What a Recruitment Agency Costs vs a Verified-Talent Platform

The hard math

Italian recruitment agencies typically work on a contingency model: they charge 15% to 25% of the candidate's gross annual salary when the hire signs. The figure is industry standard, confirmed by Assolavoro and reflected in the published fee schedules of major agencies.

Run the math on a few hires you might actually make:

| Annual salary | 15% fee | 25% fee | |---|---|---| | €30,000 (junior developer) | €4,500 | €7,500 | | €35,000 (mid-level marketing) | €5,250 | €8,750 | | €45,000 (senior consultant) | €6,750 | €11,250 | | €60,000 (engineering manager) | €9,000 | €15,000 |

A single mid-level hire through an agency lands somewhere between €5,000 and €11,000. A self-serve verified-talent platform like InTransparency is €89/month, or €890/year, with unlimited contacts. The first agency-fee avoided pays for the platform for several years.

That isn't a fair comparison on its own. Agencies do real work. So let's break down what you're actually paying for.

What an agency earns its fee for

We're not anti-agency. There are real reasons companies use them:

Sourcing rare profiles. When you need a niche skill at a senior level — a regulatory-affairs lead with pharma experience in oncology, for example — an agency with a dedicated pipeline can save you months.
Confidential searches. Replacing an executive without alerting your current team. An agency runs the process under their banner.
Volume hiring on a deadline. Standing up a new team in a quarter. The bandwidth of an agency's recruiters is real.
Outreach to passive candidates. People who aren't applying but might move for the right offer. Agencies have the relationships and time to work them.

For these use cases, the fee is often justified. We are not trying to compete in any of them.

What a self-serve platform replaces

The vast majority of mid-market hiring is none of the above. It's:

A junior or mid-level role
The candidate pool exists but is hard to filter
You don't need the role filled in three weeks
You can read a CV yourself
You'd just like to spend less time on the first 80% of CVs that aren't a fit

This is where InTransparency replaces the agency. The verified pool is searchable by skill, the AI matches on real evidence (not keywords), and Decision Packs give your hiring manager a 2-page dossier before the first call. You retain control of the process and pay a flat subscription, not a percentage.

The hybrid model

Realistic mid-market companies don't fully replace agencies. They redistribute the spend.

High-volume early-career hires → InTransparency. (Where agency fees compound fastest and where platform evidence is best.)
Senior or rare-profile hires → Agency. (Where the agency's pipeline is genuinely worth the percentage.)
Confidential searches → Agency. (No platform substitutes here.)

Companies that get this right typically save 60-80% of their annual recruiting spend without losing access to agencies for the cases that need them.

Worked example: 15-person company hiring 5 people in a year

Assume mid-market salaries averaging €38,000.

All-agency model: 5 hires × €38,000 × 20% = €38,000 in agency fees.

Hybrid model: 4 hires through InTransparency + 1 senior hire (€55,000) through an agency at 22%.

InTransparency: €890/year
Agency: €12,100
Total: €12,990. Saving: €25,010.

That's the math companies do once. Then they don't go back.

What we'll claim, what we won't

We won't claim that InTransparency replaces agencies for every hire. It doesn't, and we won't pretend.

We will claim — and the math is straightforward — that for the bulk of mid-market early-career and mid-level hiring, a flat-fee verified-talent platform produces a much better cost-per-hire than the contingency-fee agency model.

Start free — 5 verified contacts per month with a corporate email, no card required.