Compare the models
SUS vs traditional recruitment fees
Both models pay for the same work: finding, assessing and introducing someone you go on to employ. They differ in when the money leaves your business, and in what happens if that person does not stay.
Side by side
Example figures use a £60,000 salary, a 20% traditional fee and a 17.5% SUS monthly fee. They are illustrative only, not a quotation.
When you pay
- Traditional
- A single fee invoiced at the point of hire, usually payable within days of the start date.
- SUS
- An agreed percentage of gross monthly salary, invoiced each month while that employee remains employed.
Cash in month one
- Traditional
- £12,000 on a £60,000 salary at 20%.
- SUS
- £875 on the same salary at 17.5% of gross monthly salary.
If the employee leaves
- Traditional
- Typically a rebate on a sliding scale within a limited window, then nothing.
- SUS
- Billing for that employee stops from their final date of employment. There is nothing left to recover.
Total cost over a long tenure
- Traditional
- Fixed and closed off on day one.
- SUS
- Continues while the employee stays. At these example figures cumulative SUS reaches the traditional fee at around month 14, and keeps rising after that unless you agree a buy-out.
Flexibility later
- Traditional
- None needed — the cost is already settled.
- SUS
- A buy-out of the ongoing arrangement can be agreed commercially in writing, closing the monthly payments off.
Who employs the person
- Traditional
- You do.
- SUS
- You do. SUS is a payment model for permanent recruitment, not an employer of record or umbrella arrangement.
Recruitment work involved
- Traditional
- Search, assessment, introduction, offer management.
- SUS
- Identical. The delivery is the same permanent recruitment process — only the funding changes.
When traditional makes more sense
- You have the cash available and want the recruitment cost closed off on day one.
- You are hiring one senior person and expect a very long tenure.
- Your finance team would rather carry a single known cost than a monthly commitment.
When SUS makes more sense
- Working capital is tight and a large fee at the point of hire is painful.
- You are building a team, where several fees would land in the same month.
- You want the recruitment cost to track whether the hire actually stays, rather than the introduction alone.
Being straight about the trade-off
SUS changes when recruitment expenditure happens. It is not automatically cheaper. Payments continue while each hire remains employed under the agreed terms, so over a long tenure the cumulative total can exceed a conventional one-off fee — at the example figures above, from around month 14. That is exactly why the buy-out option exists and why the calculator shows the crossover point openly.
At the example figures a single £60,000 hire is £12,000 traditionally, or £875 per month under SUS — £13,125 cumulatively across 15 months. Illustrative only, not a quotation.
Keep reading
- SUS explainedThe commercial model on one printable page.
- For foundersHiring while protecting working capital.
- For finance leadsCash timing, cumulative cost and crossover.
- For people teamsExternal hiring support alongside your team.
- Full FAQCosts, contracts, buy-outs and getting started.
- Cost calculatorModel one role or a whole hiring plan.
Want this compared against your own numbers?
Send us the roles and rough salaries you are planning and we will talk you through how the two models land for your business.
- A specific live vacancy you are trying to fill
- Hiring you are planning over the next few months
- Several future hires and how they would work together
- Whether SUS is the right fit for your business at all
Prefer to talk? 01865 657 000
Prefer email? joseph@humand.co.uk