The four ways talent intelligence is priced
Three of these are legitimate. One is worth understanding before you buy it.
| Model | How it works | Typical range | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed project fee | A scope is agreed and priced before work starts; the fee does not move | $6,000–$45,000 per project | Whether the dataset is handed over or only licensed for the term |
| Annual platform licence | Subscription access to a modelled dataset and dashboard, usually per seat | Four to six figures a year depending on seats and modules | Whether the data is verified or modelled, and what happens to your saved work if you stop paying |
| Day rate or retainer | Consultancy time billed by day or month, with deliverables defined loosely | Highly variable; scope creep is the usual failure mode | Open-ended scopes and deliverables defined after the contract |
| Bundled into a search fee | Research presented as free, recovered inside a placement commission | Recovered at 25–33% of first-year package | It is not free, and the provider has an interest in the conclusion |
The last row deserves a sentence of its own. Research bundled into a contingency or retained search is not free research, it is research you pay for only if you hire — which means the provider has a direct financial interest in concluding that you should. That is a perfectly ordinary commercial arrangement for filling a role. It is a poor one for deciding whether the role should exist.
The eight variables that set the fee
In roughly descending order of impact.
Breadth of the market definition
A tightly defined capability in one city costs a fraction of the same question asked across a whole function. Narrowing the definition is the single most effective way to bring a fee down without losing rigour.
Number of geographies
Each additional market adds research time, and in several markets it adds language capability and a separate legal review. Two markets is not twice one, but it is not much less.
Seniority of the population
Senior and specialist populations are smaller, less visible and harder to corroborate. A leadership-layer study costs more per head than a volume one, and is usually worth more.
Depth of compensation work
A pay range is cheap. A reconstructed package — on-costs, equity, allowances, collective agreement position, holiday allowance or superannuation, each sourced and dated — is the most labour-intensive module we run.
Number of named competitors
Reconstructing one competitor’s function is a defined piece of work. Eight is eight pieces of work, and the eighth is usually the hardest because the obvious sources have been exhausted.
Whether contact data is included
Verified individual contact discovery is a separate activity with its own cost and its own legal considerations. Most intelligence engagements do not need it. See number gathering.
Depth of analysis over data
A dataset with a summary costs less than a full written analysis with scenario work and a recommendation. Most clients under-buy here and regret it, because the analysis is the part that travels into the board paper.
Refresh cadence
A one-off snapshot is a project. A quarterly refresh is a programme, priced annually, and it is the only way to stop a valuable dataset decaying into a historical document.
Three scopes, costed line by line
Representative scopes at realistic fees. Your own will differ, but these are the shapes.
| Single-decision brief | Function-wide study | Retained programme | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical fee | $6,000–$15,000 | $18,000–$45,000 | $60,000–$120,000 / year |
| Duration | 3–4 weeks | 5–8 weeks | Ongoing, quarterly refresh |
| Markets | One | Two to four | Three to eight |
| Modules | Two or three | Four or more | All relevant modules |
| Named competitors | Up to three | Up to eight | Tracked continuously |
| Compensation depth | Ranges, normalised and dated | Full package reconstruction | Full reconstruction, refreshed quarterly |
| Analysis | Written brief, 15–20 pages | Full analysis, 25–40 pages | Quarterly analysis plus analyst access |
| Dataset | Handed over permanently | Handed over permanently | Handed over and maintained |
| Analyst session | One | Two | Quarterly, plus ad hoc access |
| Best for | A single decision on the table now | A function, a location choice or a reward review | Continuous planning, or a market you compete in constantly |
Fee bands by currency
Each market page also states its own bands.
| Engagement | USD | GBP | EUR | AUD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-decision brief | $6,000–$15,000 | £5,000–£12,000 | €5,500–€14,000 | A$9,000–A$23,000 |
| Function or multi-market study | $18,000–$45,000 | £15,000–£36,000 | €17,000–€42,000 | A$28,000–A$68,000 |
| Retained programme (per year) | $60,000–$120,000 | £48,000–£95,000 | €55,000–€110,000 | A$90,000–A$180,000 |
Fees are quoted in the currency of the market being researched, except in the Gulf where US dollars are the convention and invoicing in AED is available. Cross-border studies are quoted in a single currency agreed at scoping, so you are not carrying exchange risk inside a project budget.
