Comparison
HireAll Boost vs Recruitment agency: price, speed and results (November 2026)
Prices and facts checked 2 November 2026
- PriceBoost
- To first interviewsTie
- Your timeTie
- Who you reachRecruitment agency
- Fake-CV riskBoost
- ContractBoost
No card. 1 credit = one candidate who gets an invite.
In short: an agency charges 20–25% of the first-year salary once the hire starts, $24,000–30,000 on a $120,000 role.2 Boost charges for invites, about $300 a month at the Fast pace estimate, and the hire costs you nothing more.
At a glance
Boost and Recruitment agency, row by row
| HireAll Boostwins 3 of 6 | Recruitment agencycontingency | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ✓ Boost winsa month of invites ≈ 1% of one fee$0.40–0.50 per invite, 100 free. ≈ $14–17 per interview estimate | 15–25% of first-year salary per hire, most often 20%1 |
| To first interviews | Tieboth can start within days~3–7 days, by pace estimate | TieA shortlist in days to weeks; 30–45 days for a retained search1 |
| Your time | Tieboth take the search off your hands10 minutes to brief, then approve or skip | TieBriefing, reading their shortlist |
| Who you reach | Passive: people who aren't applying | ✓ Recruitment agency winsactive job seekers too, through their networkPassive and active, through their network |
| Fake-CV risk | ✓ Boost winsonly people Boost chose to inviteLow only people who said yes and filled in your questionnaire | Medium they screen for you |
| Contract | ✓ Boost winsnothing to sign, no fee on the hireNone: prepaid credits that don't expire | A fee per hire, nothing up front on contingency3 |
Prices as of November 2026, from each vendor's public pages, or a published estimate where the vendor quotes privately. Product names belong to their owners; HireAll is not affiliated with them.
Price
What one role costs for a month
One open role, priced both ways. An agency's price is a share of the hire's first-year salary, paid once the person starts: contingency agencies charge 15–25%, and 20% is the figure most of them quote.1 SHRM puts contingency fees at 20–25% of first-year cash compensation, salary, bonus and signing bonus together, and a retained search at about 33%.2 In the UK the usual range is 15–30%, plus VAT.3
Boost's price is the pace you pick for the role, and it stops when you pause. Take a $120,000 hire, a senior engineer or a sales lead in the US, and put a month of Boost next to it.
HireAll Boost
Pick a pace: people invited a day
- Invites this month
- 600
- At $0.50 a credit
- $300
- With the 2,000-credit pack
- $240
- Interested people estimate
- ≈ 61
- First interviews estimate
- ~5 days
About $17 an interview estimate, $14 with the biggest pack. The first 100 credits are free.
Recruitment agency
contingency
- Contingency fee
- 15–25% of first-year salary, most often 20%1
- On a $120,000 salary
- 20–25% = $24,000–30,000
- UK, on a £35,000 salary
- 15–30% = £5,250–10,500 plus VAT3
- If nobody is hired
- nothing, on contingency
One hire, with a guarantee period. Interviews: as many as the shortlist the agency sends you.
The two totals buy different things. The agency's fee buys a hire, with a refund or a replacement if it doesn't last. Boost's $300 buys a month of invites and about 17 interviews estimate, and the hire is yours to make. Even if a role took three months at the Fast pace, $900 is 3–4% of the agency's fee. The first 100 credits are free, and bigger packs bring an invite down to $0.40.
An agency's fee also grows with the salary, not with the work:3 a $200,000 hire costs $40,000–50,000 at the same rates, though it is rarely twice the effort. Boost prices that role like any other, by the people it invites.
estimate Boost's figures come from its product model, until the pilot reports: 2.9% of the people invited book an interview, and 10.1% say they're interested. A month here is 30 days.
