What dental staffing agencies actually charge.

Permanent placement is usually contingent: you pay only when someone you hire starts. Raybrex puts it plainly: “There is never a fee unless we find you a quality dentist that you want to hire.”^[9] What you pay when that happens is much harder to find.

The clearest public number comes from Frontline Source Group, a general staffing firm with a dental division. Its rate card lists direct hire at 20 to 30 percent of annual salary, with final pricing set by contract at kickoff.^[1] Its dental pages describe the same model, “a contingent fee of 20 to 30 percent of the placed hygienist’s first-year base salary.”^[2][3]

Other published figures are weaker. A 2026 vendor guide gives 15 to 25 percent of first-year salary but cites no source for it.^[5] Henry Schein Dental Recruitment Services says only that its fees are “less than the industry average.”^[7] The Doc Hunters advertise a flat rate “among the lowest in the nation” without naming it.^[8] Hygiene Staffing bills permanent and temporary placements separately and does not publish either.^[10]

Dentist searches are where the two pricing models split. Caris Partners publishes a flat $5,000 to $15,000 “once the dentist or specialist is hired.”^[6] A percentage model on the same hire costs far more, as the next section shows.

A percentage is abstract until you apply it to a real salary. Using BLS May 2025 national medians, a 20 to 30 percent fee comes to about $34,000 to $51,000 for a general dentist and about $19,600 to $29,400 for a hygienist.^[1][11] Compare the flat-fee model for dentists, $5,000 to $15,000.^[6]

A guarantee is what protects the fee if the hire leaves early. Ninety days is the only length published by more than one dental recruiter. Henry Schein offers “a free replacement if you are not satisfied within the first ninety days,”^[7] and The Doc Hunters say every dentist they place “comes with a 90 day guarantee.”^[8] A 2026 vendor guide, again without a source, says most reputable agencies offer a partial refund or free replacement.^[5]

Frontline sells something much longer: a five-year warranty, which it frames against the industry’s 90 days. Its FAQ says failed placements are replaced “at no additional search fee,”^[4] while its pricing page describes the remedy as a pro-rated credit over 1,825 days, based on how long the hire stayed and governed by the client agreement.^[1]

Temp coverage is priced differently from permanent placement. App-based marketplaces publish a fee on top of what the clinician earns, either a percentage of pay or a flat amount per shift. Traditional agencies quote an hourly bill rate that includes the worker’s pay plus their service fee^[2], so the markup is harder to see. Frontline’s rate card puts that markup at 50 to 85 percent, depending on skill and assignment length.^[1]

Competitors’ descriptions of each other run in the same direction but are marketing, not price lists. Teero says published service fees among its rivals run “15% to 25% among the companies that publish a rate.”^[17] TempStars says traditional agencies add an $80 to $150 or more placement fee per shift, plus a $15 to $60 hourly markup.^[22] The uncited vendor guide gives 30 to 60 percent.^[5]

To compare these on equal terms, we priced one 8-hour hygienist shift at the BLS median hourly wage of $47.16.^[11] Real temp pay is often higher: one Madison, Wisconsin agency advertises hygienist temp pay starting at $62 an hour and assistant pay from $31.^[30]

Job boards sit at the other end of the scale. You pay to reach candidates, not for a hire, and your team does the sourcing and screening.

• DentalPost: the Job Posting Subscription is $259 a month, which its page says covers one active job post at a time. Resume search is a $149 a month add-on.^[31]
• LinkedIn: you set a daily budget and pay for views. Its own example: “If you set a $10 daily budget and run a job post for 30 days, your total cost will be $300 or less.” One free job post can be open at a time.^[32]
• Indeed: many jobs post free. Sponsored jobs are priced by auction, and the minimum “will depend on several factors” and appears at checkout.^[33] Qualifying jobs are automatically billed per started application (PPSA) and cannot switch back to pay per click.^[34]

We left ZipRecruiter out: its pricing page refused our request, and the third-party figures in circulation conflict with each other.

The fee is the visible cost. The vacancy is the other one. In the ADA Health Policy Institute’s Q3 2026 update, the vast majority of dentists recruiting hygienists called it “very” or “extremely challenging,” a pattern that has held for more than two years. Only two in five recruiting dentists filled the hygiene position, compared with around two-thirds of those recruiting dental assistants.^[35] BLS projects hygienist employment to grow 8 percent from 2025 to 2035.^[12]

The best dental-specific cost estimate we found comes from DANB, the DALE Foundation and Global Skills X-Change, based on a December 2023 survey with more than 560 responses. It puts the average revenue at risk from a vacant dental assistant position at more than $21,000, nearly $110,000 if the role stays open a full year, and $30,000 to almost $60,000 in extra labor cost.^[36] A separate DANB post puts the average cost of dental assistant turnover at $10,000, about $1,000 of it on hiring expenses.^[37]

General workforce figures are wider and older. Gallup estimated in 2019 that replacing an employee costs one-half to two times their annual salary, without detailing its method on the page.^[38] SHRM reported in 2022 that the average cost per hire was nearly $4,700.^[39] You will also see “a bad hire costs 30 percent of first-year earnings,” credited to the U.S. Department of Labor. We could not trace it to any Labor Department source, so we do not use it.

• Price fees by role, not by headline percentage. At 20 to 30 percent, an assistant hire runs about $9,600 to $14,400 and a general dentist about $34,000 to $51,000 (DSO Hire calculation).^[1][11] Ten hires a year at different roles can produce very different invoices.
• Get the rate card and the guarantee in writing. Frontline sets final pricing by contract, and its own pages describe the warranty remedy two ways.^[1][4] Ask for the length, the remedy, and how it is pro-rated.
• Check temp-to-perm terms before you book shifts. Several platforms publish $0 conversion fees^[17][19][20]; others do not publish them at all.^[28]
• Count payroll costs on W-2 shifts. Teero adds W-2 payroll costs to its 12 percent, and GoTu adds 20 percent of pay where shifts run as W-2.^[16][17]
• Use agencies where they earn the fee. A hard dentist or specialist search, a market you do not know, or a shift you need filled tomorrow. For routine roles your team can source, board and platform costs are a fraction of a placement fee, but the screening work moves to you.
• Weigh the vacancy, not just the fee. With one in five practices reporting hygienist roles open more than six months^[35], a slow cheap search can cost more than a fast expensive one.^[36]

One more option, and it is ours: DSO Hire is a hiring platform for dental groups priced as a flat monthly subscription with no placement fees, from $399 a month (Solo) to $2,999 a month (Enterprise). It replaces job board spend and recruiter fees for the roles your team can fill directly; it does not replace an agency for the searches above. See plan details.