Job Placement · Technology · Staffing Agency Alternative
A technology staffing agency bills a marked-up hourly rate for as long as the contract runs, and that markup legally runs from 20 percent to more than 100 percent on scarce, credentialed roles. BEG never bills by the hour. BEG places a permanent engineer your company employs from day one, on a milestone fee fixed before sourcing starts, from 9,381 dollars.
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TL;DR
A staffing agency markup is not a scam, it is a recurring cost structure: 20 to 75 percent over pay rate, sometimes over 100 percent for scarce technical roles, and it keeps accruing for as long as the contract runs because the agency stays the legal employer. That is the right tool for a defined project with an end date. It is the wrong tool for a permanent engineering seat, where a one-time milestone fee, fixed before sourcing, almost always costs less than months of accruing markup. BEG runs the second kind of search: permanent placement, Tier II at 9,381 to 11,257 dollars, Tier III at 12,864 to 15,437 dollars, agreed in writing before anyone is approached.
The Markup, In Dollars
Because the agency is the legal employer and prices accordingly. The markup covers statutory payroll cost and overhead before any profit, and unlike a placement fee it never stops accruing while the contract runs.
Four Questions Before You Sign Either Contract
Not price alone. Four questions decide it, and skipping any one of them is how a six-month contract quietly costs more than a permanent hire would have.
| The question | What it determines | What gets missed if skipped |
|---|---|---|
| Is this a project or a headcount seat? | Whether the need has a natural end date or is ongoing work your team will need next quarter too. | Paying an accruing hourly markup for a seat that was permanent from the start. |
| Who is the legal employer once work begins? | In staffing, the agency, which carries FICA, unemployment tax and workers compensation as its own cost, per NAPEO. | Assuming that arrangement removes your exposure entirely. EEOC guidance holds that a client can still be a joint employer. |
| What does converting the person to permanent cost? | A buyout fee, commonly 15 to 25 percent of first-year salary inside a 6 to 12 month exclusivity window, per USA Staffing Services. | Deciding to keep a strong contractor and discovering the conversion clause after the decision is made, not before. |
| Does the fee scale with hours, or is it fixed? | Hourly markup scales with every hour billed. A milestone fee is agreed once and does not move. | A contract that runs long for ordinary reasons and quietly outspends what a fixed placement fee would have cost. |
BEG walks through these four questions on the discovery call before quoting anything, because the honest answer sometimes points at a staffing firm, not at us. Individual technology seats, scoped by occupation and level, are on the software engineer and DevOps engineer pages. Full vertical overview on the technology placement service page.
Six Months Of Markup Against One Milestone Fee
Take a mid-level engineer at a $50 an hour pay rate under a 50 percent markup, the midpoint of the altLINE range: a $75 an hour bill rate. Across a 1,000-hour, roughly six-month engagement that is $75,000 billed, against $50,000 of it being the engineer's own pay. The $25,000 difference is the agency's markup, and it is still running if the contract extends. BEG prices the same seat as a Tier II search at $9,381 to $11,257, fixed the day the search opens, whether the placement takes four weeks or eight.
Where The Contingency Comparison Actually Applies
BEG's placement fee runs roughly 50 percent less than a contingency recruiter, never a comparison to staffing-agency markup, which is a different cost structure entirely. A contingency recruiter charging 20 percent of the $135,980 national median for software developers is $27,196, rising with every dollar you add to the offer. BEG's Tier II fee of $9,381 to $11,257 is fixed before that negotiation even starts.
Who Actually Employs The Person
Four models get sold under overlapping language in technology hiring. The question that separates them is whose payroll the engineer sits on, and how the fee is triggered.
| Model | Who employs the worker | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tech staffing or contract firm | The staffing firm | Hourly bill rate with markup, 20 to 75 percent or more, for as long as the contract runs | The work is a defined project, a migration or a launch, with a real end date. |
| Contingency recruiter | You | Percentage of first-year salary on placement, rising as the offer rises | You want no invoice until someone starts and accept the fee scales with pay. |
| DIY in-house recruiting | You | Internal recruiter time and job board costs, averaging $5,475 per hire on 2025 SHRM benchmarking | You already have recruiting capacity and the bandwidth to run the search yourselves. |
| BEG direct-hire placement | You | Fixed milestone fee agreed before sourcing, from $9,381 for Tier II | The seat is permanent headcount and you want the cost known before you start. |
None of this is an argument against staffing firms in general. Staffing-industry guidance is explicit that temp-to-hire fits uncertain demand and roles a trial period de-risks, while direct hire fits specialized or senior roles where strong candidates will not accept a temporary arrangement, which is most engineering hiring. BEG is never a staffing agency, a tech recruitment agency or a technology employment agency, and does not bill hourly. Adjacent reading: senior software engineer recruiting.
