How Much Do Staffing Agencies Charge?

Staffing agencies charge one of four ways. A one-time fee based on the salary. A monthly fee separate from the salary. A marked-up hourly rate. Or a platform fee.

In the United States, a direct hire placement fee typically runs 15% to 25% of the hire’s first-year salary. Contract and temporary staffing carries a markup on the worker’s pay rate, commonly 25% to 65% depending on the role. Offshore staffing providers usually charge either a monthly fee or a blended hourly rate.

Now, two agencies can quote you the same number and run completely different businesses underneath it. The better question is not how much an agency charges. It is how they charge, and what you can see when they do.

The four ways staffing agencies charge

1. Placement fee, a percentage of first-year salary

You pay once. The agency finds the person, you hire them directly, and you pay a percentage of what you agreed to pay them in year one. After that, the relationship typically ends.

You see the salary because you set it. You see the fee because it is a separate invoice. This is the most visible of the four models.

The trade-off is that the agency’s job finishes at the start date. If the hire quits in month four, most guarantees have already expired.

2. Monthly fee, separate from the salary

You pay the worker’s salary, and you pay the agency a recurring fee on top. The two numbers are listed separately.

You can see both. You know what the person earns, and you know what the agency earns. The fee usually buys ongoing support: payroll coordination, HR, coaching, and replacement coverage that runs the length of the engagement rather than a fixed window.

The trade-off is that it’s ongoing. Over three years, a monthly fee costs more than a one-time placement fee. Whether that is worth it depends on what the fee actually buys, which we get to below.

3. Marked-up hourly or bill rate

You pay one hourly number. The agency pays the worker a lower number and keeps the difference.

This is the most common model in traditional staffing, and it is the one buyers understand least. You are quoted a bill rate, the worker receives a pay rate, and the agency doesn’t tell you either what the gap is or what the worker gets.

The trade-off is simplicity for visibility. One invoice, one number, no line items. You cannot tell whether the agency keeps ten percent or sixty.

4. Marketplace or platform fee

You hire through a platform. The platform takes a cut of every payment, or charges a subscription, or both. Rates are set by the worker, and you manage everything else.

The fee is small and visible. There is no vetting, no onboarding, no payroll help, and no one to call. You are the recruiter, the HR department, and the manager.

The comparison

If you want to compare plans against actual role rates, our pricing page and our offshore staffing cost guide break both down.

What a fee covers

A fee is not just for finding talent. In a well-run engagement it covers most of what an internal HR function would do.

Recruiting and vetting

Sourcing, screening, interviewing, reference checks, background checks, and skills assessment. This is the largest single cost in most models.

Onboarding and payroll coordination

Contracts, documentation, first-day setup, and getting the person paid correctly and on time in a different country and currency.

Compliance

Local employment law, statutory filings, and the paperwork that goes with employing someone abroad.

Ongoing support and replacement coverage

Coaching, HR support when something goes wrong in the person’s life, and a replacement if the hire does not work out. The length of that coverage varies enormously between providers, and it is worth pinning down in writing.

What usually falls outside a fee

Equipment. Software licenses. Paid skills assessments during hiring. Rate increases when the person is promoted. Overtime, holiday premiums, and night differential. Any of these can be included or excluded, and providers rarely volunteer the answer.

For more on what goes wrong when these are left undefined, see our guide to offshore outsourcing pitfalls. And if you want to see what a structured hiring process looks like end to end, here is ours.

What a hidden margin does to the person doing the work

There is a second-order effect here that needs to be addressed.

When the margin is inside the rate, two things are true at once. The client cannot see what the person takes home. And the person cannot see what the client pays.

That second one could be problematic.

The research on pay and turnover is clear. In a widely cited meta-analysis published in the Journal of Management, Griffeth, Hom, and Gaertner found that absolute pay level correlates only weakly with voluntary turnover. How much people earn is a weak predictor of whether they leave. Perceptions of pay fairness and overall job satisfaction matter much more.

