Ask the founder of a climate tech start-up what a hire costs, and you usually get the agency fee. That is the one invoice everyone sees. The real number is higher, because the rest sits in other people's budgets. For a start-up or scale-up hiring eight people a year, the real cost per hire lands between EUR 8,400 and EUR 12,200. Below is how we get there, and how to work out your own number.
The short answer
We took three common ways a growing company fills eight roles a year, at an average salary of EUR 55,000:
- You do it yourself, with agencies as backup: EUR 67,500 a year, about EUR 8,400 per hire
- Mostly agencies: EUR 97,500 a year, about EUR 12,200 per hire
- An in-house recruiter: EUR 83,000 a year, about EUR 10,400 per hire
None of these totals ever shows up on one invoice. That is why most founders guess too low.
Where does the money go?
Four things make hiring expensive.
Agency fees. The visible one. Most agencies charge around 20% of the first-year salary. On a EUR 55,000 role that is EUR 11,000 per placement. Hire more people, pay more fees.
Your own team's time. Screening calls, scheduling, chasing feedback. In a start-up this lands on the founder, the office manager or a first HR hire. In our example it adds up to roughly a quarter of one person: EUR 16,000 a year that nobody books as a hiring cost.
Job boards and advertising. LinkedIn posts, job boards, sponsored listings. Around EUR 5,000 a year in our example. You pay for clicks, not for hires.
Tools and licences. An applicant tracking system, assessments, a LinkedIn Recruiter seat. That seat alone runs to about EUR 9,000 a year, and the subscription keeps running in a quarter with no vacancies.
Why does it hit a climate start-up harder?
A corporate spreads these costs over hundreds of hires. A climate start-up spreads them over five or ten. Every fixed cost weighs more.
Hiring also comes in bursts. A funding round closes, or a grant comes through, and six roles open at once. Then nothing for four months. A recruiter on the payroll costs the same in both periods. An agency gets expensive exactly when you need it most.
And then there is the mission. In climate tech, a candidate who looks right on paper but doesn't care about the mission rarely stays. Screening for that takes time, and it is time a generalist agency doesn't spend.
What did we leave out?
Quite a lot. The cost of a role staying open. The time your team spends covering for it. The price of a hire that doesn't work out. All three are usually bigger than anything listed above. We just can't put your number on them, so we left them out rather than guess.
How do you work out your own cost per hire?
Take the last twelve months and add up four lines:
- What you paid agencies
- What you spent on job boards and advertising
- What your tools and licences cost
- The hours your own people spent on hiring, times what those people cost
Divide the total by the number of people you hired. That is your real cost per hire. It takes about ten minutes, and our cost per hire calculator does the sums for you.
What do you do with that number?
Sometimes the honest conclusion is that you are doing fine. If you hire one or two people a year, an agency fee is annoying but it isn't your biggest problem.
It changes once you hire regularly. From a handful of vacancies a year, a fixed price per vacancy starts to beat a percentage of salary. Ours runs from EUR 7,000 to EUR 8,000 per vacancy, all in, agreed before the search starts. You can see how that works on the Partnership pricing page.
Not sure which model fits your stage? We compared them side by side in in-house recruiter, agency or recruitment partner.