What the alternatives cost
Run on a fully-loaded basis, because that is the only comparison that means anything.
| Route | Cost basis | What you get | What you do not get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commissioned research (this) | Fixed fee per project | Verified answers on your question, dataset owned permanently | Continuous breadth across markets you did not commission |
| Talent intelligence platform | Annual licence, usually per seat | Breadth, trend lines, continuous access, fast first-pass sizing | Verification; depth on a named competitor; an analyst's interpretation |
| In-house talent intelligence team | Fully-loaded salary per analyst, plus tooling | Institutional memory, instant availability, internal data integration | Independence from internal politics; specialist market coverage at depth |
| Strategy consultancy | Day rate or fixed engagement fee, typically the highest of these | Board-grade framing and a recommendation | Usually primary labour market research; it is often subcontracted |
| Executive search firm | 25–33% of first-year package | A completed hire, and research as a by-product | A retained asset; independence from the hiring outcome |
The comparison most talent leaders find decisive is the last row against the first. A single retained search on a $300,000 total-compensation role costs roughly $90,000 to $100,000 and produces one hire and no retained asset. A $35,000 function-wide study covers the entire qualified population those searches draw from, answers the question of whether the role should be opened at all, and leaves you owning the dataset.
Neither is a substitute for the other. But if the budget will only stretch to one this quarter, it is worth knowing which one compounds. The fee comparison calculator runs it on your own numbers.
Four hidden costs worth checking
Ask these of any provider, including us.
- Is the dataset handed over, or licensed for the term? Some providers give you access to the research rather than ownership of it, which means it leaves when the contract does. Ours is handed over permanently.
- Is refresh included, or billed again at full rate? A dataset that has to be rebuilt from scratch every year costs more over three years than one that is maintained. Ask for the refresh price at the point of first purchase.
- Is analyst time after delivery chargeable? Questions arrive once people start using the research. If every one of them is a billable hour, the real cost is higher than the quote. Our handover session is included.
- Does the fee cover every market in scope? Multi-market quotes sometimes price the first market and treat the rest as extensions. The scope document should list every market covered by the fee, and ours does.
How to scope to a fixed budget
Five ways to reduce a fee without reducing rigour, in the order we recommend them.
- Narrow the geography before you narrow the depth. One market researched properly beats four researched superficially, and the single-market finding is usually transferable as a hypothesis.
- Cut the comparator set, not the verification. Four well-researched competitors tell you more than twelve guessed at.
- Take compensation ranges before individual figures. Full package reconstruction is the most expensive module; a normalised range answers many questions for a fraction of it.
- Phase it. A brief that answers the gating question first, with the full study commissioned only if the answer is encouraging, often costs less in total than committing to everything up front.
- Defer the refresh, not the build. Build the asset properly once and refresh when budget allows. A half-built dataset cannot be usefully refreshed later.
What the fee actually buys
Analyst time, principally. A talent intelligence fee is almost entirely the cost of skilled people researching a market directly and corroborating what they find — the tier-three work that no licence can replicate because it has not been done yet.
The rest is the infrastructure that makes that work defensible: the legal scoping per jurisdiction, the verification discipline, the confidence grading, the quality review by someone other than the author, and the written analysis that turns a dataset into something a board will accept.
What it does not buy is certainty. A good engagement narrows a decision, prices the risk in each option and makes the limitations explicit. Any provider selling certainty about a labour market is selling something they do not have.
From first call to a fee, in two working days
A 30-minute scoping call
- With
- An analyst, not a salesperson.
- Output
- A shared understanding of the decision and whether research can answer it. Free, with no obligation.
A written scope document
- When
- Within two working days.
- Contains
- Market definition, modules, deliverables, timeline, exclusions and the fixed fee.
A fixed fee
- Basis
- Scope, not salary. It does not move unless you change the scope in writing.
- Terms
- No retainer requirement, no minimum term, no success fee.
Delivery and permanent handover
- You receive
- Written analysis, structured dataset, confidence register, methodology appendix and an analyst session.
- You own
- All of it, permanently, including the right to refresh it elsewhere.
Talent intelligence by market
Each market page is written for that market rather than translated from a template.
| Market | What changes there |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Employer National Insurance and pension change the real cost; ASHE anchors the benchmark; notice periods decide the timeline. |
| United States | No national market — thirty metros with their own wage curves, equity-heavy senior packages and state pay-transparency rules. |
| United Arab Emirates | Free zone versus mainland employers, Emiratisation as a parallel market, and packages split into basic, allowances and gratuity. |
| Germany | Collective agreements set the pay, works councils set the timeline, and the Mittelstand holds capability the big names do not. |
| Netherlands | The CAO sets the scale, holiday allowance sits outside salary, and part-time working makes headcount the wrong unit. |
| Belgium | Three working languages, automatic wage indexation, joint committees and a Brussels institutional market with its own logic. |
| Austria | Fourteen salary payments a year, near-universal collective agreements, and a capital that runs Central and Eastern Europe. |
| Australia | Superannuation inside the package, modern award floors, five capital markets across three time zones and visa-dependent supply. |
Research coverage extends well beyond these eight. These are the markets where we publish a dedicated page because the structural differences are large enough to change how the research itself has to be built. See all eight markets →
Talent intelligence cost FAQs
How much does talent intelligence cost?
