Agency vs in-house hiring cost.

Recruitment agency fees typically run 15-25% of first-year salary. Direct hiring avoids this fee but incurs job board costs, internal recruiter time, and usually longer time-to-fill. The total cost comparison must include vacancy cost - every day a role sits empty costs productivity (typically 50% of daily salary equivalent).

80k salary × 20% agency = 16,000 fee. Agency fills in 30 days, vacancy cost 80k/365 × 50% × 30 = 3,288. Agency total: 19,288. Direct: 3,000 job board/tools + 60-day fill × same vacancy rate = 6,575. Direct total: 9,575. Savings: 9,713 going direct. Clear win - if you have the internal capability to hire well.

Direct hiring requires: someone spending 20-40 hours per role on sourcing/screening, strong employer brand (candidates choose to apply), and well-designed interview process. Without these, direct hire saves money but produces worse hires - which costs far more long-term than the agency fee. Agency wins when speed matters, expertise is niche, or internal hiring isn't a core strength.

Run it with sensible defaults

Using annual salary of 80,000, agency fee of 20%, direct hiring cost of 3,000, agency time to fill of 30, the calculation works out to 9,712.33. Nudge the inputs toward your own situation and the output recalculates instantly. The defaults are meant as a starting point, not a recommendation.

The levers in this calculation

The inputs — Annual Salary, Agency Fee %, Direct Hiring Cost, Agency Time to Fill (days), and Direct Time to Fill (days) — do not pull with equal force. Two inputs usually tip the answer one way or the other. Identify which ones matter most by flipping each value past a round threshold and watching whether the winning option changes.

How the math works

Agency total = fee + (vacancy days × daily salary × 50%). Direct total = hiring cost + (vacancy days × daily salary × 50%). Savings = agency - direct. The working is transparent — you can verify every step yourself in the formula section below. No black box, no opaque "proprietary model".

Using this as a check-in

Re-run this every three months. A single reading tells you where you stand; four readings tell you whether things are improving. The trend matters more than any individual snapshot.

What this doesn't capture

The score is a composite of the inputs you provide. Life context — job security, family obligations, health, housing — doesn't appear in the math but shapes the real picture. Use the number as a prompt, not a verdict.