Contingency vs Retained Search: Which Recruiting Model to Use for a Marketing Hire

Contingency and retained search are the two ways recruitment agencies charge to fill a role. Contingency means you pay only if the recruiter places someone, typically 15% to 25% of first-year base salary. Retained means you pay in installments to run a dedicated search whether or not it succeeds, typically 25% to 35%. Contingency suits most marketing roles you could also fill yourself; retained suits senior, confidential or genuinely hard-to-fill seats. For a mid-level marketing hire, a $199 job post often beats both.

Last updated July 2026.

Contingency vs retained search at a glance

The two models differ in when you pay, how much, and how much of the recruiter's attention you get. This table lays out the trade-off before we get into when to use each.

	Contingency search	Retained search
When you pay	Only if they place a hire	In installments, up front and through the search
Typical fee	15% to 25% of first-year base	25% to 35% of first-year base
Exclusivity	Often non-exclusive; several recruiters may compete	Exclusive; one firm owns the search
Recruiter effort	Speed-driven; fills the easy roles first	Dedicated, methodical, mapped to the market
Best for	Mid-level roles with an active candidate pool	Senior, confidential, or hard-to-fill roles

How contingency search works

Contingency is the model most employers picture when they think of a recruiter. You brief one or more agencies on the role, they send candidates, and you pay a fee only when you hire someone they introduced. The fee is a percentage of the new hire's first-year base salary, usually 15% to 25%, with 20% the most common. Nothing is owed if you do not hire.

That no-win-no-fee structure sounds risk-free, and for the employer's cash flow it mostly is. The catch is in the recruiter's incentives. A contingency recruiter only gets paid on placements, and often competes with other recruiters and your own posting for the same role, so they prioritize speed and the roles most likely to close. They will work your easy-to-fill positions hard and quietly deprioritize the difficult ones. For a marketing role with a healthy candidate pool, that is usually fine.

How retained search works

Retained search is an exclusive engagement. You pay the firm in installments, typically a third to start, a third at a shortlist, and a third on placement, and in return they run a dedicated, structured search: mapping the market, approaching passive candidates who are not applying to anything, and managing the process end to end. The fee is higher, usually 25% to 35% of first-year base, because you are buying committed effort, not a lottery ticket.

Because the firm is paid whether or not the search closes quickly, their incentive is to do it right rather than fast. That is what you want for a role where the wrong hire is expensive, where the search must stay confidential, or where the right person will never see a job posting. It is overkill, and overpriced, for a role you could fill from an active applicant pool.

What each model actually costs

The percentage hides how large these fees get. Here is the real dollar cost on typical US marketing salaries.

First-year base	Contingency at 20%	Retained at 30%
$70,000 marketing manager	$14,000	$21,000
$120,000 brand or senior manager	$24,000	$36,000
$180,000 marketing director	$36,000	$54,000

These are one-time fees for a single hire. That is the number to weigh against posting the role yourself, and it is why the choice is not only contingency vs retained, but whether you need a recruiter at all.

When to use contingency

Use contingency search when the role sits in the middle of the market and you want extra candidate flow without committing cash up front. Good signals:

• The role is mid-level and has an active candidate pool, so speed helps and depth is not the constraint.
• You want to test a recruiter's candidates alongside your own posting, with no downside if theirs do not land.
• Cash flow matters and you would rather pay only on a successful hire.
• The search does not need to be confidential.

When to use retained

Use retained search when the cost of the wrong hire, or of the seat sitting empty, is high enough to justify paying for committed effort:

• The role is senior: a director, VP or head of marketing where the shortlist is small and the impact is large.
• The best candidates are passive and will only move for a discreet, direct approach.
• The search must stay confidential, for example replacing someone still in the seat.
• You have tried contingency or your own posting and the role has stayed open too long.

Retained firms earn their fee on exactly these searches, because they will reach passive candidates directly who are not browsing job boards, map the whole market, and manage a confidential process that a speed-driven contingency recruiter will not touch.

When you do not need a recruiter at all

Both models exist to solve one problem: finding qualified candidates. For a large share of marketing roles, that problem is smaller than the fee implies. Coordinators, specialists and most managers have deep, active candidate pools. The reason a general posting feels like it fails is not a shortage of marketers; it is that a generalist board buries a marketing role under everything else and floods you with unqualified applicants.

Post the same role on a marketing-only board, publish the salary band, and scope it tightly, and you reach the specialists directly for $199 instead of paying a recruiter thousands. That is the whole argument on our page for how to work with, or around, a marketing recruitment agency. Keep the recruiter for the searches that genuinely need one, and self-source the rest. If you are budgeting the full picture first, the guide to how much it costs to hire a marketer lays out every line item.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between contingency and retained search?

Contingency search means you pay a recruiter only if they place a hire, typically 15% to 25% of first-year base salary. Retained search means you pay in installments to fund a dedicated, exclusive search whether or not it succeeds, typically 25% to 35%. Contingency is speed and volume for mid-level roles; retained is committed, methodical effort for senior or hard-to-fill roles.

Is contingency or retained cheaper?

Contingency is cheaper on paper: a lower percentage, and you pay nothing unless you hire. Retained costs more and is paid regardless of outcome, but it buys dedicated effort and access to passive candidates. The real comparison for most marketing roles is against posting the role yourself, which replaces a fee of thousands with a flat posting cost of a few hundred dollars.

Do you pay a contingency recruiter if you do not hire their candidate?

No. The defining feature of contingency search is that the fee is owed only when you hire a candidate the recruiter introduced. If none of their candidates is hired, you owe nothing. That is why contingency recruiters prioritize speed and the roles most likely to close, since unfilled searches earn them nothing.

What percentage do marketing recruiters charge?

Marketing recruiters typically charge 15% to 25% of the new hire's first-year base salary for contingency placements, with 20% the most common figure. Retained search for senior marketing roles runs 25% to 35%. On a $100,000 salary, that is $15,000 to $25,000 for contingency and $25,000 to $35,000 for retained, as a one-time fee per hire.

Fill the role that does not need a recruiter

Reserve contingency and retained search for the senior, confidential and genuinely hard-to-fill roles that earn the fee. For everything else, post the role directly to marketers who filter the board by specialty. See the options on the hire marketers hub, or post your role for $199 with the salary band on the card.