How much do recruitment agencies charge in India, and what does the fee cover?

The market convention is 8.33% of annual CTC, one month's salary, rising to 10 to 20% for specialist mandates and 15 to 20% at international firms. Hyring charges a flat 7% of CTC. It covers sourcing, AI first-round interviews, recruiter validation, portal access, offer support, and the replacement guarantee. Contract staffing, payroll, statutory benefits, background verification, RPO, and employer of record are quoted separately.

Do candidates pay any fee to Hyring?

No. Hyring is free for jobseekers. Candidates apply through the video-first Hyring Jobs platform, take AI interviews at no cost, and prepare with the free Jobseeker Toolkit. Any consultancy that charges candidates a placement fee should be avoided.

Which cities does Hyring recruit in?

Hyring recruits across India, with dedicated pages for 26 markets including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Gurugram, and Noida. Because sourcing runs on a national candidate database and recruiting partner network, coverage does not depend on branch offices.

What is the difference between a recruitment agency and a job portal?

A job portal sells you access to applicants and leaves screening to your team. A recruitment agency does the sourcing and screening and is paid on results. Hyring sits between the two: portal-scale candidate flow, agency-grade screening through AI interviews, and a flat placement fee.

How fast can Hyring deliver a shortlist?

Shortlists with completed AI interview recordings and calibrated scores typically arrive in 48 to 72 hours, because screening starts the day candidates apply. Closure timelines then depend on notice periods, which commonly run 30 to 90 days in Indian IT.

Does Hyring handle contract staffing and RPO, or only permanent hiring?

Both and more. Alongside direct hire, Hyring runs RPO, staff augmentation, IT staff augmentation, employer of record for global companies employing in India, and global hiring, all through one portal and one AI screening engine.

How do I review candidates and share feedback with my team?

Everything runs in your Hyring portal. Every candidate is uploaded with resume, AI interview recording, and calibrated scores, moving through clear stages your whole team can see. Feedback is captured on the candidate profile instead of email chains, and panel interviews are scheduled and held in Hyring Meet , our own video platform.

Recruitment Agency

Recruitment Agency in India

Hyring is an AI-native recruitment agency headquartered in Chennai, recruiting across 26 Indian markets at a flat 7% of CTC. Candidates arrive with first-round AI interviews already completed, and shortlists land in 48 to 72 hours.

Last updated on: July 3, 2026Read time: 10 mins

Written byAdithyan RKFact checked bySurya N

Flat fee on CTC, direct hire

48–72h

AI-screened shortlist

900K+

AI interviews conducted

Indian markets covered

Hyring is an AI-native recruitment agency in India, charging a flat 7% of CTC for direct hires across IT, SaaS, BFSI, manufacturing, healthcare, and global capability centres. Every candidate you review has already completed a first-round AI interview, with the recording and score waiting in your portal.

Indian recruitment has a structural problem that fee percentages never fix. A consultancy assigns your mandate to one recruiter carrying a dozen others, sends resumes over email, and asks for feedback you have no time to give. Everyone knows the pattern; nobody changes it, because the economics reward submitting volume rather than screening it. We built the opposite: interview first, submit second, and publish the fee so the conversation starts somewhere honest.

What a Recruitment Agency Does in India

A recruitment agency sources, screens, and shortlists candidates for employers and is paid on placement, unlike a job portal, which sells access and leaves screening to you.

The vocabulary in India is unusually crowded, and the labels overlap in ways that confuse first-time buyers. Untangled:

Recruitment vocabulary in the Indian market

Term	What it usually means	Paid how
Recruitment agency	Sources and screens candidates for employers across functions and seniority	Percentage of CTC on placement
Placement or manpower consultancy	The same business, older terminology, often used by regional and volume-hiring firms	Usually one month's CTC
Job portal	A database and job-posting platform; screening stays with your team	Subscription, regardless of outcome
RPO provider	Runs part or all of your recruitment process as an outsourced function	Monthly fee, cost per hire, or hybrid
Staffing or contract firm	Employs the worker and deputes them to you for a defined period	Monthly rate or markup on pay
Executive search	Confidential senior and leadership mandates, market-mapped	Retainer, or a higher percentage

Hyring operates across five of those six rows, which is unusual, and prices the first one publicly, which is rarer still. The one we do not do is sell you a database subscription and call it hiring.

