For recruitment agencies · free · interactive

How much margin does Raffi reclaim per placement?

Plug in your placement fee, team size, and screening hours. See the screening-delivery cost — current vs Raffi — and how much gross margin per placement is sitting in that line.

TL;DR

Recruitment agencies routinely spend 15-25% of placement revenue on first-call screening — recruiter hours, loaded at $40-60/hr, eating into gross margin. Bullhorn's 2025 GRID report calls screening labor the single largest below-the-line cost agencies under-track.

This calculator models the trade: AI screening at $0.45/min plus a $599/mo Growth subscription typically lands at 4-8% of placement revenue — reclaiming 10-15 percentage points of margin without changing the customer relationship, the placement fee, or the recruiter headcount. Pair with the Agency Capacity Calculator to model both levers together.

Your agency · edit to fit

Screening delivery — current

$12,000

20.0% of monthly placement revenue

Screening delivery — with Raffi

$3,839

6.4% of monthly placement revenue

Margin reclaimed

+13.6pp

$8,161/mo · $97,932/yr

Screening delivery cost · side by side

Human-only delivery

  • Recruiter hours/mo (5 × 15 × 4)300 hrs
  • × $40/hr loaded cost$12,000
Total / month$12,000

With Raffi

  • Applicants/mo (12 × 50)600
  • × 12-min screen × $0.45/min$3,240
  • Growth subscription$599
Total / month$3,839

Per-placement margin

At $15,000 avg fee and 4 placements/mo, the screening delivery line is $3,000/placement with humans vs $960/placement with Raffi. That's +$2,040 of gross margin reclaimed per placement.

Method:screening delivery cost = recruiter-hours spent on first-call screening × loaded hourly cost. Raffi side = Growth tier $599/mo + $0.45/min × (applicants × 12-min interview). Reallocated recruiter hours flow to higher-leverage work (sourcing, closing) — modeled separately in the Agency Capacity Calculator.

Numbers add up?

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Methodology & assumptions

Defaults reflect 2025-26 staffing-agency benchmarks calibrated against Bullhorn’s GRID industry data and aggregated boutique-firm operating models: $15,000 avg placement fee, 4 placements/month, 5 recruiters at $40/hr loaded cost, 15 hrs/week each on first-call screening, 50 applicants per active role, 12 active roles/month. Edit any cell to match your firm.

Current-state formula.Screening delivery cost = recruiters × screening hrs/wk × 4 weeks × loaded hourly cost. We deliberately scope this to the screening line item only — sourcing, candidate revenue, overhead are unchanged by Raffi.

Raffi-side formula.Growth tier $599/mo + $0.45/min × 12-min avg interview × (active roles × applicants/role). The Growth tier is recommended for agencies running 5+ recruiters and 8+ active roles — unlimited team seats, white-label, $300/mo credit grant. See pricing for the full ladder.

What this calculator does NOT model.Volume expansion from freed recruiter time (that’s the capacity calculator), improved close rates from longer time-with-client, candidate-experience NPS lift. Real total impact is the sum of all three; this tool isolates the margin line for clean comparison.

This calculator is for directional planning. Your actual screening-delivery cost varies with role mix, applicant volume, recruiter experience level, and how much screening you delegate vs run senior. Anchor against this estimate, then track a single role through Raffi to confirm.

Frequently asked questions

Why screening-delivery cost specifically — not total agency cost?
Because it's the line item that changes most when AI screening lands. Sourcing cost, candidate revenue, and overhead are roughly the same shape with or without Raffi — they're not the lever. First-call screening is where humans cost $40-60/hr loaded and AI costs $0.45/min. Replacing that line is where the margin shows up.
Why a 12-minute interview length in the math?
Our 2025-26 platform data shows AI screening interviews average 10-14 minutes with the structured rubric. We default to 12 as the midpoint. Pure phone screens by humans average 18-30 minutes — that's where the recruiter-hours come from in the current-state math.
Why $0.45/min for the Raffi call cost?
It's the locked Raffi rate for AI screening calls (Pricing v3, 2026-05-23). It covers the voice agent, transcript, scoring rubric, anti-cheat flagging, and storage. No volume discount — every minute is the same price, which makes the math predictable.
Why Growth tier ($599/mo) — not Pro ($199)?
Agencies running 5+ recruiters with 8+ active roles need Growth: unlimited team seats, white-label custom domain, $300/mo credit grant, 5 sourced jobs included. Pro caps team at 10 seats and tops out around 1 sourced job/mo. Smaller boutique agencies (1-3 recruiters) can use Pro; the calculator defaults to Growth because that's where most agencies converging on Raffi land.
Does this assume placement volume stays flat?
Yes — this calculator holds placements/month constant and shows the cost-line change. The other lever (running MORE placements with the freed recruiter time) is modeled in the Agency Capacity Calculator. Real-world impact is the sum of both: lower delivery cost AND higher placement volume.
Is the $40/hr recruiter loaded cost realistic?
$40-60/hr is the standard range for a fully-loaded recruiter at a mid-market staffing firm (base + benefits + commissions + tools + share of overhead). Senior recruiters in major US metros run $60-80. The calculator defaults to $40 for the conservative case; adjust to your firm's reality.
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