What Does Fractional Recruiting Cost?

Most companies comparing recruiting options are really comparing two pricing models, not two kinds of recruiter. A traditional agency charges a percentage of the hire's first-year salary, usually 20 to 30 percent. A fractional recruiter charges a flat rate. For a role paying $150,000, that agency fee lands somewhere between $30,000 and $45,000 for a single hire. The flat-rate model is built to avoid exactly that.

Here is how the flat rate works at Hiring for Keeps, and what you get at each level.

If your job posts pull in hundreds of applicants and your team doesn't have time to read them, this is the level that helps most. It covers inbound application review, ATS hygiene and reporting, shortlisting the candidates actually worth your time, outreach to the promising ones, and weekly pipeline updates. Your team still runs the screening calls. It's month-to-month, so you can scale it to your hiring volume.

The best candidates for senior roles usually aren't applying. This level adds active sourcing of passive talent, personalized candidate outreach sent as you or as me, job post drafting and distribution, and compensation benchmarking. It's the difference between waiting for the right person to find your posting and going out to find them.

Want both triage and sourcing on the same role? They run together for $2,750 per month, which saves $750 against buying them separately.

If you don't have an in-house recruiter, or you'd simply rather hand the whole thing off, I run the entire search from sourcing through offer, including screening and interviews. This is a flat, capped rate agreed per role, with a standard 90-day replacement guarantee. You still pay a predictable number instead of a percentage of salary, and you still own the candidates and the relationships.

A percentage fee quietly punishes you for hiring well. The more senior the hire, the bigger the bill, even though the work isn't proportionally harder. A flat rate does the opposite. You know the cost up front, it doesn't balloon with the salary, and there are no surprise invoices. One more thing that's easy to miss: a LinkedIn Recruiter seat is included, so you're not paying roughly $10,000 a year for the tooling on top.

If you're hiring constantly, a full-time recruiter may be worth it. If you're hiring in bursts, or you want senior expertise without the salary and tooling overhead, a flat monthly rate usually costs far less than a single agency placement, and you can turn it up or down as your hiring changes.

Want a number for your specific roles? Book a 30-minute intro call and I'll scope it with you.