Retained Search ROI for Consumer Brand Hires

The objection arrives in almost the same words on every call: we can't spend $40,000 to $60,000 on a fee right now.

It's a fair sentence, and it prices the wrong thing. The fee is the visible number. The invisible numbers are what the seat costs while it sits empty, what the founder's evenings cost while they screen résumés, and what a mishire costs when the wrong person spends a year making decisions at the top of your P&L. Retained search ROI is the comparison between those numbers, so let's put real figures on all of them.

What retained search actually costs

Retained fees run 20% to 33% of first-year total compensation, with a median of 25% across our placements, paid in staged installments rather than only upon placement. On a $287,000 base, which is the median for C-suite and President roles across our consumer goods placements, a typical all-in fee lands in the $75,000 to $100,000 range. Contingent firms charge 15% to 20% of base salary only and work non-exclusively.

Two contract mechanics change the math and get missed. First, guarantee periods: if the placed executive leaves inside the window, the search restarts at no additional fee. Second, takeover clauses: when we replace a firm mid-search, candidates the client already interviewed get named in the agreement so no double fee is ever owed. Before you sign anything, read our guide on what to know about retained search before signing a contract.

The cost of the alternatives

Running it yourself

A consumer brand with a strong following can post a leadership role and collect hundreds of applicants in a day. The head of HR at one lean food brand described the experience to us in one line: 450 résumés that could all be wrong for the role, screened at night, on top of the day job.

The problem comes down to volume. Applicants are people who are looking. For a senior commercial or operations role, the person you want is employed, performing, and not reading job boards. The same HR leader said the quiet part out loud when reviewing our slate: the résumés she was getting on her own were decent, but they weren't coming from the companies she actually wanted to hire out of.

Multi-firm contingency

We regularly meet potential clients who have had two or three contingent firms on a search since January, with activity to show for it and nobody through the interview stage. The economics explain the outcome. A non-exclusive firm paid only on placement will move its best effort to the easiest search on its desk, and a hard search is by definition not that. One former contingent recruiter, now a client, described the model from the inside: weeks of work on a search, the client picks someone else's candidate, and the firm eats the loss. Serious teams don't put their best people on those terms.

Building it in-house

At sufficient scale, insourcing wins. We watched a roughly $5 billion consumer company tally about $4.5 million a year in total agency spend and hire a senior director of executive search to bring the work inside. That was the right call, and worth being honest about: if you're running dozens of senior searches a year, an internal executive recruiting function beats paying fees.

Below that scale the math flips. An internal exec-search hire costs $200,000 or more per year, fully loaded, whether you run two searches or ten. A brand making one or two senior hires a year is buying a standing capability it will use twice.

The two numbers that dwarf the fee

Cost of vacancy

An open executive seat isn't neutral. Someone junior is making the calls, or nobody is, and the growth plan attached to the role sits parked. On a search we reviewed, the strategy the company set in February had shifted by summer, and the commercial hires meant to execute it never happened. The plan aged out before the team existed.

The comparison to run: your revenue plan assumes this leader is in the seat. Take the plan's monthly value, multiply by every month of delay, and that is what slow hiring costs. Our searches average 46 days from kickoff to signed acceptance. Self-run executive searches routinely take five to six months, and the difference is measured in your plan's numbers, not ours.

Cost of a mishire

The U.S. Department of Labor puts the cost of a bad hire at up to 30% of first-year earnings, and at the executive level that's the floor. A mishired VP of Sales spends a year setting your retailer relationships back. A mishired CFO takes a fundraise off schedule. The direct costs, severance plus a restarted search, come with indirect ones nobody invoices: the team that leaves, the buyers who move on, the year of momentum.

One founder framed the upside more usefully than any formula we've seen. The fee made sense to him because, in his words, getting this one role right meant finally having the person who could build the whole sales team. The first commercial leader is a multiplier hire: every account executive, broker decision, and trade plan for the next three years traces back to that seat. That's the class of hire where the fee is small against the outcome, which we've also broken down for first C-suite hires at emerging brands.

What the fee buys, mechanically

ROI needs a denominator and a numerator. The fee is the denominator. Here's the numerator, from our own tracker:

• A market map instead of an applicant pool. Research maps the category before outreach starts, so the search draws from everyone who could do the job rather than everyone who happened to apply. More on the mechanics in how retained search improves CPG executive hiring.
• Speed you can plan around. An average of 46 days from kickoff to acceptance, with a calibration slate in week one.
• Less executive time burned. Our average is 4.3 candidate interviews per hire. Every interview you don't hold is a half-day back for your leadership team.
• Offers that stick. In our best long-running partnership, clients extended 83 offers and 81 were accepted. Acceptance rates above 97% come from assessing both sides before the offer exists, which is cheaper than losing a finalist to a counteroffer in month four.
• A guarantee. If the hire doesn't hold inside the guarantee window, the search reruns at no additional fee.

A simple ROI worksheet

If the role is easy to fill, the fee loses that comparison, and we'll say so on the intake call. If the role is hard to fill and expensive to get wrong, the fee is the smallest number on the sheet.

When retained search is the wrong answer

Three honest cases. Mid-level roles with deep candidate pools belong with contingent recruiters at 15% to 20% of base; the exclusivity premium buys you nothing there. Companies not actually ready to hire, with no budget sign-off or decision-maker, should wait; half of failed searches die on client-side decisions, not candidate ones. And brands too small for a permanent executive should look at fractional leadership first: a fractional CFO or fractional CMO two days a week answers the question a full search can't: what should this role even own?

For a deeper vertical version of this math, see our piece on measuring executive recruiting ROI in wine and spirits.

Frequently asked questions

What does retained executive search cost?

Retained fees run 20% to 33% of the placed executive's first-year total compensation, with a median of 25% across our placements, paid in staged installments across the search. Contingent firms charge 15% to 20% of base salary only and work non-exclusively.

Is retained search worth it for a consumer brand?

When the role is hard to fill and expensive to get wrong, yes. The fee is typically smaller than either the cost of the months a self-run search adds or the 30%-plus of first-year earnings a mishire costs. For easy-to-fill mid-level roles, contingent recruiting is the better buy.

How do you measure executive search ROI?

Compare the fee against four numbers: cost of vacancy (monthly value of the role's plan times months open), mishire risk avoided, internal executive time saved, and, for first-in-function roles, the value of the team that leader builds. Track search speed, interviews per hire, offer acceptance rate, and retention of the placed executive.

What happens if the hire doesn't work out?

Reputable retained firms guarantee the placement: if the executive leaves or is terminated inside the guarantee window, the search reruns at no additional fee. Ask about the guarantee length and terms before signing.

Can we avoid paying twice if we switch search firms mid-search?

Yes. Takeover agreements name the candidates you already interviewed with the prior firm, so no second fee is owed on them. We structure takeovers as a starting point regularly for clients leaving a stalled search.

What is the cheapest way to fill an executive seat?

If the seat doesn't need to be permanent yet, fractional or interim leadership costs less than any search and clarifies the role. If it does need to be permanent and the candidate pool is deep, contingent recruiting is cheaper. Retained search earns its fee on the searches where those two options fail.

Protis Global has run retained executive search for consumer goods companies since 1995, across food and snacks, beverage, beer, wine and spirits, pet, cannabis, and health and beauty. If you're weighing a fee against an empty seat, talk to our team.