"Hiring agency" covers a lot of very different businesses in the Philippines. Some are headhunters who find you a candidate and hand off the employment relationship for a one-time fee. Others keep the worker on their own payroll indefinitely and bill you a monthly rate per seat. The cost difference between these models — for the same hire — can be enormous over a year or two.
Here's an honest breakdown of five ways to get a recruitment or staffing partner to do the sourcing for you in 2026 — how each one is actually structured, what it costs, and which type of employer each suits best.
| Agency | Model | Cost Structure | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| WorkBase PH (Done-For-You Hiring) | Sourcing & screening only — you employ directly | Flat fee per hire, quoted up front; no subscription, no % of salary | Employers who want sourcing handled but not an ongoing markup |
| Manila Recruitment | Headhunting / placement | 15–35% of first-year salary | Specialist or executive hires, especially IT/tech |
| Cloudstaff | BPO staff leasing | Bundled monthly rate per seat | Scaling an office-based team quickly |
| Booth | Boutique managed outsourcing | Custom quote by engagement type | Mid-size teams wanting hands-on account management |
| Outsourced.ph | Offshore staffing across categories | Custom quote, dedicated-team pricing | Multi-role team builds (IT, CX, back office) |
WorkBase PH's Done-For-You Hiring is built for employers who want a recruitment partner's legwork — sourcing, first-round interviews, reference checks, and work-readiness verification — without becoming a percentage of someone's salary or a permanent line item on a monthly invoice.
You still end up as the direct employer of your hire — WorkBase PH sources and vets, you pick from the shortlist (or let them run the whole process) and pay the person directly. It's one flat fee per hire, quoted after a short intake and split into a deposit and a balance, with a 30-day replacement guarantee and offboarding handled if a placement doesn't work out.
Manila Recruitment is a headhunting firm — the classic recruitment-agency model. They source and screen candidates for a specific role, typically for direct, permanent placement, and specialize in IT, digital, and technical roles. You pay a placement fee once the hire is confirmed (contingency) or in installments through the search (retained).
Because the fee is a percentage of the candidate's first-year compensation, the cost scales directly with salary — a senior developer placement costs meaningfully more in absolute dollars than an entry-level admin hire, even at the same percentage rate.
Cloudstaff is a BPO staff-leasing provider — you're not hiring one candidate, you're leasing a seat. Cloudstaff recruits, onboards, and remains the employer of record for your staff, bundling salary, statutory benefits, office space, hardware, and their own margin into one monthly rate per person. There's no setup fee and no separate line items — it's one invoice.
The tradeoff for that convenience is that the markup runs for as long as the engagement does, and staff are typically based out of Cloudstaff's own PEZA-registered offices rather than working as fully independent remote contractors.
Booth (formerly Booth & Partners) is a boutique managed-outsourcing firm with hubs in Manila and Cebu. It positions itself between a pure staffing leasing company and a full BPO — offering staff leasing, build-operate-transfer, and co-managed engagement types with more hands-on account management than the larger BPOs.
Pricing isn't published — it's quoted per engagement based on role, headcount, and structure, which makes it harder to comparison-shop upfront than a flat-fee or published-percentage model.
Outsourced.ph builds dedicated offshore teams across a wide range of categories — IT, customer experience, back office, and more — for clients scaling multi-role teams rather than filling a single seat. Like most staffing providers in this space, pricing is customized per engagement rather than published.
The right choice depends on three things:
Our take: If you're hiring one to a handful of people and want the sourcing done for you without a permanent markup, a flat-fee service is the more efficient choice. If you're building a 10+ person office-based team and want the entire employment relationship handled, a staff-leasing or BPO partner is worth the ongoing cost.
This is the single biggest difference between models. With a headhunter or a flat-fee sourcing service, the worker becomes your direct employee or contractor. With staff leasing or BPO, the provider stays the employer of record indefinitely — you're paying for access to their staff, not building your own headcount.
