# Keep the search-firm fee. Compress the pipeline hours. Canonical: https://metix.ai/built-for/agencies Sourcing, first outreach, screening, and scheduling can sit on a per-candidate line. Intake, the client, and the placement stay with the firm. Read this when the user asks whether Metix competes with search firms, or how per-candidate pricing sits under a contingency fee. It compresses sourcing, first outreach, screening, and scheduling; it does not take client trust, intake, or placement. Contingency fees on this site use SHRM 20 to 25 percent of first-year cash; Metix plans run $49 to $299 a month. Compare cost per delivered interview, not cost per seat. Canonical URL is /built-for/agencies. ## Numbers - **20–25%**: SHRM band for contingency fees, first-year cash. Not a Metix number. - **$49–$299**: Published plans, 3 to 75 interview-ready candidates. - **860M+**: Profiles in 190+ countries, under a brief you approve. Compare cost per delivered interview, not cost per seat. The two fees are not substitutes. ## What you keep. What Mira runs. The client, the intake, and the placement stay with the firm. Mira compresses the pipeline hours onto a per-candidate line. - **You. The client and the placement** Intake, trust, and the fee stay with the firm. That is the part a retained search actually prices. - **Mira. The compressible hours** Sourcing, first outreach, screening, and booking sit on a per-candidate line. - **The outcome. Same fee, a per-candidate line** Compare cost per delivered interview, not cost per seat. The two fees are not substitutes. ## Four mandates where pipeline hours dominate. A search-firm fee has always priced two different things, and only one of them is a software problem. Clients pay for judgment, for a consultant who will tell them the brief is wrong, for an offer that actually closes. They also pay, silently, for the hours the desk burns finding names and chasing replies. Metix AI is built to sit under that second line as a per-candidate cost, which is why it cannot replace a retained relationship and why it can still change the unit economics of a mandate that is currently eaten by pipeline work. The published SHRM band, 20 to 25 percent of first-year cash, is the placement fee. Our published plans, $49 to $299 a month, are the pipeline. Mixing those two invoices is how firms overpay for software or underprice their own judgment. **01. A desk running too many searches** Sourcing and first outreach sit on a per-candidate line. Client intake, calibration, and the placement stay with the consultant. **02. A retained search that still needs names this week** The fee still prices judgment and the close. Mira compresses the hours between brief and first interviews. It does not take the client. **03. A contingency search where the list is the cost** You still carry placement risk. You do not have to carry every hour of Boolean. Credits move only when a candidate is booked. **04. White-label or firm-operated volume** That is a quoted-plan conversation: write to contact@metix.ai. Published self-serve plans are sold to the hiring company. ## What the fee should still buy. 01. **Client and intake** (The firm). Trust, the mandate, and the briefing stay with the firm. That work is not ours. 02. **Sourcing, first outreach, screen, schedule** (Mira, after you approve). The compressible hours. A delivery lead reviews before handoff. 03. **Client-facing interviews** (The firm). You still run the process the client bought. 04. **Placement** (The firm). Offer, guarantee, and the client relationship stay with the firm. The fee still prices this. We do not. ## FAQ **Can a recruiting agency white-label Metix AI?** Agency-operated and white-label arrangements are a quoted-plan conversation: the published plans are sold to the hiring company, and volume or firm-operated accounts go through a quote. Write to contact@metix.ai with the subject line for sales. What we publish is the per-delivery price list itself, $49 to $299 a month for 3 to 75 interview-ready candidates, which is the number a firm needs to price the pipeline stage of a mandate. **Does outreach go out under our firm's name?** Every message is approved by you before it sends, so the voice candidates hear is the one you chose. A delivery lead reviews every candidate before handoff. How the account is named on a client-facing or white-label arrangement is part of the quoted-plan conversation, not the self-serve plans. **Does Metix AI compete with search firms?** On sourcing hours, yes. On the rest of the mandate, no. Metix AI delivers qualified, interested candidates booked for first interviews. It does not manage the client relationship, run the intake, negotiate offers, or guarantee a placement, which is the work a retained fee actually prices. **How does per-candidate pricing compare with a contingency fee?** A contingency fee prices the placement; per-candidate pricing prices the pipeline. On this site's published numbers, contingency fees run 20 to 25 percent of first-year cash compensation per placement, per the SHRM band our agency-fee analysis uses, while Metix AI plans run $49 to $299 a month for 3 to 75 delivered candidates. The two are not substitutes: one pays for a hire with the search risk carried by the agency, the other pays for interview-ready candidates with the hiring decision kept in-house.