Yes, a well-paid person who discovers a gap they consider unjustified is a flight risk. A modestly paid person who understands and accepts the arrangement often is not.

Hidden margins create the conditions that produce the first outcome because it invites the worst possible interpretation. People find out. They talk to each other, they compare notes across employers, and the version they assemble on their own is usually far from the truth, yet it’s what they will believe.

Then you pay for it. Replacing someone is expensive. Research from the Center for American Progress puts the median cost of replacing an employee at roughly 21% of their annual salary, and considerably higher for specialized roles. Most of that is not the recruiting fee at all. It’s lost momentum, the manager’s time, and the months before a new person becomes useful.

Also, someone who has been in your business for two years knows why you do things the way you do. That knowledge leaves with them, and the replacement starts from zero.

Remember, retention is not a soft metric. It is the difference between a hire that compounds and a hire you keep re-making. Our guides to managing offshore teams and motivating a remote team cover what happens after the hire, which is where most of this is won or lost.

Which model makes sense when

We charge a monthly fee, so treat what follows with appropriate suspicion. But the honest answer is that no model wins every situation.

A placement fee is often the better deal. If you are making one hire, you expect them to stay for years, and you have the internal capacity to onboard and support them yourself, the math favors paying once. A recurring fee compounds. A one-time fee does not. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.

A marked-up rate makes sense for short assignments. Temporary coverage, seasonal work, a project with a defined end. You want one invoice and one number, and you are not building anything long-term. The visibility you lose does not matter much when the engagement lasts eight weeks.

A marketplace fee makes sense for genuinely short projects. A logo, a one-off build, a piece of research. You do not need vetting or support because there is nothing to sustain.

A monthly fee makes sense when you are building a team. Multiple roles, long horizons, and a real cost to turnover. It also makes sense when you want the salary visible, because separating the fee from the salary is the only structure that guarantees it.

One caution. There is no research showing that a transparent fee structure produces better business outcomes than a marked-up one. We looked. It does not exist. What the evidence supports is narrower and worth stating precisely: perceived unfairness drives turnover, and a structure nobody can see makes unfairness easy to perceive whether or not it is there.

If you are weighing offshore against a domestic hire, our comparison of offshore staffing versus local hiring and our offshore versus US hiring cost breakdown go deeper on the trade-offs.

What to ask before you sign

1. What does the person actually receive? If the answer is that the rate is confidential, that is an answer.
2. Is the fee flat, or does it scale with the salary? A percentage fee means your cost rises every time you give someone a raise.
3. What is outside the fee? Equipment, software, assessments, overtime, holiday premiums, statutory contributions. Get the list.
4. What triggers a replacement, and how long does coverage last? A three-month guarantee expires before most hires have finished ramping up.
5. Can you raise rates during the term, and by how much? Unilateral rate increases are common and rarely discussed.
6. What happens if we hire the person directly? Conversion clauses and non-solicitation terms are generally enforceable in most US states as liquidated damages when the amount is reasonable, though California scrutinizes them heavily under Business and Professions Code section 16600. Know the number before you sign, not after you want to hire someone.

Ask about turnover. Ask what percentage of their placements are still in the role after a year. An agency that tracks it will tell you. An agency that does not track it has told you something too.

For more warning signs, see our list of offshore staffing agency red flags.

How we charge

We use the monthly model, and here is exactly how it works.

Our fee is a flat $1,000 per month for a full-time hire. It does not change with the salary, the role, or the seniority of the person. The talent’s salary is separate and is paid at the rate you agree. The rate you pay is the rate the person receives.

The fee covers recruiting, vetting, onboarding support, payroll coordination, coaching, career support, and replacement coverage that lasts as long as you are a client.

Ninety-four percent is our current retention rate.

You direct the work, the results, and the person’s growth in the role. We handle the people side that keeps it sustainable.

If you want to talk through what a specific role would cost, start here. Or browse the roles we fill.