How much does a government recruiting firm cost?

What a placement fee is

A placement fee, also called a contingency fee, is a one-time fee a recruiting firm earns only when you hire a candidate it introduced. Indeed’s Career Guide describes it as a percentage of the first-year salary in the offer letter, including any sign-on bonus, paid by the employer on the hire’s start date.

The same guide puts the average fee at 20 to 25%, with a range from about 15% to 40% or more, depending on the firm and the job being filled. Those are market figures across all employers, not a government rate card, so treat them as the start of a conversation rather than a price.

Because nothing is owed until someone starts, a placement fee leaves the cost of an empty search with the firm. That makes it a good fit for a single role with a healthy supply of candidates.

Retained searches and embedded recruiters

A retained search is one where the firm is paid part of its fee before anyone is hired, in return for committing a team to the search. Indeed’s guide describes the fee paid in three installments tied to the stages of the search; its example splits a 30% fee into 10% when research starts, 10% at the shortlist and 10% when the hire starts.

Staff augmentation is a third shape: recruiters who work inside your HR team for a period. Firms often bill it for the recruiters’ time, and some price it per hire instead.

For a federal buyer, GSA’s CALC+ Ceiling Rates tool lets you search the awarded not-to-exceed rates per hour on Multiple Award Schedule contracts, including labor categories for recruiters. GSA says those ceilings support market research and cost estimates and should not be read as the exact price of a given order.

What moves the fee

The fee rate is the share of salary a firm charges, and it moves with how hard the role is to fill. Before you compare quotes, know where your role sits on each of these:

• Supply: how many people do the work, and how many are likely to move.
• Competition: how many other employers advertise the same role in the same places.
• Requirements: a clearance, a polygraph or a rare certification narrows the pool.
• Volume: many hires to one plan let a firm reuse its research across them.
• Terms: the guarantee, exclusivity and how long the firm claims a candidate.

Look at the market before you negotiate. Ayla’s government hiring data shows who is hiring a role and what they advertise, from 700+ official sources, and the hiring-by-role pages print the open postings, employers and pay for each role, dated.

Read the terms, not only the rate

A replacement guarantee is a firm’s promise to find another candidate, or return part of the fee, if a hire leaves within a set period. It is worth as much as the rate, so ask every firm the same questions in writing:

• Which salary the percentage applies to: base only, or base plus bonus.
• When the fee is due: at the offer, at the start date, or after a minimum period. Indeed notes that some employers require the hire to stay three to six months first.
• How long the guarantee runs, and whether it is a replacement or a refund.
• Whether the firm needs exclusivity, and for how long.
• How long the firm claims a candidate it introduced.

Then compare the quotes on the same salary. A lower rate with a short guarantee can cost more than a higher one with a long guarantee if the first hire leaves early.

How a government office pays

The micro-purchase threshold is the federal limit for the simplest kind of purchase, and since October 1, 2025 FAR 2.101 sets it at $15,000. The government purchase card is the preferred way to buy and pay for micro-purchases.

A single placement fee can pass that line. For example, a market fee of 20% on a $90,000 salary would be $18,000, so a contracting officer would buy it with simplified procedures, which apply up to the $350,000 simplified acquisition threshold, and could still pay by card if the firm accepts it. Can a federal agency buy recruiting on a purchase card? covers the rules.

Ask any firm for a written quote and a W-9 before work starts. Ayla takes a purchase card under $15,000, or a purchase order against its written quote.

What Ayla charges

Ayla is a recruiting firm and a government hiring data platform, and its recruiting is priced one way: a placement fee when you hire, after a free market brief.

The market brief shows who is hiring the role, what they pay and how hard it is, and nothing is owed if you stop there. Each engagement is quoted in writing before work starts, whether it is one hard role, a hiring program or recruiters inside your HR team. See Ayla Recruiting for how an engagement runs.

If your team would rather search itself, the software is a separate monthly plan at $199 to $999 a seat, and two Qualify seats for a year cost $11,976. The pricing page lists every plan.