Recruitment Agency Fees in India, Explained

The Indian convention is 8.33% of CTC, one month's salary, rising to 10 to 20% for specialist roles and 15 to 20% at international firms. Hyring publishes a flat 7%.

Almost nobody in Indian recruitment publishes a rate card, which is why buyers negotiate blind. The typical structure, as reported by employers:

One month's CTC, 8.33%: the default convention across most Indian consultancies for mainstream roles.
10 to 20%: specialist, niche technical, or leadership mandates.
15 to 20%: international firms operating in India.
Replacement window: commonly 90 days, though terms vary and are worth reading before signing.

Our direct hire fee is 7% of CTC, flat at every seniority, published here. On a ₹15 LPA hire that is ₹1.05 lakh against ₹1.25 lakh at the one-month convention and up to ₹3 lakh at specialist rates. On a ₹40 LPA engineering leader it is ₹2.8 lakh, where a slab model would produce ₹4 to 8 lakh.

Fee on a ₹15 LPA hire

Conventions are typical market practice; the Hyring fee is published

Benchmark the salary before you benchmark the fee. Our free salary guides cover 93 roles across Indian cities, and an inflated base inflates every percentage built on top of it.

Fact

Candidates never pay Hyring anything. Jobseekers apply free through Hyring Jobs, interview free, and prepare free with the Jobseeker Toolkit and interview questions library. Candidate-paid placement fees remain common in parts of the Indian market and are a reliable signal to walk away.

How Hyring Delivers

Every candidate arrives pre-interviewed by AI, sourced by thousands of recruiting partners, and tracked in one portal instead of an email chain.

In a market where counteroffers are routine and notice periods run to ninety days, screening for genuine skill and real intent to move before your panel spends time is worth more than another stack of resumes. Six things run behind every shortlist:

Round one, already done

Every candidate completes an AI first round before you see them: video, coding, phone, or the English test where communication carries the role.

Every applicant ranked

The AI Resume Screener scores the full funnel against your brief, so nothing good gets buried under volume.

A video-first talent pool

Candidates join through Hyring Jobs, presenting on camera and interviewing as they apply. The database is assessed, not just collected.

Thousands of recruiters, not one

The Recruiting Partners network puts specialist recruiters across India on your role, paid on placements, every submission passing the same screen.

Panel rounds in Hyring Meet

Interviews are scheduled and held in Hyring Meet, our own video platform, so invites and recordings stay attached to the candidate record.

Transparency after the hire

Augmented teams run on Insight by Hyring: tracked hours and focus patterns, employees seeing their own data first. SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified.

All of it lands in one portal: every candidate uploaded with recording and score attached, clear stages your whole team can see, and feedback captured on the profile instead of a WhatsApp thread nobody can audit three months later.

The Full Service Stack

Direct hire at a flat 7% anchors a stack covering RPO, staff augmentation, IT staff augmentation, employer of record, and global hiring.

Services available to Indian employers and to global companies hiring in India

Service	Best for	Pricing shape
Direct hire	Permanent roles across functions and seniority	Flat 7% of CTC
RPO services	Outsourcing part or all of recruitment	~30% below big-firm quotes
Staff augmentation	Dedicated professionals on your projects	~30% below big-firm quotes
IT staff augmentation	Engineering teams ramped fast	~30% below big-firm quotes
Employer of record	Global companies employing in India without an entity	Per-employee monthly
Global hiring	Indian companies building teams abroad	14% rest of world, 7% India

Hyring vs a Local Consultancy or In-House Team

Hyring fits employers who want published fees and interview evidence; a local consultancy still fits narrow trades where one recruiter owns the community.

Four ways to fill an Indian role

Decision factor	Hyring	Local consultancy	Global firm in India	In-house TA
Fee	Published flat 7% of CTC	Usually 8.33%, unpublished	15–20% typical	Salaries, tools, and job ads
First-round evidence	AI interview recordings and scores on every candidate	Recruiter's phone screen notes	Varies by practice and tier	Whatever your process produces
Employer visibility	Live portal: stages, evidence, decisions	Email, calls, and WhatsApp	Reporting on larger accounts	Your own ATS
Geographic reach	26 markets on one database and partner network	Usually one city or region	Metro offices	Wherever your brand reaches
Best fit	Evidence, speed, and fee-sensitive hiring across functions	Narrow trades with a tight local community	Multi-country leadership mandates	Steady, predictable hiring volume

Cities We Recruit In

Hyring recruits across 26 Indian markets, each with its own industry mix, salary bands, and notice-period norms.

