Most ecommerce recruiters charge a percentage of the new hire’s first-year pay. Constant Hire charges 15% to 25% of first-year base salary for non-executive roles, and you pay only if you hire. On a $120,000 Growth Marketing Manager, an illustrative salary, that comes to $18,000 to $30,000.
A recruitment fee is the charge a hiring company pays an outside recruiting firm, usually a percentage of the new hire’s first-year pay, that helps ecommerce brands fill a role without carrying a full-time recruiting team.
These are direct hire fees for permanent roles. Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers and contract staffing agencies price on different terms.
Below is fee math on common ecommerce roles, what moves a role up or down the range, how executive search differs, and when paying a recruitment agency isn’t worth it.
Ecommerce recruiters charge a percentage of the hire’s first-year pay, and executive searches cost more.
Constant Hire’s contingency fee is 15% to 25% of first-year base salary for non-executive roles. International hires are priced separately. Nothing is owed until you hire someone we introduced, and the fee is due on that person’s start date. We set the exact percentage per role on the scoping call.
Recruitment agency fees in the wider market look similar. A 2016 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) article put contingency fees at 20% to 25% of first-year cash compensation and retained executive search at about 33% of salary, bonus and signing bonus. No regulator or industry body publishes agency rate cards, so treat every range as a starting point, ours included.
Fee structures differ by model. Contingency recruiting bills only on a hire, retained search bills part of the fee up front, and some firms quote a flat fee per role. For which model fits your search, see retained vs. contingency recruiting.
Each row applies the low, middle and high points of Constant Hire’s range to a round illustrative salary.
Salaries are round illustrative numbers, not Constant Hire salary benchmarks. Fees are calculated on first-year base salary. Constant Hire pricing as of October 2026. Fees are set per role on the scoping call.
For real pay data, see what an Ecommerce Manager earns.
A role with a broad candidate pool and a familiar profile, like a social media manager, usually sits toward the bottom of our range.
A Head of Growth who has to come from a short list of brands, or from one product category, sits toward the top, because that search takes longer to run.
At Constant Hire, the percentage follows how hard the search will be.
Candidate pool size matters most. When the hire must come from a handful of named competitors, the pool shrinks and the search runs longer. A single product category or a required city cuts it further.
Seniority moves the invoice even at the same percentage. A 20% fee on a $180,000 base is $36,000, while the same rate on $75,000 is $15,000.
Volume can change the number too, when the role is one of several you give the same firm.
The fee base matters as much as the rate.
Take a Director of Ecommerce at an illustrative $160,000 base with a $24,000 target bonus. At 20% of base salary, the fee is $32,000. At 20% of first-year cash compensation, the way the 2016 SHRM article defines it, the fee is $36,800 for the same hire.
Some contracts define the base as first-year earnings, so read that clause. Constant Hire calculates its fee on first-year base salary only. If you’re still setting the base and bonus structure, settle it before you sign a fee agreement.
Executive search fees run higher than a standard placement, and part of the fee is often paid before anyone is hired.
For a VP of Ecommerce at an illustrative $250,000 base with a $50,000 target bonus, a fee of about 33% on first-year cash, the convention in the 2016 SHRM article, comes to $99,000. The same SHRM article notes that retained firms get paid whether or not they find a winning candidate. Some executive search firms also run an engaged search, with a smaller engagement fee up front and the rest due on the hire.
For VP-and-above roles, Constant Hire scopes each search on the call. Some run as a retained search with a success fee, others as a contingent search at a higher percentage, depending on the role. A retainer tells us the brand is committed to making the hire, and it covers a search that runs far longer than a standard one. Getting a VP of Growth at a brand doing $600 million a year to take an interview, let alone leave their role, is hard. At this level we also scrutinize each candidate’s experience more closely, so every profile we review takes more time. The retainer pays for that depth of review on every candidate. First interviews come within 10 business days.
Details are on our executive search page.
The hiring company pays the recruiter fee. Candidates never pay Constant Hire to be placed.
