Budget the hire monthly. Not all at once.
$1,500 a month while we run your search. Every month you pay comes straight off the placement commission when you hire. Same total, spread across the search instead of landing in one month.
Three steps, and no surprises.
- 01
Agree the role and the commission
Before anything starts we put the role, the search plan and the placement commission in writing. The commission varies with how many hires you are making, so it is set for your situation rather than taken off a rate card.
- 02
Pay $1,500 a month while we work
That covers the real work of the search: posting, proactive sourcing, screening and phone interviews, interview coordination, offer support and background checks. The same process we run on every engagement, which you can read in full on our services page.
- 03
Your payments come off the fee at placement
When you hire, we add up every month you have paid and subtract it from the commission, dollar for dollar. What is left is the only thing due. You pay the greater of the two - your monthly payments or the agreed commission - never both, so on a normal search the total comes to exactly the commission and nothing you paid along the way was an extra charge.
Two worked examples.
Both use a 25% commission, the midpoint of the 20–30% range contingency recruiters commonly charge and the range already cited on our pricing page. Salaries are BLS national medians, not our estimates. Your own commission and salary will differ; the mechanic does not.
Construction Managers
BLS national annual median, May 2025 (SOC 11-9021): $114,990
- Commission at 25%
- $28,748
- Search takes
- 5 months
- Paid monthly along the way
- 5 × $1,500 = $7,500
- Due at placement
- $21,248
- Total cost of the hire
- $28,748
The total is identical to a straight 25% placement fee. The difference is that $7,500 of it was already budgeted and paid before the invoice arrived. You pay the greater of your payments or the commission, so this stays true until month 20, when the monthly payments would overtake the commission and become the fee themselves.
Electricians
BLS national annual median, May 2025 (SOC 47-2111): $63,190
- Commission at 25%
- $15,798
- Search takes
- 3 months
- Paid monthly along the way
- 3 × $1,500 = $4,500
- Due at placement
- $11,298
- Total cost of the hire
- $15,798
The total is identical to a straight 25% placement fee. The difference is that $4,500 of it was already budgeted and paid before the invoice arrived. You pay the greater of your payments or the commission, so this stays true until month 11, when the monthly payments would overtake the commission and become the fee themselves.
What this model is actually good for.
The hire stops being a budget event.
A placement fee lands as one large number in one month. $28,748 out of a single month's cash is a different conversation with your CFO than $1,500 a month. Pay-as-you-go turns a lump sum into a line item.
Nothing you pay is an extra fee.
Every monthly payment is credited in full against the commission, up to the point where your payments pass it. This is not a retainer charged on top of a placement fee, and it is not a deposit you forfeit. On a normal search it is the same money a percentage fee would have cost, paid earlier and in smaller pieces.
A slow search leaves less to pay at the end - up to a point.
The longer the search runs, the more credit you have accrued and the smaller the balance when someone signs. The honest limit: you pay the greater of your payments or the commission, so once your monthly payments pass the commission the total stops falling and starts being the payments themselves. For the construction managers example below that point is month 20. We will tell you before you start roughly where your role sits.
It puts our incentive where you want it.
Because the monthly payments are credited rather than added, a long search earns us nothing extra - it only delays the rest of our fee. We are paid in full faster by filling the role faster.
No long commitment to unlock it.
Our flat-rate pipeline packages need a six-month minimum to work, because they are built for continuous hiring. Pay-as-you-go has no such floor. It is the right shape when you have one seat to fill, not a pipeline to build.
You can forecast it.
You know the monthly number on day one and you know how the credit accrues. The only variable left is when the right person says yes - and we will tell you honestly what that looks like for your role and market before you start.
Percentage, pay as you go, or flat rate.
