> lateral_vs_agencies
Same outcome — qualified, interested candidates in your pipeline. Different model. AI engine + Forward Deployed Recruiter instead of a recruiter with a phone and a database. Dramatically less than agencies. Full visibility.
Here's what you're actually paying for when you use a contingency agency.
Of first-year salary per placement
A senior engineer at $200K = $40-50K fee. A product manager at $180K = $36-45K fee. Per. Hire.
Visibility into their process
You send a job description. They send resumes. What happened in between? You'll never know. No data, no experiments, no transparency.
Average time to first qualified candidate
Agencies work multiple clients. Your role is one of dozens on their desk. Urgency is relative — they prioritize the fee, not your timeline.
Lateral vs. contingency agencies vs. other alternatives. Every number is real.
| Lateral | Agency | Dover | DIY Tools | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per hire | Custom pricing | $36-50K | $4-7K | $99-300/mo + your time |
| Monthly cost | Platform fee | None (fee on hire) | Free ATS + retainer | $99-300/seat |
| Sourcing | AI — 20+ channels | Manual — database | Manual — recruiter | You do it |
| Enrichment | Automated | Basic | Manual | You do it |
| Outreach | FDR + experiments | Recruiter calls | Recruiter emails | You do it |
| Transparency | Full pipeline visibility | Black box | Some reporting | Your own tracking |
| Time to candidates | 3-5 business days | ~30 days | 2-3 weeks | Depends on you |
| Offer acceptance | 92% | ~70% | Varies | Varies |
| 5 hires cost | $10-15K | $180-250K | $20-35K | $1-4K + your time |
DIY tools: Juicebox ($99/mo), Gem (~$300/seat/mo). Dover: free ATS + fractional recruiters at $4-7K/hire.
Agencies solve a real problem: you need to hire, and you don't have the infrastructure. But their pricing model was designed for a world without AI-powered sourcing.
Agencies charge 20-25% because their costs are high. Each recruiter manually sources, screens, and presents candidates. That labor cost gets passed to you — whether the hire takes two weeks or three months.
The fee is the same whether they search one database or ten. Whether they send five outreach messages or fifty. You pay for the result, with no insight into the process.
Lateral's AI engine replaces the manual labor that drives agency costs. 20+ channels searched automatically. Profiles enriched without human data entry. Outreach experiments optimized by data, not gut feel.
Your FDR adds the judgment layer — calibrating quality, managing relationships, ensuring every candidate is worth your time. Platform + performance pricing. Full transparency.
Three pillars that replace the agency model entirely.
Sources across 20+ channels simultaneously. Enriches every profile with verified contact data, work history, and compensation signals. Runs outreach experiments that optimize over time. No manual Boolean strings.
Your FDR manages the pipeline, calibrates targeting from your feedback, and ensures every candidate is qualified and interested. Human judgment on top of AI infrastructure — not instead of it.
See every candidate sourced, every outreach sent, every response. Know exactly where your pipeline stands at any moment. No black box. No waiting for a weekly agency update that tells you nothing.
Platform + performance pricing aligned to results. 3-5 business days to reviewing interested candidates. 92% offer acceptance rate. Full visibility into every stage.
Talk to Us →20-25% of the candidate's first-year salary. For a senior engineer at $200K, that's $40-50K. For a product manager at $180K, $36-45K. The fee is the same whether the agency spent two hours or two months finding the candidate.
The AI engine automates the most expensive parts of recruiting — multi-channel sourcing, profile enrichment, and outreach optimization. Your FDR is a shared resource, concentrating human judgment where it matters most. Lateral costs a fraction of the $36-50K agencies charge per hire.
Full visibility. Every candidate sourced, every outreach sent, every response received, every pipeline stage. Agencies are black boxes — you send a job description and hope. With Lateral, you see exactly how your recruiting is performing and can provide feedback that immediately improves results.
Lateral's 92% offer acceptance rate speaks for itself. Agencies often spray and pray — submitting candidates who match keywords but haven't been properly qualified. Lateral's AI engine + FDR model focuses on genuinely interested, qualified candidates. The data shows higher quality, not lower.
This is where the cost difference becomes massive. Five hires through an agency: $180-250K in fees. Five hires through Lateral: $10-15K. The AI engine scales across roles without proportional cost increases, and your FDR manages multiple pipelines simultaneously.