On a contingency search, nothing is owed until a hire is made, and the fee is due on the new hire’s start date. Retained executive search is the exception, because the firm bills part of the fee before a hire.
Budget recruiter cost per role, timed to when each hire starts.
Three hires this year, an Ecommerce Manager at $100,000, a Growth Marketing Manager at $120,000 and a Director of Ecommerce at $160,000, come to $76,000 in fees at 20%. Each fee lands by that hire’s start date, not all at once.
For context, SHRM’s 2026 recruiting benchmarking, drawn from more than 4,600 organizations, put the median cost per hire at $1,300 for nonexecutive roles and $15,000 for executive roles. That figure spreads all recruiting costs, agency fees among them, across every hire.
Even the smallest fee in the table above, $11,250, is more than eight times the nonexecutive median. Save external recruiting for the searches where time and access matter most, and let in-house recruiting cover the rest.
A replacement guarantee means the firm reruns the search at no new fee if the hire leaves inside a set window.
Constant Hire’s window is 60 days on non-executive searches. If your hire leaves on day 45 of their start date for a reason the guarantee covers, and you tell us within five business days, we run one replacement search for the same role at no extra placement fee. If they leave on day 75, that falls outside the 60-day window, and a new search carries a new fee. Executive guarantee terms are set per search.
A guarantee covers the first weeks. Ask for retention rates on a firm’s past placements to judge the months after.
Yes, and the percentage is only one of the terms.
The fee base is open for discussion, since base salary costs less than total compensation at the same rate. Exclusivity is another lever, since one firm working the role alone usually gives it more focus and may offer a better rate for it. Guarantee length can move, and so can the fee when several roles go to the same firm.
At Constant Hire, the fee is set per role on the scoping call, and where it lands depends on the role and the company hiring. On our sales calls, buyers push hardest on the percentage and on paying anything up front, and those two are also the hardest terms to agree on. Few push back on the guarantee.
Paying a recruiter is worth it when an empty or badly filled seat would cost more than the fee.
It usually isn’t worth it for a role with a broad candidate pool and strong inbound applicants, when an in-house recruiter has time, or when there’s no deadline.
It pays off on a narrow pool, on a role that owns a revenue channel, at a company with no internal recruiting capacity, or against a hard deadline like Q4. On a contingency search the risk sits with the recruiter, since nothing is owed if no hire is made. See what a bad hire costs for the other side of the math.
Speed is part of what the fee pays for. Constant Hire puts first interviews on your calendar within 5 business days for standard roles and 10 for executive roles. Senior searches often run longer, so check the time to hire benchmarks for ecommerce roles before you set a deadline.
A generalist firm can fill the seat, but it usually can’t screen for conversion rate (CVR) ownership, contribution margin or marketplace compliance, so the fee buys less. Generalist recruiters work from the job description. Constant Hire’s recruitment services cover only DTC, ecommerce and CPG brands, drawing on a proprietary database of vetted ecommerce candidates, and that focus is what the percentage pays for.
The fastest way to know your fee is to tell us about the role. Book a call, and we’ll scope the search and send you a quote.
Recruitment fees, sometimes called headhunter fees, are what a hiring company pays an outside recruiter to fill a role, usually a percentage of the new hire’s first-year pay. Constant Hire charges 15% to 25% of first-year base salary for non-executive roles, due on the start date. A 2016 SHRM article put typical contingency fees at 20% to 25% of first-year cash compensation.
On a contingency search, you pay nothing unless you hire a candidate the recruiter introduced, and the fee is then due on the hire’s start date. Retained executive search works differently. A 2016 SHRM article notes retained firms are paid whether or not they find a winning candidate.
Multiply the fee percentage by the fee base written in the contract. A 20% fee on a $120,000 base salary is $24,000. If the contract uses first-year cash compensation instead, bonuses and signing bonuses count too, which raises the invoice at the same percentage. Check the fee base before you compare two firms’ rates.
First interviews in 5 business days,
or 10 for executive searches.
