Contingency, retained, and marketplace recruiting differ most in who carries the risk, when money changes hands, and how fast the shortlist lands. Pick by role criticality and timeline, not by habit — the same quote looks reasonable or indefensible depending on which column the role belongs in.
Below: how each model prices a search, what the fees actually come to on a real salary, how timelines compare, and a short framework for matching the model to the role. The numbers come from published benchmarks, not vendor decks.
How Each Model Charges You
Contingency firms get paid only when their candidate is hired. Fees typically run 20% to 35% of first-year base, and the agency carries the full risk of non-placement. That risk premium is why the percentage is higher than retained in many engagements, not lower.
Retained search runs on an engagement fee structured as three equal installments: one-third at signing, one-third at shortlist, one-third at offer. The recruiter is paid to work the search exclusively, and you are paying for process discipline — research, calibration meetings, confidential approaches — not just a name on a resume.
Marketplace recruiting splits the difference. You post a role into a pool of vetted recruiters and AI sourcing agents, pay a success fee only on a hire, and keep visibility into pipeline across every recruiter working the role. The platform handles vetting, contracts, and payments, which removes most of the admin that makes multi-agency contingency unmanageable. For a deeper breakdown of that unit economics, the piece on what a sourcing marketplace costs per hire walks through the math on a specific role.
The Fee Math on a Real Salary
On a $150,000 base salary, the fee ranges land as follows:
- Contingency at 25%: $37,500, due only on hire.
- Retained at 30%: $45,000, split into three $15,000 installments.
- Marketplace success fee at 15-20%: roughly $22,500 to $30,000 on hire, with lower platform fees replacing some of the agency overhead.
Those are headline fees. The number that matters is loaded cost-per-hire. Industry research puts cost-per-hire at $4,000 to $20,000 depending on role level, with specialized positions often running three to six months. A cheap engagement that drags the search two months longer is not cheap.
Timeline Expectations by Model
Retained search runs on a predictable cadence because the recruiter is paid to hit it. Expect kickoff and research in weeks one and two, a calibrated shortlist of three to five candidates between weeks four and six, and offer close inside roughly three months for most senior roles.
Contingency has no cadence guarantee. The agency works your role alongside others, and since they only get paid on a hire, a role that goes stale slides down the queue. Marketplace engagements sit between the two: you get speed from parallel sourcing — multiple recruiters and AI agents working the same role — without paying a research fee upfront.
The macro picture matters too. BLS JOLTS data showed 7.1 million open roles against 5.1 million hires in November 2025, and SIA forecasts a 3% dip in U.S. staffing revenue before growth returns in 2026. Agencies hungry for work are more negotiable on fee and guarantee terms than they were two years ago.
Who Carries the Risk
Replacement guarantees are the shortest version of "who is on the hook." The industry standard is a 90-day guarantee, used by roughly 45% of agencies, with 30-, 60-, and 90-day terms together covering more than 85% of contracts.
A 90-day window sounds generous until a senior hire quits in month four with no coverage. Contingency guarantees are usually a free replacement search, not a refund. Retained firms are more likely to offer prorated refunds or to re-run the engagement without new installments. Marketplace platforms often tie guarantees to recruiter rating — the better recruiters offer longer terms because their placement data proves they stick. The hidden ROI of agency work post gets into how to price guarantee risk into the comparison.
Picking the Model by Role Type
The decision framework comes down to three questions: how critical is the role, how hard is the search, and how much pipeline visibility do you need?
- Retained search fits C-suite, VP-level, and board hires where confidentiality, exclusivity, and a structured process matter more than fee. It also fits any role where a failed search costs the business more than the retainer.
- Contingency fits individual mid-level roles where you already have internal sourcing capacity and just need an extra pipeline. Use it when the role is replaceable, the market is deep, and you can tolerate variable speed.
- Marketplace fits multiple concurrent roles, hard-to-find specialists where you need parallel sourcing, and any team without an internal recruiter running coordination. It is also the right call when you want AI sourcing agents running the top of the funnel while human recruiters close.
Productivity data backs the match. Benchmark analysis across 2,100 search firms found the top 25% of recruiters place 5.21 candidates per year against 1.38 for everyone else, driven by screening efficiency rather than raw sourcing volume. The model that puts you in front of the top quartile wins, whichever label it carries.
Pressure-Testing the Quote
Before signing, treat the fee as one line on a longer term sheet. Ask the recruiter to show placements in the last twelve months in roles comparable to yours, with time-to-fill and retention at 12 months. Ask for the guarantee in writing with the replacement clock, refund triggers, and what counts as "cause." For retained, ask what happens to installment two if the shortlist misses the brief. For contingency, ask how many other searches the recruiter is running concurrently. For marketplace, ask how recruiters are vetted, how pipeline is surfaced to you, and what the refund path looks like when a placement falls through.
The switch-partner checklist on the blog covers the softer signals too — responsiveness, calibration quality, candidate experience — and those are usually what separate a good quote from a bad one at the same fee.
The Trade-Off Worth Making
Running three different engagement models across a hiring plan is harder than defaulting to one. You give up the comfort of a single vendor relationship and the shorthand that comes with it. You take on comparison work the first time you quote each model, and you spend real time reading placement data instead of trusting a brand name. In exchange you stop paying retained prices for contingency-caliber work, stop losing specialist searches to a channel that was never going to deliver them, and start matching fee structure to role risk rather than to habit. For most hiring plans in 2026, that is a straight profit on the cost-per-hire line, and it shows up quickly.