I’ve always wondered why so many founders choose contingency agencies despite it being so much more expensive than the alternatives.

Now I know—founders choose it not because it’s the cheapest or best option, but because they want to pay a big premium if a critical hire lands fast, and nothing if it doesn’t.

In other words: contingency is price discrimination based on your time preference.

If your willingness to pay is $40k for a hire made in the next 2–3 weeks but only $8–10k if it takes ~2 months, contingency can make sense.

But here’s the catch: most of the time spent in hiring lives inside your process. Feedback cycles, scheduling, onsite loops, and offers all take weeks to a month at most companies. With contingency, you may get candidates quickly, but your company’s hiring processes may take months. Agencies will get the same premium fee regardless of how fast the hire is made.

When might contingency make sense?

You’re essentially spending $30k to hopefully save 6 weeks. If you feel like you’re losing $5k every week you don’t have this role filled, it could be worth it.

If you aren’t in that extreme of a situation, a smarter bet is to buy focused, senior help by the hour and scale it up or down as your needs change. That’s why we built a fractional recruiter marketplace: expert partners, flexible capacity, and predictable cost-per-hire that’s typically in the low single-digit thousands instead of agency-level success fees.