For search and recruitment firms with retained contracts

Improve your search firm bottom line with 3–12%

With real-time pricing analytics and AI-boosted negotiation support.

Capabilities Book a demo →
Your added EBITDA, estimated
Extra profit on the same searches — not just extra revenue.
Your annual fee revenue €5.0M
€2M€5M€10M€20M
Estimated added EBITDA / year
Conservative · +3% EBITDA €150,000
Typical · +5% EBITDA €250,000
Strong · +12% EBITDA €600,000
Added EBITDA — profit, not revenue — on the same searches. Calibrated against Maksfi's 100+ firm benchmark for retained search.

Understand the real value behind every term, and negotiate with facts.

app.maksfi.com/mandates/cfo-vopak · negotiation
Mandates›CFO Vopak
Negotiation mode v4 · Last updated 2 min ago
Client response
📎 vopak_counter.pdf · Anika V. · 14:02
"Thanks for the proposal — happy to move forward. Our framework rate is 22% on base-only, with a 12-month full-refund guarantee, and we'd want the retainer in three equal instalments (⅓·⅓·⅓). Please confirm and we'll countersign."
Expected fee · with our reply
Low
€23.6k
If accepted as-is
Expected
€31.3k
With our counter
High
€34.1k
Best case
This proposal
€31.3k
Your average
€27.9k
+12% vs your average Top 45% of your closes
Salary estimate · all-in
LowExpectedHigh Base salary€190k€205k€225k 13e maand€16k€17k€19k Bonus (30%)€57k€62k€68k Holiday allow.€10k€11k€12k All-in total€273k€295k€324k
What's costing you · ranked
Top two terms are 64% of the damage — push back there first.
1 · Fee % concession 25%→22% narrowed base
−€4.1k
2 · Salary base drops 13e + bonus
−€2.9k
3 · Retainer schedule ⅓·⅓·⅓ vs 50/25/25
−€2.2k
4 · Guarantee structure full refund vs replacement
−€1.9k
Net impact on expected revenue −€11,074
Draft reply
Easy ● Desired Aggressive
Claude Opus 4.8
Draft a reply to Vopak's counter — firm on the fee, but keep it warm.
✦
Claude Opus 4.8
Dear Anika,
Thank you — it's genuinely good news that we're aligned on moving forward.
On the fee: 22% is a fair starting point, but our comparable retained CFO closes sit at 25–27% on a loaded base benchmark · n=21 ↗. I'd like to hold 25%.
On the salary base: keeping 13e maand and the fixed bonus in scope matters — that's how the market defines base at this seniority.
On the guarantee: rather than a 12-month full refund, may I propose a 12-month replacement with a 33% refund?
Adjust tone, push harder, add context…
⌘↵
Powered by Claude Opus 4.8 · grounded in your library + Maksfi intelligence
Library·Documents
PDF
Vopak_MSA_2024.pdf
Master services agreement ·
···
W
JD_CFO_APAC_final.docx
Role brief · added 14:02
···
XLS
Vopak_fee_history_202...
11 past closes · 88 KB
···
PDF
Mercer_ExecComp_APA...
External band · 5.1 MB
···
PDF
KornFerry_CFO_band.pdf
External band · 1.2 MB
···
Maksfi Data
✦
Global executive search survey
300+ results
✦
Local salary data
Amsterdam · NL
3–12%
more EBITDA with the same searches
100+
global firms benchmarked, on the entire T&C structure
< 2 min
to draft a substantiated, defensible proposal
I 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.

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.
IV The solution

Two ways it changes how your firm prices.

app.maksfi.com/mandates/cfo-vopak · fee rationale
✦ Vopak CFO APAC · fee conversation
Claude Opus 4.8
Set the fee for Vopak CFO APAC and prepare what I send to procurement.
Fee rationale · for Vopak procurement Required before sending
€64,900 — here's exactly how we got there.
The fee is a fixed 27.5% of the loaded comp basis. The basis itself comes from a low–high estimate, anchored to a placement you closed last year and Maksfi's salary data.
€236k
Comp basis
×
27.5%
Fee rate
=
€64,900
Fixed fee
Comp estimate → the basis we used
€236k basis · ¾ high + ¼ low Comp estimate low → high range €212k €266k Similar placement '25 APAC CFO · comparable €228k Maksfi salary data Mercer · KF · LinkedIn €205–262k 200k 220k 240k 260k 280k
Sources we'd cite to the client
Similar placement '25↗
A comparable CFO search you closed last year, at a similar loaded salary.
Maksfi salary data↗
Mercer · Korn Ferry · LinkedIn bands for APAC CFO, 2026.
Your fee history ×11↗
11 prior Vopak closes, indexed — averaging 26.9%.
Against your own track record
At 27.5%, this fee lands just above your 11-close average of 26.9% — comfortably defensible and inside your top ~45%. Not an outlier you'd have to explain away.
27.5% avg 26.9% 11 past Vopak closes this
The full justification
01Seniority & scope
Group-CFO remit across APAC with M&A and refinancing mandate — at the top of the band Mercer and Korn Ferry publish Mercer 2026 ↗.
02Loaded base, not headline
Fee is set on the full package — base, 13ᵉ maand, vaste bonus and mobility — totalling €236k composition ↗.
03Your own track record
27.5% is consistent with your last 11 Vopak closes, which averaged 26.9% on comparable senior-finance roles fee history ×11 ↗.
04Guarantee & risk
Includes a 12-month replacement guarantee; the fee reflects search risk for a confidential, externally-benchmarked role.
Ready to send — pick a format
Draft email
Subject + body written, the charts and four points inline. Editable before it goes.
Justification PDF
A 2-page branded memo with the charts and citations. Attach or share.
＋
Message Maksfi — tweak the fee or the justification…
Opus 4.8

Embed pricing authority across your whole firm

Every proposed fee ships with a written, cited rationale — the build-up, a comparable placement, and your own track record. Anyone can send the same defensible number, in one voice.

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

Saves time, headspace, and is simple & intuitive to use.

Book a demo →

Authority where it counts

"Everyone pays 20%" stops being an argument. You answer with the distribution, the methodology and your own closing history — every time.

app.maksfi.com/benchmark
T&C Benchmark
C-level NL Retained
Headline fee % distribution · n=46 retained search firms
mode You · 25% 15 18 21 24 ▾ median 27 30 33 36%
Term
Your position
Market median
Percentile
Headline fee %
25%
24%
54th
Salary base
Loaded
Partial
72nd
Guarantee length
3 months
3 months
50th
Retainer structure
50/25/25
⅓·⅓·⅓
68th
Administrative fees
Not charged
43% charge
28th

Improve your bottom line by 3–12%.

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

Book a demo →