent Summoner fits

Talent Summoner searches LinkedIn, GitHub and other public sources, over 200 million profiles. It ranks each person with must-haves, nice-to-haves and plain-English reasoning.

You can then send outreach from your own Gmail, Outlook or LinkedIn, and nothing sends until you review it. Your first Role is free and your second is US$4, then US$29 per Role, or US$59 a month for 10 Roles if you hire often.

Trade-offs, stated plainly: no paid InMail, no always-on pipeline and no ATS integration today. It does not screen, interview or close candidates for you, which is the work an agency's fee pays for.

We checked these facts on 3 October 2026 and re-check them every quarter.

What is contingency recruiting?

Contingency recruiting is an agency arrangement where the employer pays a fee only if it hires a candidate the recruiter introduced. The fee is usually a percentage of the new hire's first-year pay.

How much do contingency recruiters charge?

Contingency recruiters' fees are reported at 15% to 25% of first-year base salary by AllVoices and 20% to 25% of first-year cash pay by SHRM. On a US$100,000 salary, that is US$15,000 to US$25,000.

What is the difference between retained and contingency search?

In retained search you pay the firm in stages, and most of the fee is due whether or not you hire, usually for exclusive work on a senior role. In contingency search you pay only when you hire the agency's candidate, and several agencies may work the same role.

What does contingency hiring mean?

Contingency hiring means filling a role through a recruiter who is paid only on a successful hire. It is a different idea from hiring contingent workers, who are temporary or contract staff.

Ask every agency what its fee is based on, and run one sourcing search before you sign.