Freelance recruiters work in one of the few roles where income is directly tied to placement outcomes. Whether you charge contingency fees, retained search, or a day rate, the maths behind a sustainable rate is the same. This calculator makes it explicit.
// frequently asked questions
Contingency vs retained: which model works better for freelancers?
Contingency means you only get paid on placement. It works if you have a strong network, fast pipelines, and clients who are genuinely committed to hiring. Retained search means the client pays a portion upfront, which filters out uncommitted clients and gives you cash flow during the search. For freelancers without agency backing, retained or partially retained engagements are significantly lower risk. Never work pure contingency for a role you have not filled before in that niche.
How do I price embedded or RPO recruitment work?
Embedded recruitment (working inside a client's team) is best priced as a day rate or monthly retainer, not on placement fees. You are being hired for capacity and process, not outcomes. Price it at your day rate times the committed days per week, and define clearly which roles you are responsible for versus which fall outside scope.
How do I justify a higher fee to price-sensitive clients?
Frame the fee relative to the cost of a bad hire, not relative to your time. A wrong hire at $80,000 salary costs a company $40,000-160,000 in onboarding, lost productivity, and re-recruitment. Your fee at 20% of salary is cheap by comparison. Clients who resist this framing are usually treating recruitment as a commodity. Those are not the right clients for a freelance recruiter building a sustainable practice.
What billable percentage should I assume for freelance recruiting?
Freelance recruiters typically convert 55-65% of working hours into billable activity. Sourcing, screening, and client management take the rest. In contingency models, account for a placement rate of 30-50% of roles worked: your rate on successful placements needs to cover the time spent on roles that do not close.
// how does recruiter pricing compare to project manager?
Both roles are often hired to solve urgent, time-sensitive problems, but pricing structures differ fundamentally.
Project managers charge for time and accountability; recruiters charge for outcomes. This makes recruiter income more variable but potentially higher per engagement. A single senior placement at 25% of a $150,000 salary generates $37,500: equivalent to months of PM retainer work. The trade-off is the unpredictability of contingency pipelines.