What is fixed fee
recruitment?
Fixed fee recruitment explained in plain English: what it is, what it costs, how it compares to percentage fees, and when it isn't the right fit.
Updated September 2026
Fixed fee recruitment is a hiring model where you pay one price, agreed before any work starts, to fill a role. The fee reflects the work involved, not the salary of the person you hire. A traditional agency typically charges 15 to 25% of first-year salary. A fixed fee stays the same whatever the candidate earns.
Some providers call it flat fee recruitment. Same idea: the price is agreed up front and it doesn't move.
How does fixed fee recruitment work?
The process looks like a normal recruitment campaign. What changes is when the price is set and what it's based on.
You brief the role. The provider quotes a fixed fee for it, usually banded by salary or scoped to the brief. You agree the fee before the campaign starts. Then the campaign runs: advert written and posted, candidates sourced and screened, a shortlist delivered, interviews scheduled, offer supported. At Workvine that typically takes 14 to 28 days from brief to offer.
The fee doesn't change if the successful candidate negotiates a higher salary, and there's no percentage calculated at the end. You knew the cost before anyone lifted a finger.
How much does fixed fee recruitment cost in the UK?
Providers vary. Some charge a few hundred pounds for advertising-only packages, where your role goes on the job boards and the applications come to you. A full-service campaign, where a consultant runs the whole process, costs more because it covers more work.
Workvine's full-service fees are banded by salary and published:
Everything is agreed up front: no percentage, no success fee, no escalator. Genuinely difficult roles sometimes carry agreed extras, such as extended sourcing or a managed job board budget. Those are priced up front too, before you commit, never added later.
For comparison: a 15% agency fee on a £40,000 role is £6,000. The same hire on a fixed fee is £2,999. Same work, £3,001 less. You can run your own numbers on our calculator.
Fixed fee vs percentage fee: what actually changes?
The percentage model was built for a different era, before job boards and before a recruiter could reach thousands of candidates from a desk. The tools got faster and cheaper. The fee never moved. Fixed fee prices the work as it is now.
What's included in a fixed fee?
Read the small print with any provider, because "fixed fee" covers everything from advert-posting to a full campaign. A full-service fixed fee should include the advert written and posted under your name, active candidate sourcing (not just waiting for applications), every application screened and answered, a curated shortlist, structured screening interviews, interview scheduling, and offer support. At Workvine that's ten deliverables on every campaign, with screening done on Teams video calls by a real person. AI never talks to your candidates and never decides who gets hired.
What's the catch?
The question every sceptical buyer asks, and a fair one: how can the same hire cost a third of the agency price?
The price isn't low. The old model was high. A percentage fee scales with salary, and the work doesn't. Fixed fee simply stops charging you for that gap. The trade-off to be aware of is payment structure: we invoice when the campaign goes live, for the work we're about to do, rather than only charging on a completed hire. That's what makes the price possible, and it's why we're honest about it up front.
When is fixed fee recruitment not the right fit?
Three honest cases. If you hire the odd role and just want it posted and managed yourself, a self-serve advertising credit is cheaper. If you recruit constantly with an in-house team, you likely need an applicant tracking system more than a campaign service. And a one-off confidential executive search is a scoped conversation rather than a banded fee.
Fixed fee works best for businesses that hire more than once a year, want the process off their plate, and want to know the cost before it starts.
Two campaigns.
Real numbers.
Two examples from our own campaigns, anonymised (client references available on request). A UK manufacturing and engineering business made 31 hires from 2,538 candidates across two sites, with an average time to hire of about 22 days and 100% of shortlisted candidates taken to interview. A London social value SaaS business ran 31 campaigns, made 26 hires with 100% retention, cut time to hire from 45 days to 21, and cut recruitment costs by £180,250.
"We started Fixed Fee Recruitment in 2023 because the maths never made sense. The tools for finding people have come a long way since the 90s. The fees haven't. We charge for the work as it is now."
Common questions.
For most roles, yes, and by a wide margin. A 15 to 25% fee on a £40,000 salary is £6,000 to £10,000. A full-service fixed fee for the same role is from £2,999. The gap grows with salary, because the fixed fee doesn’t.
Yes. Different providers use different names for the same model: one agreed price, set before the work starts, unrelated to the candidate’s salary.
At Workvine, on go-live: we invoice up front for the work we’re about to do, not a success fee when someone signs. Other providers structure payment differently, so check.
Talk to us. We'll look at the situation and agree the right next step. We're a small business and we want every hire to work out as much as you do.
You do. Applicants apply to your business under your name, and the full pipeline stays with you, hire after hire. We never approach the people we place with you.
Most roles are filled within 14 to 28 days of briefing, depending on the market. Campaigns run four to six weeks depending on tier, and you get a realistic timeframe before anything starts.
Ready to see it
in full?
See what's included, the published pricing bands, and how a campaign runs from brief to offer.