There is no single right answer here, and the honest version is that which one wins depends almost entirely on how often you hire. Full package pricing is on the pricing page.
| Traditional percentageContingency recruiter | Pay as you go$1,500/month, credited | Flat-rate pipelineTalent Pipeline packages | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay while the search runs | Nothing | $1,500 per month | Your package rate, monthly |
| What you pay when someone is hired | The full commission, in one payment | The commission, minus every month you have already paid - or nothing further once your payments pass it | Nothing. There is no placement fee. |
| Does the monthly money reduce the fee? | There is no monthly money | Yes - credited dollar for dollar. You pay the greater of your payments or the commission | There is no fee to reduce |
| Cost of one hire at a 25% commission on a $114,990 salary | $28,748, all in the month of hire | $28,748, spread across the search | From $4,250 a month, with no per-hire fee |
| Cost of the second and third hire | Another full commission each time | Another commission each time, same mechanic | No additional cost - hire as many as you want from your submittals |
| If you decide not to hire anyone | You owe nothing | You have paid for the months of work and owe nothing further | You have paid for the months of work |
| Minimum commitment | None | None | Six months |
| Predictability of spend | Low - a large variable amount at an unknown date | High - a fixed monthly amount and a known credit | Highest - one fixed monthly amount, whatever you hire |
| Best when | You hire very rarely and want no commitment at all | You have one or two seats to fill and need to budget for them | You are hiring continuously and want to stop paying per head |
The percentage column reflects the 20–30% of first-year salary contingency recruiters commonly charge. We are describing the market norm, not quoting a competitor.
Hiring once or twice
Pay as you go. You get the budgeting of a monthly fee without committing to a pipeline you do not need yet.
Hiring continuously
Flat rate. Once you are making several hires, paying per head stops making sense at any percentage. See how flat-rate recruiting works.
Not sure yet
Start with pay as you go and switch. We would rather you moved to a package because the hiring justified it than signed up for one that sat unused.
Questions about this model.
What exactly does the $1,500 a month buy?
The same recruiting work as our other engagements: writing and distributing the posting, proactive sourcing, screening and phone interviews, interview coordination, offer support and background checks. It is not a placeholder fee for being on a list - it is the search being actively worked.
So is the monthly payment on top of the commission, or part of it?
Part of it. Every month you pay is subtracted from the commission when a hire is made. If the commission is $28,748 and you have paid five months at $1,500, you have paid $7,500 and $21,248 is due at placement. The total is the same either way; the timing is what changes.
What is the commission?
It is agreed in writing before the search starts, and it varies with how many hires you are making - more hires, better rate. We are not publishing a single percentage here because it would be wrong for most of the people reading this page. For context, contingency recruiters commonly charge 20 to 30 percent of first-year salary, and that is the range this page uses for comparison.
What if the search takes a long time?
Your credit keeps accruing at $1,500 a month, so the balance due at placement keeps shrinking. The rule is that you pay the greater of the two - the monthly payments you have made, or the agreed commission. Once your payments pass the commission there is nothing further due at placement, and the monthly total stands as the fee rather than being refunded back down to the commission. On the construction managers example on this page that crossover is month 20. We would rather you knew that number before you started than discovered it afterwards.
What if I never hire anyone?
You have paid for the months of recruiting work that were done and nothing further is owed. There is no placement fee to trigger and no termination fee.
Can I switch to the flat-rate pipeline later?
Yes, and for a lot of contractors that is the natural path: use pay-as-you-go for the seat in front of you, and move to a Talent Pipeline package once you can see that hiring is going to be continuous rather than occasional. Talk to us about how credit already accrued is handled when you switch.
How is this different from a retained search?
A retained search typically takes a third of the fee up front, a third at shortlist and a third on placement, and the early payments are usually non-refundable whether or not anyone is hired. Here the monthly payments are a credit, there is no up-front third, and there is no commitment period.
Which trades can I use this for?
All twenty we recruit, across all one hundred markets we cover - commercial construction, electrical, HVAC and mechanical, plumbing, roofing, fire protection, welding and fabrication, masonry and concrete, paving and asphalt, elevator maintenance, physical security, LED and solar, insulation, flooring, painting, cleaning and facilities, landscaping, irrigation, pest control and trucking.
Tell us the seat. We’ll tell you the commission before you commit to anything.
Thirty minutes, a real conversation about the role and the market, and a written commission for your situation. No obligation to start.