Why is the fee basis so important?

Because retained firms usually calculate on total compensation including bonus and sometimes equity, while ours applies to base salary only. A $300,000 base with a 35% bonus becomes a $405,000 fee base under the retained model, which nearly doubles the effective difference.

Is your executive search retained or contingent?

Contingent. The fee is payable when the executive starts rather than billed in stages during the search. Retained firms argue that retention buys commitment and off-limits protection, which is a legitimate argument for certain mandates.

How is AI used in executive search?

For market mapping and longlist research: identifying who holds comparable scope, ranking against the brief, and surfacing strong operators whose current titles understate their responsibility. Confidential approach, leadership assessment, and the close are handled by people.

Can searches be run confidentially?

Yes, as standard rather than a premium tier. Your company stays unnamed in outreach until a candidate is qualified and mutually interested, which matters when replacing an incumbent who does not yet know or entering a market you have not announced.

When should we use a retained firm instead?

Board-level and CEO succession where institutional credibility with directors is part of the purchase, very narrow sectors where a boutique's long-built network is genuinely the product, and mandates requiring extensive off-limits protection that a contingent model cannot offer.

Do you offer off-limits protection?

No. A retained firm agreeing not to recruit from a defined set of companies is a real commitment that a contingent model cannot match. If that protection matters to your mandate, a retained firm is the better choice and we will say so.

What seniority do you cover?

Heads of function, directors, and VPs across engineering, finance, sales, marketing, operations, people, and legal, plus CFO, CTO, COO, CRO, and CPO appointments and board or advisory roles alongside functional searches.

Service

Executive Search

Senior leadership search at a flat 14% of base salary, payable when the executive starts. Against a 30% retained fee calculated on total compensation, that is roughly a third of the cost for the same appointment.

Last updated on: June 9, 2026Read time: 7 mins

Written byAdithyan RKFact checked bySurya N

14%

Of base, contingent

25–35%

Typical retained fee

900K+

AI interviews conducted

90 days

Replacement commitment

Hyring runs executive search at a flat 14% of base salary, contingent on the executive starting rather than billed in stages. Market mapping and longlist research are AI-assisted; confidential approach, leadership assessment, and the close are handled by people, because at this level they have to be.

Executive search is the least disrupted corner of staffing, and its pricing shows it. The retained model, 25 to 35% of total compensation billed in thirds regardless of outcome, has held essentially unchanged for decades on the argument that senior hiring requires bespoke human craft. Half that argument is true. Assessing whether someone can lead a function through a difficult year is genuinely human work. Building and researching a longlist of everyone in a market who holds comparable scope is not, and has not been for some time.

What Executive Search Costs

On a $300,000 base with typical bonus, a 30% retained fee is roughly $121,500 against $42,000 at a flat 14% of base.

What an executive search costs as seniority rises

Fee in thousands of dollars, by base salary

The retained line climbs fastest because it is calculated on total compensation, not base. On a $300,000 role with a typical bonus, a 30% retained fee is charged against roughly $405,000, producing about $121,500. Our 14% on base is $42,000 for the same appointment. That gap is a structural pricing difference, not a discount.

The compounding factor is the calculation base. Retained firms typically charge on total first-year compensation including bonus and sometimes equity, so a $300,000 base with a 35% bonus becomes a $405,000 fee base. Our percentage applies to base salary only, which we state publicly rather than leaving to the schedule at the back of an agreement.

Retained or Contingent

Our fee is contingent, payable when the executive starts, where retained search bills in thirds regardless of whether the search concludes.

Executive search engagement models compared

Factor	Retained search	Hyring
Fee basis	Total compensation, often incl. bonus	Base salary
Rate	25–35%	Flat 14%
Payment	Thirds, regardless of outcome	On start
Off-limits protection	Typically offered	Not offered
Research depth	Human researchers, weeks	AI-assisted mapping, days
Assessment and close	Human consultants	Human consultants

The row worth weighing is off-limits protection. A retained firm agreeing not to recruit from a defined set of companies is a real commitment that a contingent model cannot match, and for some mandates that alone justifies the retainer.

What Is Automated, What Is Not

AI handles market mapping and longlist research; people handle confidential approach, leadership assessment, and managing a resignation.

Where the work sits in an executive search

What is automated, and what stays human

Market mapping

Who holds comparable scope, ranked against the brief

Confidential approach

Human. Relationships and discretion, not screening

Assessment

Human. Leadership judgement under specific questioning

Human. Managing a resignation and a counteroffer

The research layer is automatable and has been for a while. The other three are not, and any firm claiming to automate them is selling you something worse than a retainer.

Market mapping surfaces candidates a keyword search ranks poorly, most usefully the strong operator whose current title understates their responsibility. That has traditionally consumed weeks of researcher time and a large share of the retainer. Everything after it is relationship work: approaching a sitting executive discreetly, assessing whether someone who succeeded with resources will succeed without them, and holding a candidate steady through notice and a counteroffer.

Round one, already done

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

Every applicant ranked

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

Thousands of recruiters

The Recruiting Partners network works each role nationally, paid on placements, every submission passing the same screen.

Panel rounds in Hyring Meet

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

One portal, no chasing

Every candidate uploaded with recording and score, clear stages your whole team sees, feedback on the profile instead of an email thread.

Transparency after the hire

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

Fact

90-day replacement commitment. If a placed hire leaves within 90 days, we replace them under the agreed terms. Ask any agency whether their guarantee provides a replacement or a refund, and over what period, because those are materially different commitments that get conflated in most contracts.

Roles We Search

Functional leadership through C-suite across technology, finance, commercial, operations, people, and legal.

Heads of function, directors, and VPs across engineering, finance, sales, marketing, operations, people, and legal; CFO, CTO, COO, CRO, and CPO appointments at growth and mid-market companies; and board or advisory appointments alongside a functional search. For senior roles below leadership level, direct hire applies the same flat 14%.

Confidential Searches

Searches can run without your company named until a candidate is qualified and mutually interested.

Roughly half of senior searches accompany something unannounced: an incumbent who does not yet know they are being replaced, a market entry not yet public, a transaction in progress. Confidentiality is handled as standard rather than as a premium tier, with your company unnamed in outreach until a candidate is both qualified and genuinely interested, and portal access controlled to the people who need it.

When a Retained Firm Is Better

Board and CEO succession, very narrow sectors, and mandates needing off-limits protection are genuinely better served by a retained firm.

Board-level and CEO succession, where governance expectations, committee involvement, and a firm's institutional credibility with directors are part of what is being bought.
Very narrow sectors where a boutique has spent twenty years building relationships with the few hundred people who could do the job, and that network genuinely is the product.
Mandates needing extensive off-limits protection, which a contingent model structurally cannot offer.

Outside those three, most functional leadership hiring needs good market mapping, credible confidential outreach, rigorous assessment, and someone who can manage a nervous candidate through a resignation. We do those four things at 14% of base, payable when the person starts.

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

Retained search typically charges 25 to 35% of total first-year compensation, billed in thirds regardless of outcome. Hyring charges a flat 14% of base salary, contingent on the executive starting. On a $300,000 base with a typical bonus, that is roughly $42,000 against about $121,500.