A single-decision intelligence brief typically costs $6,000 to $15,000, or roughly £5,000 to £12,000 and €5,500 to €14,000. A function-wide or multi-market study typically costs $18,000 to $45,000. A retained intelligence programme with quarterly refreshes typically runs $60,000 to $120,000 a year.
All three are fixed project fees agreed in writing before work begins. The fee is driven by the scope of the research — population size, number of markets, depth of compensation reconstruction, how many competitors are named and the refresh cadence — and never by the salary of a role or by whether you subsequently hire anyone.
Why is it priced as a project fee rather than a percentage?
Because a percentage creates the wrong incentive. A provider paid on placement has a financial interest in concluding that a hire is available, at the salary you suggested, in the location you prefer.
A fixed research fee removes that interest entirely, which is what allows a report to tell you a market is thinner than you assumed or that your preferred location is the wrong answer. You are buying the finding, not the outcome.
What makes one project more expensive than another?
Eight things: how broad the market definition is, how senior the population, how many geographies are in scope, how much compensation reconstruction is required, how many named competitors are analysed, whether individual contact data is included, how much analysis sits on top of the data, and the refresh cadence.
What never changes the fee: the salary of any role in scope, your organisation’s size, or whether the research leads to a hire.
Is talent intelligence software cheaper?
Per seat and per year, often yes. Platform licences are typically sold as annual subscriptions and give continuous breadth across many markets, which commissioned research cannot match on price for that kind of coverage.
The comparison is not like for like, though. A licence gives you modelled data across everything; a research engagement gives you verified answers on one thing. Most mature functions run both, and our comparison page sets out honestly when the licence is the better buy.
What does an in-house talent intelligence team cost?
Materially more than most business cases assume, because the platform licence is the smaller line. A single experienced talent intelligence analyst carries a fully-loaded employment cost that, in most Western markets, exceeds the annual fee for several commissioned studies, before any tooling.
That does not make an in-house team the wrong answer — at sufficient question volume it is clearly the right one. It means the comparison should be run properly, with fully-loaded cost on both sides, rather than comparing a licence fee against a project fee.
Do you charge for the scoping call?
No. The scoping call and the written scope document that follows it are free and carry no obligation. If the conclusion of the call is that research cannot answer your question, or that you do not need us, we will say so and there is no charge.
Are there any hidden costs?
There should not be, and there are four to check with any provider. Whether the dataset is handed over or only licensed for the term. Whether refresh is included or billed again at full rate. Whether analyst time after delivery is chargeable. And whether the quoted fee covers all the markets in scope or only the first.
On our engagements: the dataset is yours permanently, refresh is quoted separately and optional, the handover session is included, and the scope document lists every market covered by the fee.
Can you work to a fixed budget?
Yes, and it is a sensible way to start. Tell us the number and we will tell you what can be researched properly within it — usually by narrowing the geography or the comparator set rather than by reducing verification.
The one thing we will not do is deliver the full scope at a lower standard of verification and leave you to discover it later. If the budget does not support the question, we will propose a smaller question it does support.
How does the cost compare with executive search?
A single retained executive search is typically charged at around 30 to 33 per cent of first-year total compensation, so a $300,000 appointment carries a fee near $90,000 to $100,000 and produces one hire and no retained asset.
A $35,000 function-wide intelligence study covers the entire qualified population that searches would be drawing from, and you keep the dataset. The two buy different things, but when the question is “where should this money go first?” the comparison is usually decisive. The fee comparison calculator runs the numbers for your own figures.
When will I know the price?
Within two working days of the scoping call. The written scope document states the market definition, the modules, the deliverables, the timeline, the exclusions and a fixed fee. Nothing is billed by the hour and nothing is open-ended.
Do fees differ by market?
Somewhat, and the market pages state their own bands. Markets where research is slower — because employers disclose less, because multiple languages are involved, or because the population is spread across many regions — carry higher fees for the same scope.
Australian engagements are quoted in Australian dollars and sit higher in nominal terms. European engagements are quoted in euro, UK engagements in sterling, and Gulf engagements in US dollars by market convention.
Is there a minimum engagement?
The practical minimum is a single-decision brief at the bottom of the first band. There is no retainer requirement, no minimum term and no annual commitment. Many clients start with one brief and only move to a programme once they have seen what the output is worth to them.