Speed and effort
What you do with each, step by step
Both take the search off your hands. What differs is how much of it you see while it runs, and what's left for you at the end.
| With Boost | With Recruitment agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Say who you want | Describe the role in a chat or paste the job description. Boost turns it into must-haves, a questionnaire and the messages, and you fix anything that's off. | A briefing call with the recruiter. Often several agencies get the same brief and race to fill it.3 |
| Find the people | Reads every matching profile in full against your must-haves. In Manual mode you approve each person before the invite. | Their database, their network and job ads. You don't see who was considered, or who was left out. |
| First message | HireAll recruiters send a plain LinkedIn invite, then your intro once they accept. You see the wording before it starts. | A recruiter calls or writes, in the agency's name. |
| Screen | Everyone who says yes answers your two-minute questionnaire. You read the answers before you meet. | A phone screen, then CVs in your inbox with their notes. |
| Book the interview | They pick a free slot in your Google Calendar. | The recruiter agrees times with both sides by phone and email. |
| Offer and close | Yours to make. Boost's part ends at the interview, and no fee follows the hire. | The recruiter negotiates the offer and takes references. The fee is due once the hire starts. |
Speed depends on the agency. The fast ones present vetted candidates within three to five days; filling a role by hand takes 40–60 days on industry averages, and a retained search delivers its shortlist 30–45 days in.1 With Boost the pace is the one you set: the first interviews in about 3 to 7 days estimate, and you can watch the pipeline fill from the first day.
Quality
Whom you meet, and how they're checked
Passive and active candidates
An agency's reach is its network and its database: people it placed before, people who sent in a CV, people it can call. That covers active job seekers as well as passive ones, and Boost doesn't: it reaches only people who aren't applying. For most roles that is the better half. Job posts now draw about 291 applications per hire, against roughly 100 in early 2021,4 and the people you'd most like to hire are rarely among them.
Checked on substance, not keywords
A good recruiter checks each candidate on a call before you see them, and that judgement is much of what the fee pays for. What you see is the shortlist, not the people who didn't make it, or why. Boost reads every profile in full against the must-haves you set and shows you why each person was picked. In Manual mode you approve each one, and your "no, because…" teaches it whom to skip.
Fake CVs
An agency that advertises a role gets the same flood as anyone else: 91% of US recruiters have spotted candidate deception,5 and Gartner expects one candidate profile in four to be fake by 2028.6 Its phone screen catches much of that before you do. Boost keeps the inbox shut instead: nobody gets in by applying, and you meet only people Boost chose to invite, who said yes and answered your questionnaire. More in how to spot a fake candidate.
Which one
When Boost wins, and when Recruitment agency still makes sense
Choose Boost when
- You hire more than once or twice a year, and a fifth of a salary per hire adds up fast.
- You want to see the search: every person invited, why they fit, and who said yes.
- You'd rather pay for the work than for a share of the salary: $0.40–0.50 per invite, nothing on the hire.
- Your roles are ones people list on LinkedIn: engineering, product, sales, marketing, finance and most office work.
- You want interviews this week, at a pace you can raise, lower or pause.
Recruitment agency still makes sense when
- A senior or confidential search: replacing a leader nobody may know is leaving, or a board-level hire. Retained search exists for that.2
- The people you need aren't on LinkedIn, or not in numbers: trades, care, many hourly roles. An agency's network and ads reach them; Boost doesn't.
- You want someone to run it all the way to a signed offer, references and negotiation included, and to replace the hire if it doesn't last.3
- You hire once in a long while and would rather pay nothing until someone starts.
Using both
Boost alongside Recruitment agency
Keep an agency for the search you can't run in the open. A confidential replacement or an executive hire is worth a retained fee. Most of your other roles aren't.
Start a role on Boost, and call an agency if it stalls. A month at the Fast pace costs about $300 estimate, around 1% of one agency fee, and shows you how many people fit and say yes. If that's too few, brief the agency with what you learned.
Tell the agency whom you already found. Some agency terms charge the fee for anyone they introduced who later applies to you directly, so list the people Boost has already brought you when you sign.3
FAQ
Recruitment agency vs Boost: questions people ask
How much do recruitment agencies charge?
Contingency agencies charge 15–25% of the hire's first-year salary, and 20% is the figure most quote,1 so a $120,000 hire costs $18,000–30,000, most often $24,000. Retained executive searches cost about 33% of salary, bonus and signing bonus.2 In the UK the usual range is 15–30%, plus VAT.3
What is a contingency recruiter fee?
A fee the agency earns only when a candidate it introduced accepts the job: usually 20–25% of first-year cash compensation, salary, bonus and signing bonus included.2 Nothing is owed if nobody is hired, and several agencies can work the same role at once.3
What's the difference between contingency and retained search?
