Calculator
Placement fee and desk revenue calculator
Enter your average placed salary, fee percentage and yearly placement count to see what actually lands after fallout, splits and the fixed cost of the desk.
Free tools
Calculators for a boutique search desk
Two working calculators for recruiters who bill on placements, built to answer the questions a two person firm argues about at the end of a quarter.
Search desk math is deceptively simple until you subtract the things that actually happen. A fee percentage times a salary looks like revenue, but fallout inside the guarantee period, splits with a partner or a co recruiter, and the fixed cost of the desk itself all come off the top before anyone gets paid. The first calculator below runs those subtractions with your own numbers instead of a rule of thumb.
The second calculator prices something recruiters rarely count: the hours spent writing status updates and chasing hiring managers for feedback on candidates already submitted. Multiply that across every open search and it usually turns out to be the largest single block of unbilled time on a small desk, and the reason a third recruiter feels necessary before the billings justify one.
Calculator
Client update and search capacity calculator
Count the weekly hours your open searches spend on status writing and feedback chasing, then see how many searches are left in the week you have.
Working document
The client shortlist checklist
Everything that has to be true before a slate goes to a hiring manager, and what to do in the days after it lands.
Why the desk math is open to every recruiter
Boutique recruiters already run this arithmetic by hand, usually on the back of an intake sheet between screening calls. First year base times the fee percentage, minus the two placements that fell off inside the guarantee period, minus whatever a co recruiter takes on a split deal, minus the job boards and data tools the desk pays for whether or not anyone starts. The capacity version is done even more loosely: five open searches, roughly half an hour of status writing each, plus the chasing you do when a hiring manager sits on a slate for nine days. Nobody carries the same assumptions from one Friday to the next, which is why two partners can look at the same year and disagree about what the desk earned.
So both calculators run in the page with no sign up, no account and nothing stored. They are worth having even if you never open a shortlist page for a client. Take the fee number into your next fee negotiation so the guarantee terms and the split share are priced rather than absorbed, and take the capacity number into the decision about whether to accept a sixth search this month. A recruiter who knows what an hour of reporting time costs the desk turns down different searches than one who does not.
Turn the reporting hours back into search hours
The calculators price two things a boutique desk usually swallows: the fees that never survive fallout and splits, and the weekly hours spent writing updates and chasing feedback on candidates already submitted. The second number is the one a client facing shortlist page moves. Book a demo and we will show you what those minutes per search look like when the hiring manager can open the slate instead of waiting for your Thursday night email.