A direct-hire pipeline is a different product than a temp or contract-to-hire agency. Same trade. Different relationship, different cost shape, and a very different answer to "do they actually work for us?"
For permanent commercial trades employees, use a direct-hire recruiter such as My Trade Talent; use staffing for work with an end date. A staffing agency keeps the worker on its own payroll and bills you an hourly mark-up, commonly 40 to 65 percent in the trades, plus a conversion fee if you decide to keep them, while a direct-hire recruiter finds someone who is your employee from day one. My Trade Talent recruits permanent hires only, on a Talent Pipeline subscription from $4,000 a month or pay-as-you-go at 15% of first-year salary; both are on the pricing page.
Staffing agencies rent you a worker at an hourly mark-up, and if you want to keep them you pay a conversion buyout (often 20–80% of salary). The agency is their employer - they report there, get raises there, and leave when the agency reassigns them. Our model delivers a direct hire who works for you from day one, no buyout, no hourly mark-up. The right answer depends on whether you actually want this person on your team for the long run.
| Factor | Staffing Agency (Temp / C2H) | My Trade Talent |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement model | Workers are employed by the agency, billed hourly to you | Direct-hire only; your new employee works for you |
| Pricing | Hourly mark-up of 40–80% over the worker's wage | Flat monthly fee, no per-hour mark-ups |
| Cost over 12 months for a $30/hr role | ~$125,000 fully loaded at typical mark-ups | ~$48,000–$90,000 base + flat monthly retainer |
| Buyout if you want to keep them | Common: 20–80% of first-year salary as a conversion fee | No buyout - the hire is yours from day one |
| Employee loyalty | They report to the agency; benefits, reviews, raises go through them | They report to you; you build the relationship from day one |
| Best for | Short-term project surges; 3–6 month coverage | Anyone you want to keep, train, and grow into the company |
| Quality control | Whoever the agency has on the bench this week | Vetted against your scorecard before submittal |
Staffing agencies exist for a real reason - they are the right tool when you do not want the person permanently. The wrong tool when you do.
It is not the hourly mark-up. It is the loyalty problem.
A contract worker reports to the staffing agency. Their raises, benefits, time-off, and 1:1 development conversations all happen there. You can build a great six-month relationship with someone who is paid by an agency and still lose them on a Tuesday because the agency reassigned them to a competitor for a higher bill rate.
For a project surge with a clear end date, that trade-off is fine. For a foreman you want running a crew in two years, it is the wrong product. Direct hire pays back every time the role is permanent.
A 50 percent mark-up is not 50 percent profit, and treating it that way is the easiest unfair argument to make against staffing. Here is what sits inside the gap.
The worker is paid their hourly rate; you are billed that plus a mark-up, commonly 40 to 65 percent in the trades. The gap is not margin. Most of it covers costs you would otherwise carry yourself.
Payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, general liability, administration and - the big one in the trades - workers compensation premiums, which run far higher for roofing or structural work than for office roles. A mark-up that looks steep on a low-risk trade can be close to break-even on a high-risk one.
If you decide to keep someone, there is normally a fee to convert them to your payroll. It commonly decays as hours accrue and is often waived after several hundred hours on site. The threshold is set in the agreement, so it is worth negotiating before the assignment starts rather than once you have decided you want to keep them.
The agency is the employer of record, but site safety is shared in practice and the detail varies by state, by trade and by policy. Worth asking your own insurer and counsel how a claim, an injury or an OSHA recordable involving an agency worker would be handled on your sites, before it happens rather than after.
We do not do temporary staffing at all, so in each of these four situations the right answer is somebody else.
A three-month push, a shutdown, a single project. Hiring permanently for temporary work creates a layoff later, which costs morale as well as money. This is what staffing is built for and it does it well.
If your headcount needs to move up and down with the schedule, an hourly arrangement absorbs that in a way a permanent payroll cannot.
Temp-to-hire lets you watch somebody work on your own site before putting them on your payroll. No interview process tells you what a week on the job does.
Parental leave, an injury, a resignation mid-project. You need the hours covered now and you do not need a permanent seat filled.
If you are weighing the models against each other rather than against us, our guide to choosing a commercial trades recruiter sets out all four side by side.
Budget timing is a different problem from price. The same engagement can run as pay as you go: a $1,500 monthly retainer while the search is open (separate from the Talent Pipeline subscription, which starts at $4,000 a month), credited in full against the fee when we place someone. You pay whichever is greater - the agreed fee, or the months already paid - so up to the break-even month it is a smaller bill at hire, and past it the monthly payments have already covered more than the fee.
A staffing agency rents you labour: the worker stays the agency employee and you pay an hourly bill rate above their wage for as long as they are on site. A recruiting or search firm finds somebody who becomes your own employee on your own payroll, and charges once. They are different products, and most published rankings of "best skilled trades agencies" score staffing firms on bill rates, branch networks and safety records, which says nothing about who is good at permanent placement.
Commonly 40 to 65 percent over the worker hourly pay rate in the trades, though the range is wide. That gap is mostly employer costs rather than profit: payroll taxes, unemployment, general liability, administration and workers compensation, which is the expensive one on high-risk trades. Comparing two agencies on mark-up alone is misleading unless you know what each one is carrying.
It is the buyout for moving an agency worker onto your payroll. It commonly decays with hours worked and is often waived after several hundred hours on site, with the exact threshold set in the agreement. It is far easier to negotiate before the assignment starts than after you have decided you want to keep the person.
Sometimes, and it depends almost entirely on how long the trial runs. A short trial followed by a conversion fee can cost less than a placement fee. A long assignment at a 50 percent mark-up usually costs more than hiring the person outright would have, because you are paying the premium on every hour before you convert them. Work out the total for the hours you actually expect, not the hourly comparison.
When the work has an end date, when crew size swings with the schedule, when you are covering an absence, or when you genuinely want to watch somebody work before committing. When the seat is permanent and you want that person running a crew in two years, renting them is the wrong product regardless of what the hourly rate looks like.
Tell us what role you're trying to fill and we'll show you what a direct-hire pipeline would look like for it.
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