Guide: What does social recruiting cost?
Don't forget your time.
Social recruiting costs three things: media budget, software or agency, and working time. With HiCandidate™ that's from €399 per month plus 20% commission on the media budget; with an agency or in-house, it's mostly working hours. The third item rarely shows up on the quote, but it counts.
Overview
Three cost items.
One of them is your time.
| Item | What's behind it | Who gets the money | What it depends on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Media budget | Ad spend on Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok or Google | The ad networks | Channel, target group, region, competition for the same candidates, duration |
| Software or agency | System fee plus commission, or a fee | The vendor | Plan or hourly rate, number of jobs |
| Working time | Setting up, maintaining and analyzing campaigns | Your employees or the agency | Number of jobs, routine, degree of automation |
Terms such as CPC, CPA, commission or fully loaded hourly rate are explained in the glossary.
Media budget
How much budget?
Start from the goal.
The media budget goes straight to the ad networks such as Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok or Google. It's due whether you use software, an agency or your own people. How much a job needs depends on target group, region, channel and the competition for the same candidates. That's why we don't quote flat prices.
A sensible approach: start from the goal. Desired applications × previous cost per application = budget. If you don't have that number yet, start small and let the first weeks show what an application costs you.
Cost calculator
Use your numbers.
Not ours.
Four steps to your comparison: starting point, agency, team, HiCandidate™. All values are example assumptions, so change whatever differs for you. The calculation compares operating costs; the media budget is the same in all three options, so it drops out. The calculator works out the in-house hourly rate on a full-cost basis from salary, ancillary costs, vacation, sick leave and overhead.
Your result
With 15 active jobs and a media budget of €300 per job, managing the campaigns costs per month (excluding media budget) €2,250 with an agency, €1,604 in-house and €1,388 with HiCandidate™ Pro.
Not included is the media budget: €4,500 per month (15 jobs × €300). It comes on top in all three options and goes to the ad networks. With HiCandidate™, only the commission on it is included in the costs.
Agency
€2,250
per month, excluding media budget
- per job
- €150.00
- Working time
- 22.5 h
- in the first year
- €27,000
In-house
€1,604
per month, excluding media budget
- per job
- €106.96
- Working time
- 45 h
- in the first year
- €19,252
HiCandidate™ Pro
€1,388
per month, excluding media budget
- per job
- €92.54
- System fee
- €399
- Commission on the media budget
- €900
- Your own working time
- €89 (2.5 h)
- in the first year incl. setup
- €17,157
- With HiCandidate™ you save about €862 per month compared with an agency.
- With HiCandidate™ you save about €216 per month compared with in-house.
- Compared with an agency, HiCandidate™ pays off from 5 jobs (at €300 media budget per job). With 15 jobs, that holds up to a media budget of around €587 per job.
- Compared with in-house, HiCandidate™ pays off from 10 jobs (at €300 media budget per job). With 15 jobs, that holds up to a media budget of around €372 per job.
Example calculation, not a guarantee or an offer. It compares operating costs (working time, software, commission), not the quality of applications. The calculation runs in your browser; nothing is stored or transmitted.
Text version of the calculator
Assumptions in the example (all changeable): 15 active jobs, €300 media budget per job, HiCandidate™ Pro. Agency (can be deselected in the calculator with "No agency"): €100 per hour, 1 hour per job for setup and maintenance, 0.5 hours per job for reporting. In-house: full-cost hourly rate of €35.65 (from a gross annual salary of €45,000, 21% employer ancillary costs, 40 hours per week, 30 vacation days, 10 public holidays, 10 sick days and a 10% overhead surcharge), 2 hours per job for setup and maintenance, 1 hour per job for reporting. HiCandidate™: 10 minutes per job for checking that the job is online and the PDF report; setup and maintenance are not needed.
Formulas: Agency = jobs × hours per job × hourly rate (plus a possible share of the media budget). In-house = jobs × hours per job × full-cost hourly rate. HiCandidate™ = system fee + commission × media budget + own working time. Full-cost hourly rate = gross annual salary × (1 + employer ancillary costs) × (1 + overhead surcharge) ÷ productive hours per year; productive hours = hours per week × 52 − (vacation, holiday and sick days × hours per day).
Result in the example: With 15 active jobs and a media budget of €300 per job, managing the campaigns costs per month (excluding media budget) €2,250 with an agency, €1,604 in-house and €1,388 with HiCandidate™ Pro. With HiCandidate™ you save about €862 per month compared with an agency. With HiCandidate™ you save about €216 per month compared with in-house.
Not included: Media budget: €4,500 per month (15 jobs × €300). It comes on top in all three options and goes to the ad networks. With HiCandidate™, only the commission on it is included in the costs.
