Stage 04 · Placement economics
Recruiting, measured the way the business gets paid.
Recognized revenue, cost-per-placement, and gross margin by source — reconciled to the Stage 00 labor-rate baseline. Every assumption is auditable; every number recomputes.
Recognized revenue
$0
0 placements
Modeled sourcing cost
$800
monthly seat + outreach
Gross margin
-$800
—
Cost per placement
—
no accepted yet
Modeled per-source costs use defensible defaults — ClearanceJobs ≈ $2.2k/mo, LinkedIn Recruiter ≈ $1.85k, Dice ≈ $1.1k, internal $0. Tune the model in SOURCE_MONTHLY_COST_USD and every number on this page recomputes.
Decisions on this page
Four calls a leader can make today
- 1Cut or keep each source. Negative margin in the source ledger is the channel to drop next cycle.
- 2Trust your CPP. Cost-per-placement sits beside accept rate so a cheap channel with weak quality does not flatter the headline number.
- 3Find the re-bid. Per-contract gross profit reconciles to the labor-rate worksheet and surfaces under-priced LCATs.
- 4Coach by revenue. Recruiter contribution ties placements to recognized revenue per owner — a coaching signal, not a vanity ranking.
Worked example · how to read it
One placement on ClearanceJobs
Monthly seat cost
$2,200
ClearanceJobs license assumption
Submissions
6
3 accepted by the prime
Placements
1
this cycle
Recognized revenue
$22,000
placement revenue × placements
Cost per placement
$2,200
seat cost / 1 placement
Cost per accepted
≈ $733
seat cost / 3 accepted resumes
Read it as: $22k revenue against $2.2k modeled seat cost is $19.8k of margin against this channel. Zero-placement channels show red below — that’s the variance worth chasing.
Profitability baseline · from Stage 00
Labor-rate worksheet — the variable behind every margin number
Bill, pay, loaded cost, and target margin are set in Stage 00 at the start of each cycle. Every placement number above reconciles to this baseline.
Labor categories (LCATs) priced
7
4 contracts
Weighted margin
27.4%
Avg per LCAT 27.4%
Annual billing on file
$2,279,040
$624,000 modeled gross profit
Below target
0
Re-bid candidates
| Contract | LCATs | Annual billing | Annual GP | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DISA ENCORE III DISA-ENCORE-III | 2 | $568,320 | $157,440 | 27.7% |
| USCYBERCOM T.O. 14 USCYBERCOM-TO14 | 2 | $672,000 | $192,000 | 28.6% |
| USSOCOM SITEC II USSOCOM-SITEC-II | 1 | $412,800 | $113,280 | 27.4% |
| Army RS3 ARMY-RS3 | 2 | $625,920 | $161,280 | 25.8% |
Source revenue vs cost
Where each dollar of sourcing actually pays back.
Acceptance rate by source
Quality of the funnel, not just volume.
Source ledger
Per-source unit economics.
Sorted by recognized revenue.
| Source | Sourced | Submitted | Accept rate | Placed | Cost | CPA | CPP | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 0 | 4 | 0.0% | 0 | $800 | — | — | -$800 |
CPA = modeled cost / accepted resumes. CPP = modeled cost / placements. Margin = revenue − modeled cost.
Recruiter contribution
Revenue produced per recruiter.
Julia Nguyen
0 placed · 0/2 accepted (0.0%)
$0
Dayo Okafor
0 placed · 0/1 accepted (0.0%)
$0
Luz Alvarez
0 placed · 0/1 accepted (0.0%)
$0
Top contracts by revenue
Where the placements actually landed.
USCYBERCOM T.O. 14
US Cyber Command · 0 placed · 1 subs
$0
DISA ENCORE III
DISA · 0 placed · 1 subs
$0
USSOCOM SITEC II
US Special Operations Command · 0 placed · 1 subs
$0
Army RS3
US Army CECOM · 0 placed · 1 subs
$0
Drill into /contracts for governance, reviewers, and notification routing per contract.
What this number means
Every placement is a real revenue event — every cost above is an assumption you can audit.
This page does not infer demand or back into projections. It applies a modeled per-source cost to the actual sourced / submitted / placed counts in the database. Swap the cost assumptions and the entire ledger recomputes deterministically.