FAQ
AltLINE, a bank that lends against staffing agency receivables, publishes a worked example: a $30 an hour pay rate plus a $15 an hour markup, 50 percent, produces a $45 an hour bill rate. That markup is not pure profit. It has to cover FICA at 7.65 percent, federal and state unemployment tax, and workers compensation insurance before the agency keeps anything.
AltLINE and USA Staffing Services both put the typical range at 20 to 75 percent of the pay rate for temporary and contract roles, with specialized or credentialed positions, engineers among them, pushing above 100 percent because of scarcity and compliance cost. That is a recurring hourly cost for as long as the contract runs, not a one-time fee.
No. BEG does not employ contractors and does not bill an hourly rate. BEG places a permanent software engineer, DevOps engineer or technical leader whom your company employs directly from day one, for a flat milestone fee agreed before sourcing starts.
Yes, same hourly bill rate model, different search terms. Tech recruitment agency, technology employment agency and technology staffing company all get used for the outfit that employs the contractor and bills you hourly, the model this page is about. Technology recruitment companies is the one term that cuts both ways, sometimes meaning that same hourly model and sometimes meaning a percentage-fee placement firm, so it is worth asking directly which one a specific firm runs. None of those labels describe BEG. BEG is not a staffing agency, a recruitment agency or an employment agency. BEG places a permanent employee on a fixed milestone fee.
The staffing agency. NAPEO describes temporary staffing as the agency recruiting, hiring and assigning the worker to support the client in special situations such as absences, skill shortages or seasonal workloads. The agency carries the unemployment insurance and workers compensation exposure, not the client.
No, and this is the part staffing contracts gloss over. EEOC guidance says either the staffing firm or the client can be held liable for discrimination against a placed worker, and in some situations both are liable at once, for example when a client requests a discriminatory standard or knows about discrimination and fails to correct it. That shared exposure is called joint employment.
Most staffing agreements charge a conversion or buyout fee, commonly 15 to 25 percent of first-year salary, inside an ownership window that typically runs 6 to 12 months from the date the agency introduced the worker. Read that clause before the engagement starts, not after you have decided to keep someone.
When the need is genuinely temporary: a defined migration, a launch spike, or coverage while a role is vacant. A staffing-industry source frames temp-to-hire as the right fit for uncertain demand and roles where a trial period reduces risk. If that describes your need, a contract firm is the correct purchase and BEG will say so.
When the seat is ongoing headcount. The same source frames direct hire as the better fit for specialized or senior roles where strong candidates will not accept a temporary trial and where the position is clearly budgeted and permanent, which describes most engineering, DevOps and technical leadership seats.
SHRM 2025 benchmarking puts average cost-per-hire at 5,475 dollars for nonexecutive roles and 35,879 dollars for executive roles, and separately reports median time-to-fill around 45 days across roles in 2025. Those figures are general hiring benchmarks, not a staffing-versus-direct-hire study, but they set the cost of delay either path has to beat.
BEG runs Tier II searches, the band covering most individual contributor engineering seats, at 9,381 to 11,257 dollars, and Tier III seats, covering senior and lead roles, at 12,864 to 15,437 dollars. That is a fixed, one-time number agreed before a single candidate is approached, not an hourly rate that keeps accruing.
Yes. BEG is an authorized isolved Job Placement reseller. isolved sources and pre-screens candidates to deliver interview-ready technologists, billed on milestones, presented, accepted, interviewed, hired, so cost tracks progress rather than hours worked or a percentage of the final offer.
Filling a specific technology seat instead? See software engineer, DevOps engineer and data scientist recruiting, or all technology placement.
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