The same at other job counts (Pro, €300 media budget per job, operating costs per month excluding media budget):
| Active jobs | Agency | In-house | HiCandidate™ Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 jobs | €750 | €535 | €729 |
| 10 jobs | €1,500 | €1,070 | €1,058 |
| 15 jobs | €2,250 | €1,604 | €1,388 |
| 25 jobs | €3,750 | €2,674 | €2,048 |
| 50 jobs | €7,500 | €5,348 | €3,696 |
Threshold: Compared with an agency, HiCandidate™ pays off from 5 jobs (at €300 media budget per job). With 15 jobs, that holds up to a media budget of around €587 per job. Compared with in-house, HiCandidate™ pays off from 10 jobs (at €300 media budget per job). With 15 jobs, that holds up to a media budget of around €372 per job.
The HiCandidate™ setup isn't in the monthly figures, but it is in the calculator's first-year value.
Assumptions
Why the times
vary so much.
Agency: Pros with routine, templates and their own tools set up a job faster and have standardized reporting. The trade-off: their hourly rate is higher, €100 external in the example.
In-house: Social ads are rarely the only job on the plate. If you only set up campaigns on the side, you need more time to get up to speed, configure settings and align with the department, and you piece reports together yourself. The upside: the internal hour is cheaper.
With HiCandidate™: Jobs come in through the ATS feed, and ads, audiences and budgets run automatically. All that's left is checking the dashboard and pulling the reports as PDF.
How the fully loaded hourly rate is built: Salary plus employer costs, divided by the hours that are actually productive. Vacation, holidays and sick days don't count as productive, but they're still paid. That's why the rate is higher than salary divided by 2,080 hours.
To be fair
What the calculation
leaves out.
- The calculation compares effort and costs, not the quality of applications. It doesn't capture what automation changes about the ads themselves.
- The commission grows with the media budget. In the example, the time advantage over in-house holds up to a media budget of around €372 per job. Beyond that, time saved no longer decides it. What automation changes about the ads does.
- An agency does more than set up campaigns: consulting, creative, strategy. That's not in this calculation either.
- The minimum term for HiCandidate™ is 12 months, though slightly shorter terms can be agreed in special cases. Setup is a one-time fee, and the offer is for companies only.
- All values are example assumptions. They're not a guarantee or an offer. The prices on the pricing page are the binding ones.
Which software fits you is covered in Choosing social recruiting software.
Checklist
Five questions
to ask any provider.
- What's a one-time cost and what's monthly? Setup, system fee, commission and minimum term.
- How high is the media budget, and who pays whom? Directly to the ad networks or through the provider, with or without a markup.
- Who owns the ad account? And what happens to your data and ads if you switch providers?
- How much time stays with you? Who sets up jobs, who maintains them, who pulls the reports?
- How do you get to your numbers? Dashboard, export or interface, all the way down to the application.
Frequently asked questions
Questions about
cost.
What does social recruiting cost?
Social recruiting has three cost items: media budget for the ad networks, software or an agency, and working time. HiCandidate™ costs from €399 per month plus 20% commission on the media budget, and the media budget is on top. The cost calculator on this page works out how much extra working time an agency or in-house adds, using your numbers.
What does a recruiting campaign on Instagram or Facebook cost?
You set the media budget for Instagram and Facebook yourself. It depends on audience, region and how many others are competing for the same candidates. That's why HiCandidate™ doesn't quote flat prices. On top of the budget, HiCandidate™ charges a system fee from €399 per month and a commission on the media budget, 15 to 20% depending on the plan.
How much budget does a recruiting campaign need?
The safest way is to work backwards from your goal: the applications you want times your previous cost per application gives you the budget. If you don't have that number, start with a small budget and let the first few weeks show what an application costs. HiCandidate™ shows you cost per application and per channel in the dashboard.
Is the media budget included in the HiCandidate™ price?
No. You need a monthly media budget on top. With HiCandidate™, a commission of 15 to 20% on that budget applies, depending on the plan, plus the system fee and the one-time setup.
Can I cancel HiCandidate™ monthly?
No. The minimum term for HiCandidate™ is 12 months, though slightly shorter terms can be agreed in special cases. The offer is for companies only. Onboarding, review calls and updates are included in every plan.
Does HiCandidate™ pay off with only a few jobs?
That depends on your numbers. The system fee is fixed, and the commission grows with the media budget. With very few jobs or a very high budget per job, the pure cost calculation can come out against HiCandidate™. The cost calculator shows you the threshold where it starts to pay off for you.
Demo
Shall we run the numbers
together?
In 30 minutes, we'll work out online what social recruiting costs you and what it saves you.
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