15 to 25 percent of annual salary, 27.8 percent on average. Bearable once. Across eight to twelve hires a year the full calculation looks different.
A recruitment agency in the German market costs between 15 and 25 percent of annual gross salary; the average fee rate reported by the German association of management consultancies (BDU) is 27.8 percent. For skilled workers the range is usually 15 to 18 percent, for middle management 20 to 25 percent.
That is the number in every proposal. It is not the problem. The problem is the number next to it: how often you pay it.
Take a field service technician. The average for service technicians in the field is around 3,369 euros gross per month, with a range from 2,734 to 4,177 euros – roughly 40,400 euros a year.
| Fee rate | Cost per hire |
|---|---|
| 15 % (lower end) | around €6,100 |
| 22 % (mid range) | around €8,900 |
| 27.8 % (BDU market average) | around €11,200 |
For an urgent single hire that is a defensible calculation – especially measured against the vacancy costs accruing over 168 days of average time to fill. Anyone who has to fill one key role quickly and has no internal structure is generally better off with an agency than with an advertisement.
We say that explicitly, because it is the point at which most comparison articles become dishonest.
A machinery builder or technical service operator with 150 employees does not fill one role. It fills eight to twelve technical roles a year – at 10 to 15 percent turnover in industrial and technical roles that is the normal case, not the exception.
| Hires per year | at 22 % fee | over five years |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | around €26,700 | around €133,500 |
| 5 | around €44,500 | around €222,500 |
| 8 | around €71,200 | around €356,000 |
| 12 | around €106,800 | around €534,000 |
And the actual point is missing from that table: after five years and half a million euros, the company has nothing that helps with the next role. No ad account, no audiences, no candidate database, no copy, no knowledge of which message works in its region. The next vacancy starts from zero.
You buy: a head, quickly, with access to an existing network and usually a replacement guarantee for a few months.
You do not buy: the ability to do it yourself next time. That is not a criticism of the business model – it is the business model. An agency that makes you independent has one client fewer.
The same applies to the three other routes common in machinery and technical service:
The threshold sits at roughly five hires a year. At 10 to 15 percent turnover in industrial and technical roles that corresponds to around 50 employees – exactly the lower bound from which an in-house recruiting system makes sense at all.
Below that, an agency is usually the cheaper maths. Anyone hiring two technicians a year cannot use a system to capacity and should not build one; independence is worth the build only if it matters for other reasons – a new site, or an age structure that will predictably produce several departures at once.
Above it the calculation inverts, permanently: the build is a one-time investment, the fee is a recurring item. Depending on salary level and number of roles, the crossover lands in the first or second year.
What your own vacancy costs, you can work out with your own numbers in the system overview and the vacancy calculator.
A field service technician hired in fourteen days. A machining company with three candidates for two roles in the first month. No magic pill – a system that stays in the company afterwards. The feasibility check tells you whether your role can be filled in your catchment area. If it cannot, we decline before you spend a cent. One company per field and area.
What happens on the first call