India is not one hiring market. Salary bands for the same role vary by 20 to 30% between metros, notice-period culture differs by industry, and the sectors that dominate a city determine which functions are easy or hard to fill there. Pick your market:

Hyring recruitment coverage across India

City	What drives hiring there
Bengaluru	India's largest product engineering and startup market, deepest senior tech bench
Mumbai	BFSI capital, media, and the country's deepest finance talent pool
Delhi	Corporate headquarters, policy, media, and the NCR services base
Hyderabad	Global capability centres at scale, plus pharma and life sciences
Chennai	SaaS and IT services on the OMR corridor, auto manufacturing at Sriperumbudur. Our headquarters
Pune	Automotive engineering alongside the Hinjewadi IT corridor
Gurugram	NCR's corporate and startup hub, strong in consulting, SaaS, and fintech
Noida	IT services, business process operations, and electronics manufacturing
Kolkata	IT services, manufacturing, and eastern India's corporate base
Ahmedabad	Pharma, chemicals, textiles, and a growing fintech presence
Kochi	IT parks, ports and logistics, and returning Gulf professionals
Coimbatore	Textile machinery, pumps, precision engineering, and a rising IT base
Indore	IT services, pharma, and central India's education-driven talent supply
Jaipur	IT services, hospitality, and gems and jewellery
Chandigarh	IT services, government-linked employment, and Tricity talent
Thane	Mumbai metropolitan manufacturing and back-office corridor
Surat	Textiles, diamonds, and rapidly formalising manufacturing
Vadodara	Petrochemicals, heavy engineering, and process manufacturing
Nashik	Manufacturing, agri and wine industry, and Mumbai overflow
Lucknow	Government, education, and expanding IT services
Bhubaneswar	IT services and a strong engineering-college talent pipeline
Ludhiana	Hosiery, bicycles, auto components, and family-run manufacturing
Kanpur	Leather, manufacturing, and a large engineering graduate pool
Patna	Services, education, and administrative employment
Goa	Hospitality, pharma manufacturing, and gaming
Kerala	Technopark and Infopark IT, healthcare, and Gulf-return talent

Industries We Recruit For

Hyring recruits across IT and SaaS, BFSI, manufacturing, healthcare, pharma, logistics, and global capability centres.

Our screening adapts to the function rather than applying one test to everyone. Engineers face coding interviews; finance candidates face scenario-based interviews built from real controller and FP&A rubrics; client-facing roles face the English proficiency test; and volume roles run through the phone screener. Job descriptions for over 900 roles sit in our free JD library, and the 1,100-term HR Glossary plus the Learn hub cover the process questions that come up during vendor review. For internal HR teams, the free HR Toolkit holds 150+ calculators including cost-per-hire and offer-cost models.

Written by

Adithyan RK

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CEO & Co-founder, Hyring

18+ years of experience

Adithyan RK is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hyring, an AI-native recruitment platform that has run over 900,000 AI interviews for companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500. He has spent 18 years building technology businesses, starting with a digital consultancy in 2008 and a staff augmentation firm in 2017, before founding Hyring in 2022 to rebuild hiring around evidence instead of guesswork. Read more

Expertise

AI RecruitmentAI InterviewsRecruitment AutomationHR TechnologyHiring AnalyticsApplicant TrackingRecruiter Operations

Fact checked by

Surya N

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CTO & Co-founder, Hyring

6+ years of experience

Surya N is the Co-Founder and CTO of Hyring, where he architected the AI interviewing engine that has now conducted over 900,000 interviews for companies ranging from early-stage startups to the Fortune 500. A mechanical engineer who moved into artificial intelligence, he spent 6 years building AI applications inside a technology consultancy before co-founding Hyring, and wrote the first version of its AI interviewer from scratch. Read more

Expertise

AI Interview SystemsConversational AIInterview Fraud DetectionPlatform ArchitectureMachine Learning EngineeringApplied AISpeech and Voice AIBias Testing and Model Evaluation

FAQs

A recruitment agency sources, screens, and shortlists candidates for employers, then supports offers, notice-period navigation, and joining. In India the same business is also called a placement consultancy or manpower consultancy. Hyring adds an AI first-round interview on every candidate, so employers review recordings and scores rather than resumes.