Negotiate smarter fee structures. Achieve 3–12% higher margins.

Maksfi compares your fees, retainers and guarantee terms with 500+ firms and estimates, in numbers, what each change in your terms is worth to you — for every deal you close. AI is built in: it learns from your own fee history and works as a negotiation copilot for your team, backing every proposal and counter-offer with the figures to support it.

Start free: consult + benchmark report → How it works
Free 30-minute consultation, incl. a written benchmark of your terms vs the market. No preparation needed beyond a recent proposal.
For search and recruitment firms with retained contracts
Estimated added EBITDA / year
Extra profit on the same searches — not just extra revenue.
Strong · +12% EBITDA €600,000
Typical · +5% EBITDA €250,000
Conservative · +3% EBITDA €150,000
Your annual fee revenue €5.0M
€2M€5M€10M€20M
Ranges calibrated on Maksfi's 500+ firm benchmark. The Fee & T&C analysis pins down where your firm actually sits — and how to close the gap.
I How we work

Three steps. Each one earns the next.

We don't ask you to buy software on faith. We start free, prove the gap on your own numbers, and only then talk about automating it.

Free · Start here
Step 1

Benchmark consultation

A 30-minute call plus a written benchmark report: your headline fee, salary base, guarantee and retainer terms against the market.

  • First read on where you're leaking
  • Written report — yours to keep
Book the free consult →
→
Step 2

Your Fee & T&C benchmark and analysis

We take your historical proposals, contracts, fee outcomes and negotiation emails apart — percentage and fixed-fee mandates alike — and quantify what every term has been costing you.

  • Fee variation across clients, consultants & mandates
  • Fixed-fee analysis: what each flat fee really earned vs. the role
  • Each T&C item's impact on your bottom line, ranked
  • Patch list for your standard terms · push list for your next negotiations
See what's inside →
→
Step 3

Your custom negotiation co-pilot

A custom agent trained on your fee history, your past negotiations and the live benchmark — supporting every proposal and counter your team sends.

  • Built on your completed analysis
  • Offered to analysis clients first
About the co-pilot →How it's engineered →
3–12%
more EBITDA with the same searches, without scaring off clients
500+
global firms benchmarked, on the entire T&C structure
< 2 min
to draft a substantiated, defensible proposal with our co-pilot
II The problem

For search and recruitment firms facing challenges with…

01

Pressure on pricing and margins

Fixed-fee demands and professional procurement departments steadily compress what you can charge for the same work.

02

Complex T&C decisions under time pressure

Guarantees, retainers, salary-base definitions and exclusivity all move the economics — and the answer is needed before the call ends.

03

Inexperienced negotiators lower in the org

Researchers and junior consultants face seasoned buyers without the data or the playbook the partners carry in their heads.

The reason it's so hard: no two fees are comparable.

A 24% on a narrow base can out-earn a 30% on a loaded one. Maksfi reads all of it — the headline %, what each firm folds into "base", and the guarantee, retainer and clause terms underneath.

What firms charge
Headline fee %, 3-pt bands · n=46 firms · median 25%
13 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36%
A 24% on one base can equal a 30% on another — headline % alone tells you almost nothing.
What's inside "base"
Components included in the % calculation · n=63
Base salary
100%
Bonus / variable
43%
Holiday allow.
19%
13th month
17%
Company car
17%
Commission
14%
Only 43% include bonus; under 20% include 13th month or car. Each component you add lifts the fee on the same %.
Where terms diverge
Guarantee · admin fees · retainer · discounts
Replacement guarantee
modal — but US retained runs to 12 mo
3 mo
Administrative fees
per search, per month, or not at all
varies
Retainer structure
vs. single invoice — 15–25% EV delta
⅓·⅓·⅓
Own-candidate discount
rarely charged, often given away
0–2pp
The clauses beneath the headline swing realised revenue by double digits — and are rarely benchmarked.
III What it costs you
Where the money leaks

It's never the headline %. It's the lines beneath it.

+3.8pp
Salary base
Bonus, 13th month, holiday allowance and car included in the base your % is multiplied by — where competitors quietly leave them out.
+0.9pp
Retainer schedule
A front-loaded 50/25/25 split realises more expected revenue than ⅓+⅓+⅓ when a search stalls.
+0.6pp
Administrative fees
A research/admin fee billed per search or per month — small per line, but routinely waived rather than charged.
+0.3pp
Guarantee structure
A 33% refund plus replacement protects the client on the failure curve at roughly a third of the cost of a full refund.
+0.3pp
Exclusivity premium
Charged as a matter of course on retained mandates, yet routinely left on the table elsewhere.

Find out how much more profit you can make out of the same work.

Start free: a 30-minute consultation plus a written benchmark of your terms — yours to keep.

Book the free consultation →
IV About Maksfi

Built by people who've sat in your chair.

Maksfi comes from inside the industry — an operator who built and sold a retained search firm, and an analyst who models the market behind it.

The operator

Founding partner of a 20-person, high-end executive search boutique that exited to private equity.

Founder of Maksfi
The founder
Maksfi · Amsterdam
The analyst

Statistics background as MSc Physics and financial background as McKinsey consultant.

Improve your bottom line by 3–12%.

Same searches, same team — a measurably better number on every mandate.

Start free: consult + benchmark report →