Ask three employers what a hire costs them - in New York, London or Singapore - and you'll get three confident, completely different answers, because each is measuring a different thing. Here's how the main options actually compare, and the one metric that makes them comparable.
What do recruitment agencies cost?
Almost everywhere in the world, agencies charge a placement fee of 15-25% of the first-year salary - so a $35,000 role costs roughly $5,000-9,000 to fill. For high-volume frontline roles, some agencies offer flat per-campaign pricing instead, commonly $1,000-2,500 per advertised role. You're paying for hands-off convenience and speed. The trade-offs: the cost is fixed whether the candidates are great or mediocre, and the screening logic lives in the agency, not with you.
What do job boards cost?
Job board pricing runs from free listings to roughly $100-500 per post on the major boards, or pay-per-click models where each click on your sponsored post costs anywhere from under $1 to $5 or more. The listing is cheap; the hidden cost is time. Frontline posts attract high volumes of quick-apply candidates, and someone on your team pays for that with hours of manual screening - often to discover most applicants don't meet the basic knock-outs.
What do social media hiring campaigns cost?
Running Instagram and Facebook campaigns yourself means media budget plus expertise: audience setup, creatives, compliance with Meta's employment ad rules, and daily optimization. Typical CPCs for frontline job ads sit around $0.50-2.00 depending on market and season. Done well, it's the most cost-efficient channel for frontline roles because it reaches passive candidates. Done badly, it burns budget on clicks that never become applications. Managed platforms close this gap: with Qwiza, the media budget stays yours (passed through 1:1 to Meta), and the platform fee covers the automation - campaigns, multilingual quiz screening and scoring.
The only fair comparison: cost per qualified applicant
Cost per click and cost per applicant hide quality. The number that makes channels comparable is CPQA - cost per qualified applicant: total channel cost divided by the number of applicants who pass your knock-out criteria, meet the qualification threshold and confirm availability.
- An agency campaign at $1,500 delivering 10 qualified candidates = CPQA $150.
- A job board at $300 delivering 2 qualified candidates from 80 applications = CPQA $150, plus screening hours.
- A well-run quiz campaign delivering 34 qualified applicants on a modest media budget can bring CPQA into single or low double digits - because screening happens inside the ad itself.
The takeaway
Don't compare price tags; compare CPQA. Measure it per role and per channel for one month, and the budget decision usually makes itself.
Hiring frontline staff?
Qwiza turns your job description into a multilingual quiz campaign on Instagram & Facebook and delivers scored, qualified candidates - 48-hour pilot target.
See how Qwiza worksFrequently asked questions
What is cost per qualified applicant (CPQA)?
CPQA is the total cost of a hiring channel divided by the number of applicants who pass your objective criteria - knock-out questions, qualification threshold and confirmed availability. It's the cleanest way to compare agencies, job boards and social campaigns.
Is a recruitment agency worth it for frontline roles?
Agencies deliver speed and convenience and can be worth it for urgent or specialized roles. For continuous frontline hiring, per-campaign fees add up quickly - most employers benefit from owning a repeatable channel with a measurable CPQA.
