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Cost per candidate and cost per hire in Denmark

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When a client asks what a hire costs, or you want to know whether a tool pays for itself, you need two numbers: the cost of finding a candidate and the cost of a hire. This covers what goes into each, what things cost in Denmark in 2026, and a worked example in Danish kroner.

Two numbers, not one

  • Cost per candidate is what it costs to find and contact one candidate. Use it to compare sources and tools.
  • Cost per hire is all recruiting costs in a period divided by the number of hires. The American standard ANSI/SHRM 06001.2012 puts it as (external costs + internal costs) / number of hires.

External costs are what you pay others: agency fees, job ads, CV databases, tools, tests and travel. Internal costs are your recruiters' fully loaded pay and the time hiring managers spend interviewing. The standard leaves out the new hire's salary, training, and the cost of the empty seat.

What costs money

Time

The biggest item, and the one most often forgotten. Use your own hourly cost if you know it. Statistics Denmark puts the pay of salaried HR advisers in the private sector at DKK 559 per hour actually worked in 2025, pension included, but before office, IT and management overhead.

Track your own hours on a few roles: searching, reading profiles, writing messages, following up and screening. That's the number that surprises people most.

Tools

  • LinkedIn Recruiter Lite: LinkedIn doesn't show the price without a login. Third-party sources put it at about USD 170 a month (100Hires, July 2026). Recruiter's price isn't public.
  • Jobindex CV database: free access for employers and DKK 3,085 per hire. Agencies pay DKK 105 per contact and DKK 3,085 per hire.
  • Navigent, once it opens: Basis is DKK 1,499 per user per month with 10 searches, so about DKK 150 per search when all are used. An extra search is DKK 199. One search fetches about 1,000 unique candidates.

Spread a subscription over the roles you actually work on that month.

Job ads

  • Jobindex: a Profilannonce, the standard ad, costs DKK 3,085 and runs for four weeks. A do-it-yourself ad costs DKK 1,025 and runs for three.
  • LinkedIn: a promoted job post is paid per click, with a daily or a total budget, and you're never charged more than the budget. LinkedIn's own example: USD 10 a day for 30 days costs USD 300 or less. Free posts are limited, for example to one active post at a time, for up to 14 days.

All prices exclude VAT.

Agency fees

Most agencies charge a share of the first year's salary, payable only on a hire ("no cure, no pay"). The numbers vary:

  • Profilpartners: 13–17% of first-year gross salary including pension.
  • Next Rekruttering: 10–20% of gross annual salary.
  • Executive search usually charges more, such as 20–33% (Compass HRG) and 25–33% (Holmgaard Management), often in three instalments.
  • Sites that compare agencies quote 15–25% as typical.

Others charge fixed fees, from DKK 15,000 (Jobspecialist) to DKK 40,000 for the full process (EasySearch). Jobindex's own recruitment service costs DKK 10,810 to start and DKK 30,900 per candidate hired.

Worked example: a controller

A salaried controller in the private sector earned DKK 68,713 a month on average in 2025, pension included, according to Statistics Denmark. That's about DKK 824,600 in the first year.

Through an agency at 15%, the hire costs about DKK 123,700. At 20%, about DKK 164,900.

Doing it yourself, with these assumptions:

ItemCalculationDKK
Searching and reading profiles8 hours at DKK 5604,480
Messages and follow-ups4 hours at DKK 5602,240
Screening calls with 8 interested5 hours at DKK 5602,800
Scheduling, interviews and references6 hours at DKK 5603,360
Hiring manager's interview time6 hours at DKK 7104,260
Profilannonce on Jobindex3,085
One search in Navigent, Basis150
Total20,375

The hiring manager's rate is a finance manager's pay per hour worked in 2025, DKK 713, rounded down. If you use Recruiter Lite, add your share of the subscription.

Cost per candidate. Searching and messaging cost DKK 6,720 in time plus DKK 150 in Navigent. If you contact 57 people, 19 reply and 8 are interested, each contacted candidate costs about DKK 121 and each interested one about DKK 859.

Cost per hire is about DKK 20,400, or about 2.5% of first-year pay. The standard calls this the recruiting cost ratio, and it's a useful number to put next to an agency's percentage.

What the example leaves out

  • Assignments that don't close. An agency working "no cure, no pay" carries the cost of the searches that don't land. If one in three closes, each placement costs three times as much, about DKK 61,100 in the example.
  • Time is most of it. In the example, DKK 17,140 of the 20,375 is time. That's where a difference shows, and what to measure before and after you change tools.
  • The empty seat. It costs too, but the standard keeps it out, and so should you when you compare.

How to use the numbers

  1. Track your hours on your next three roles and replace the assumptions.
  2. Compare sources on cost per interested candidate, not per profile. A cheap source with few replies is expensive.
  3. Use the recruiting cost ratio when you talk price with a client. It shows what the work costs, next to the fee they pay.

See what a search costs in Navigent on Pricing.

Sources

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