The Placement Fee in the AI Era: What Changes for Recruiters

A fee built for a different era

For decades, permanent recruitment has been priced as a percentage of first-year salary. Published UK terms show the pattern: Hays lists 20% to 28% depending on salary band, and Reed lists 22% to 27% on total pay. Published Dutch terms run 25% to 28%, including holiday pay.

That model made sense when finding and engaging candidates took weeks of manual work and the outcome was uncertain. The fee paid for the risk and the effort.

What changed

AI has changed the cost of execution. Sourcing, outreach, follow-ups, first calls and structured interviews can now run continuously, with far less manual effort. When the work gets cheaper, a fee that grows with the salary, not with the work, becomes harder to justify.

What this means for companies

Companies can now execute hiring directly, with an AI recruiter running the work and their own team making the decisions. With MetaDay, that is one flat fee, with no percentage of salary.

What this means for recruiters

This is not the end of recruiters. Expertise, market knowledge and relationships are worth more than ever, because they are the part that cannot be executed by software. The recruiters who grow will be the ones who pair that judgment with execution capacity, and offer clients clear, predictable pricing.

Some will keep the success fee. Some will move to retainers or flat fees. Either way, the recruiter who runs more searches with less manual work wins.

Where MetaDay fits

MetaDay is an AI recruiter that runs the whole hire. Companies use it to hire directly. Independent recruiters use it to serve more clients. And through the MetaDay Network, recruiters can be introduced to companies that need specialist help, with 0% commission taken by MetaDay.