A placement fee or flat sourcing fee is paid once. A staff-leasing rate is paid every month for as long as the person works for you. Run the math over 12–24 months before comparing sticker prices — a smaller monthly number can add up to far more than a one-time fee.
Percentage-based placement fees mean a more experienced (and more expensive) hire costs you proportionally more in fees too. A flat fee is agreed up front rather than worked out as a percentage of salary, so you know the exact cost before the search starts — which makes budgeting simpler and can be significantly cheaper for higher-paid specialist roles.
Ask specifically: is there a replacement guarantee, and for how long? Who handles offboarding? Agencies vary widely here — some offer nothing beyond the initial placement, others guarantee a free replacement for 30–90 days.
If you're paying for office space, hardware, and shift management you don't need because your hire will work remotely from home, a staff-leasing rate is paying for overhead you won't use. Match the model to how the role will actually be worked, not just headcount.
A headhunter's job ends at placement. They source, screen, and present candidates; you interview and decide; once you make an offer and it's accepted, you pay the agreed fee and the person is your employee from day one. There's no ongoing relationship with the agency unless you engage them again for the next role. This model rewards agencies that specialize — Manila Recruitment's IT/tech focus means their network and screening are tuned to those roles specifically, which is worth the premium for a hard-to-fill specialist position.
Staff leasing flips the ownership model. The provider recruits, employs, and manages the worker under their own entity, and you pay a bundled monthly rate for access to that person's time. This is genuinely useful when you don't want to deal with Philippine labor compliance, statutory benefits, or office infrastructure at all — the provider absorbs that entirely. The cost of that convenience is that it never becomes a one-time expense; the markup is baked into every month the engagement continues.
This model tries to take the best part of headhunting (pay once, own the relationship) and remove the part that scales badly (percentage of salary). WorkBase PH sources, screens, interviews, and verifies candidates the same way a recruiter would, but charges one fixed fee regardless of what the role pays, and hands you a direct employment or contractor relationship rather than an ongoing lease. It suits employers who've decided they don't need or want the infrastructure a BPO provides, but don't have time to run the sourcing and screening themselves.
A recruitment agency sources and screens a candidate, then hands them off as your direct employee for a one-time placement fee. A staffing or BPO company keeps the worker on its own payroll indefinitely and bills you a bundled monthly rate per seat — you never become the legal employer under that model.
Contingency placements typically run 15–25% of the candidate's first-year salary; retained search runs closer to 25–35%. IT and specialized technical roles tend to sit at the higher end because of demand. These fees scale with salary, so a higher-paid hire costs more in absolute terms even at the same percentage. For worked examples by role, see our guide to recruitment agency fees in the Philippines.
No. The staffing company remains the legal employer of record and bills you a monthly per-seat rate for as long as the engagement runs. It removes HR administration from your plate, but it's an ongoing markup, not a one-time cost, and you don't have a direct employment relationship with the worker.
Yes, for most roles that don't require a local legal entity or formal employment structure — virtual assistants, support staff, and many specialist remote roles hired as independent contractors. Platforms like WorkBase PH let you post a role and hire directly for a flat fee, with an optional done-for-you sourcing add-on, avoiding both the percentage-of-salary fee and the ongoing seat-leasing markup.
When you're scaling a team quickly (10+ seats), want office-based infrastructure and structured shifts handled for you, or need the compliance and payroll burden fully offloaded. For a single hire or a small, remote-first team, the ongoing monthly markup usually outweighs the convenience.
Done-For-You Hiring: we source, screen, interview, and verify candidates for you — one flat fee per hire, quoted up front, no subscription, no percentage of salary.
See How It Works →Prefer to screen candidates yourself? Post a job for $29 flat →Building more than a hire? Explore Launch Startup Services →
Related: 5 Best Platforms to Hire Filipino Virtual Assistants · Hire Fast Without Screening Yourself · What Is Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)? · Recruitment Agency Fees in the Philippines · Done-For-You Hiring · Filipino Remote Worker Salary Guide 2026 · OnlineJobs.ph Alternatives