What a month of an open IT vacancy actually costs

'Our middle backend budget is €3K gross — if we search ourselves we save 30% on the agency.' I hear this logic monthly. And monthly I calculate what their 'free' search actually cost — usually taking five months instead of two. Almost always multiples of the 30% they saved.

"Our middle backend budget is €3K per month gross. If we search ourselves, we'll save 30% on the agency." I hear this logic monthly. And monthly I end up calculating, together with the client, what their "free" search actually cost — usually taking five months instead of two. Almost always it's multiples of those 30% they "saved."

This post is a real cost breakdown for an open vacancy on a global technology team — numbers we see weekly.

Direct costs — what most people count

The visible part. Most companies count only this and then wonder why "cheap" hiring turned out expensive.

• Internal recruiter salary. Senior IT recruiter in Western Europe: €5-8K per month with overhead. In CIS/Eastern Europe: €2.5-4K. Distributed across 4-6 parallel roles → €600-1500 per role per month.
• Job board access, ads, database subscriptions. LinkedIn Recruiter (€800-1500/month), regional job boards, Telegram channel ads. Minimum €500 per role per active month.
• Agency commission, if engaged. 18-25% of annual gross. For a middle backend at €60K — that's €11-15K, paid on the start date.

Total direct cost per month of search: €1100-3000 internal plus agency commission if used.

Hidden cost — team time

The part never logged on a spreadsheet but exactly what makes "cheap" hiring expensive. Take a typical middle backend search and count team hours.

• CTO / direction head. 2-4 hours/week: finals, feedback, syncs with recruiter. Take 3.
• Tech lead / senior from the team. 4-6 hours/week: technical screens, take-home reviews, first interviews. Take 5.
• HR partner. 2-3 hours/week per role: coordination, correspondence, scheduling.
• Team itself (peer interviews). 1-2 interviews/week × 1 hour with two people. 2-4 hours/week.

Total: 12-18 hours of team time per week per open vacancy. Apply hourly cost:

Result: 15 team hours/week × ~€65 avg = €1000/week, or ~€4000/month on a single vacancy. Already comparable to the candidate's own monthly cost.

The most expensive part — team productivity drag

The part I save for last because it's the most painful. If you have a middle backend open in a 6-person team — what happens to team productivity?

Normally a 6-person team runs roughly three parallel work streams. With one person missing — two, and each runs slower because coordination overhead grows. The senior who should review someone else's PR is writing code instead. The CTO spends more time on ops. The team lead handles tasks a middle could lead.

From observation, a missing middle reduces aggregate team productivity by 15-25%. Take 20%.

Six-person team with average "fully loaded cost" (gross × 1.3) of €36-42K/month. 20% drag = €7-8.5K/month in lost productivity. From a single open seat.

Cost of delayed releases

The part almost nobody counts, though for product companies it's the largest. If a feature ships a month late because of a missing person, and that feature should have brought:

• in B2B SaaS — 5-10% of monthly revenue;
• in e-commerce — 2-5% of monthly conversion;
• in internal tooling — 10-20% of user team productivity;

For a fintech startup at €500K MRR, a one-month delay on a 5% feature = €25K of foregone revenue. And that's only the first month.

In product companies the delayed-release cost almost always dwarfs the salary of whoever was supposed to ship it.

Simple formula

To avoid recalculating from scratch each time, here's the rule of thumb we use for middle/senior IT roles in technology product teams:

The 2.5 multiplier is an empirical aggregate from working with dozens of teams. Not strict — but it captures direct costs, team time, lost productivity and delayed releases reasonably well.

For a team lead or a keystone specialist who blocks a whole direction, the multiplier reaches 4-5. For replacing a generic junior — 1.2-1.5.

Why "cheap search" can be the most expensive

Back to the opening case. A company decides not to pay the agency €12K for a middle backend, searches internally. Internal search takes 5 months instead of the expected 2.

"Saved" €12K on the agency. "Additionally lost":

• 3 extra months of drag × €16K = €48K
• Minus the €12K not paid to the agency.
• Net: company lost ~€36K on the "saving."

This doesn't mean run to the agency every time. It means the "search ourselves" decision only makes sense if you actually have the capacity to close in a reasonable timeframe. If your average internal close time is 4-5 months, the saving turns negative.

How to cost your own open seats

Simple checklist to estimate what a specific open position costs you:

• Note the target salary (full loaded cost, with social charges).
• Multiply by 2.5 for senior/middle in a product team; 1.5 for a generic junior; 4 for a team lead or keystone role.
• Compare to the agency commission you'd pay. If one month of drag costs more than half the commission, external search pays for itself in the time difference.
• Add an estimate for delayed releases if they depend on this role. Rarely counted, often the largest line in product companies.

What to do with this

The main use of this breakdown isn't deciding "agency or no agency." It's getting CTOs and CFOs to stop arguing about hiring budgets in the abstract. Open vacancy cost is a concrete number you can compare with any cost of acceleration: a new recruiter, an agency, a referral bonus, a signing bonus.

If you have roles open more than two months — apply the formula. In most cases the number is uncomfortably large, and it changes the "hiring budget" conversation.

When we help with the math

We regularly do this breakdown for clients: take their open roles, compute drag cost, see which ones pay back external research and which don't. One-off consultation, 1-2 hours, free if it leads to a useful conversation.

Want this breakdown for your current vacancies — email [email protected] with a few roles and their salary bands.