A contingency agency is paid only on a hire. A retained firm is paid in three instalments (when you sign, at the shortlist and at the placement) for an exclusive search, usually a senior one, at 25–35% of total compensation.1
How much are recruitment agency fees in the UK?
Most UK agencies charge 15–30% of first-year salary for a permanent role, plus VAT: £5,250–10,500 on a £35,000 hire. Hays, one of the largest, earned roughly £8,600 per permanent placement in its 2025 financial year, going by its accounts.3
Do you get your money back if the hire leaves?
Usually, within a guarantee period: a sliding refund or a free replacement if the hire leaves in the first 4–12 weeks, sometimes up to 90 days.1,3 Terms vary, so get the percentages in writing. Boost has no fee on the hire to refund: you pay per invite, and unused credits don't expire.
How can I hire without a recruiter?
Three ways: post the role and screen the applicants yourself, search LinkedIn and write to people, or let an AI recruiting agent do the search and the outreach. Boost is the third kind: describe the role, set a daily budget and meet people who said yes and answered your questionnaire, at $0.40–0.50 per person invited.
Is HireAll Boost an alternative to a recruitment agency?
For most roles a hiring manager fills from LinkedIn, yes: Boost does the search, the outreach, the follow-ups, the questionnaire and the booking, and charges per invite, never a share of salary. It doesn't negotiate offers or take references, and it reaches only people who aren't applying, so for a confidential executive search or a role outside LinkedIn an agency is still the better tool.
Are recruitment agency fees negotiable?
Often, for several roles at once or in exchange for exclusivity. The structure rarely is: a percentage fee still grows with the salary, however far the headline number moves.3
More comparisons
Stop sifting. Start hunting.
Describe the role, pick a pace and meet the first people who said yes.
Get 100 free credits →No card. 1 credit = one candidate who gets an invite.
Sources
- Pin, Recruitment Agency Commission Structures Explained, updated 19 October 2026: contingency "15% to 25% of the hire's first-year salary, and 20% is the figure most agencies quote"; retained 25–35% of total compensation, paid in thirds (engagement, shortlist "typically 30-45 days in", placement); a guarantee "typically 60-90 days"; RPO "$3,000-$10,000+ per hire or $8,000-$15,000 per month"; fast agencies deliver vetted candidates "within three to five days", against "industry averages of 40-60 days" to fill by hand; in-house recruiter jobs last a median 14 months. Pin sells a competing product. Checked 2 November 2026
- SHRM, How to Work Effectively with an Executive Search Firm, 18 July 2016: contingency recruiters "usually earn a fee in the area of 20 percent to 25 percent of the role's first-year cash compensation"; a retained search's standard fee "is about 33 percent of the role's annual salary, bonus and signing bonus". Checked 2 November 2026
- Get Staffed, How Much Do Recruitment Agencies Charge in the UK?, 8 September 2026: "Most UK recruitment agencies charge 15% to 30% of a candidate's first-year salary", plus VAT: £5,250–10,500 on a £35,000 hire; Hays's accounts work out at "roughly an £8,600 fee per permanent placement" (FY2025); "several agencies racing to fill the same brief"; rebates "commonly 4 to 12 weeks"; "Some agencies count any candidate who later applies to you directly within a set period"; the fee "is tied to the salary, not to the effort". Get Staffed sells flat-fee job ads. Checked 2 November 2026
- Ashby, Recruiter Productivity Trends, reported by HR Dive, May 2026: "291 applications per hire, compared to roughly 100 in early 2021". Checked 1 November 2026
- Greenhouse, press release, 19 November 2025: 34% of recruiters spend up to half their week filtering spam and junk applications. In the US, 91% of recruiters have spotted candidate deception; 65% of hiring managers caught applicants using AI deceptively: reading AI-generated scripts 32%, prompt injections in resumes 22%, deepfakes 18%; 36% of job seekers altered their appearance, voice or background in video interviews. Survey of 4,136 people in the US, UK, Ireland and Germany. Checked 2 November 2026
- Gartner, press release, 31 July 2025: "by 2028, one in four candidate profiles worldwide will be fake". A forecast. In its surveys 6% of candidates admitted to interview fraud, "either posing as someone else or having someone else pose as them"; 39% used AI while applying, 54% of those to write resume text; 62% are more likely to apply where interviews are in person. Checked 2 November 2026