Compare a Korean 12-month RPO engagement with in-house recruiting across up to four role groups. The dedicated bilingual calculator reuses one pure KRW function for allocated recruiter FTE and loaded cost, tools, ads and assessments, hiring-manager time, RPO implementation, monthly base, fee per hire, annual minimum, retained client work, cash and non-recoverable VAT, role-specific fill days, daily vacancy value, one-replacement failure assumptions and replacement-fee waiver. It reports total and per-hire cost, vacancy and failed-hire cost, minimum-fee top-up, every integer hiring-volume crossover from 1 to 10,000 hires, volume sensitivity and the maximum economic RPO fee per hire without deciding provider registration, paid-placement classification, fee legality, privacy compliance, VAT recovery or hiring quality.
Starting values are an illustrative formula check, not market-average fees, fill times or failure rates. Use 12 months of ATS data, recruiter allocation, manager interview time, role-specific vacancy value, and the quote’s base, per-hire, minimum and replacement terms.
Separate fixed recruiter FTE and tools from per-hire external cost and hiring-manager time.
Use decimals such as 0.5 for shared roles
Use your company’s salary, employer cost, benefits and equipment basis
ATS, sourcing tools, careers site and similar fixed cost
Ads, assessments, referral awards and similar costs
Do not duplicate recruiter time already in FTE
Enter implementation, base, per-hire, minimum, retained client work, VAT and replacement terms on one supply-price basis.
Excludes implementation by default; align with the contract
Separate ads, assessments, travel and similar cost
Briefing, interviews and review retained by the client
Recoverable VAT is excluded from economic cost
Enter only the waiver that the contract would actually apply
Split hires, fill days, vacancy value and failure assumptions across up to 4 role groups. Current total: 50 hires.
Portfolio maximum 10,000 hires
Use evidenced contribution loss, not gross revenue
Assumed probability of one replacement cycle
A client stress assumption, not a vendor guarantee
Evidenced onboarding, exit and rework cost
Checks do not change cost and serve only as a review record. They do not establish legal compliance.
12-month economic cost for 50 hires across 1 role group
RPO KRW 115,320,000 saved
In-house total
KRW 677,700,000
RPO total
KRW 562,380,000
In-house per hire
KRW 13,554,000
RPO per hire
KRW 11,247,600
KRW 677,700,000
Per hire KRW 13,554,000 · Weighted fill 55 days
KRW 562,380,000
Per hire KRW 11,247,600 · Weighted fill 40 days
Hold the role mix and other inputs constant while changing only annual hiring volume or the RPO fee per hire.
4 hires
4 hires: In-house → RPO
KRW 4,806,400
At the current volume, RPO is cheaper when the actual per-hire fee is below this threshold.
This is an economic comparison, not a legal cap or recommended fee.
Compare the lower-cost model at 50%, 100%, 150% and 200% of current hiring volume while preserving the role mix.
| Annual hires | In-house | RPO | Lower-cost model | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | KRW 426,350,000 | KRW 346,190,000 | RPO | KRW 80,160,000 |
| 50 | KRW 677,700,000 | KRW 562,380,000 | RPO | KRW 115,320,000 |
| 75 | KRW 929,050,000 | KRW 778,570,000 | RPO | KRW 150,480,000 |
| 100 | KRW 1,180,400,000 | KRW 994,760,000 | RPO | KRW 185,640,000 |
Korea-specific 2026 planning guide · official legal texts verified 2026-08-04
This calculator compares the 12-month economic cost of an internal recruiting team with Recruitment Process Outsourcing for a portfolio of repeated hires.
It does not stop at the RPO monthly base fee and fee per hire.
It also values allocated recruiter FTE, recruiting tools, job ads and assessments, hiring-manager time, role-specific vacancy days, failed-hire risk and one replacement cycle.
The starting values are an illustrative formula check, not a Korean market-average RPO fee, fill time, failure rate or recommended contract structure.
Replace every value with 12 months of ATS records, recruiter allocation, hiring-manager time, role-level vacancy evidence and the actual RPO proposal and contract.
Korean Employment Security Act, privacy and VAT references are review anchors only and do not turn the result into a legal-compliance decision.
Use the same 12-month horizon, role groups, hiring volume, definition of a filled position and VAT economic basis on both sides.
If the RPO scope includes ads, assessments or candidate communication, keep the in-house comparison on the same scope and place any client-paid exception in retained RPO cost.
| Cost layer | In-house | RPO | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed cost | Recruiter FTE and tools | Implementation, monthly base and minimum commitment | Allocation, invoices and proposal |
| Volume cost | Ads, assessments and manager time | Per-hire fee, client-paid extras and retained coordination | ATS, schedules and contract rate card |
| Vacancy cost | In-house fill days × daily loss | RPO fill days × daily loss | Requisition, start date and contribution evidence |
| Failed-hire cost | Repeat ads, interviews, vacancy and exit cost | Replacement fee, retained work, vacancy and exit cost | Guarantee, probation and exit records |
Loaded recruiter FTE already includes recruiter sourcing and process time.
Per-hire manager hours should include only review, interviews and approval by people outside the recruiter allocation, so the same hour is not counted twice.
The model compares 12 monthly base fees plus initial per-hire fees with the annual minimum and adds any shortfall.
Implementation is outside the minimum in this model, so restructure the inputs if the written contract treats it differently.
Use contribution or productivity that actually disappears because the role is vacant, not total revenue.
If the value is uncertain, compare zero, a conservative case and the company-approved case rather than presenting one estimate as a fact.
Failure percentage is a client stress assumption for one replacement cycle, not an industry statistic or forecast.
Replacement waiver applies only to the per-hire RPO fee.
Client coordination, failed-hire direct cost and renewed vacancy remain in the calculation.
A repeat cycle includes failed-hire direct cost, another external and manager-time amount, and another in-house vacancy period.
Annual recruiter FTE is fixed and is not added again for each failure.
The page shows full cash VAT in the invoice total but includes only the non-recoverable share in economic cost.
It does not determine Korean taxability, exemption or input-tax recovery.
A positive in-house-minus-RPO difference means RPO is cheaper with the current inputs, while a negative value means in-house is cheaper.
That is a cost comparison, not a promise of hiring quality, success or organizational fit.
The illustrative starting case uses 50 hires in one role group.
In-house cost includes two recruiter FTE at KRW 80,000,000 loaded cost each, KRW 15,000,000 of annual tools, KRW 1,000,000 of external cost and ten manager hours at KRW 80,000 per hire.
RPO uses KRW 10,000,000 implementation, KRW 10,000,000 monthly base, KRW 2,500,000 per hire and a KRW 180,000,000 annual minimum.
The role assumes 55 in-house fill days, 40 RPO fill days, KRW 100,000 daily vacancy cost, KRW 8,000,000 failed-hire direct cost and 18% versus 13% one-replacement probabilities.
| Cost item | In-house | RPO |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed, service and initial retained cost | KRW 265,000,000 | KRW 281,000,000 |
| Initial vacancy cost | KRW 275,000,000 | KRW 200,000,000 |
| Expected failed-hire cost | KRW 137,700,000 | KRW 81,380,000 |
| Total economic cost | KRW 677,700,000 | KRW 562,380,000 |
| Economic cost per hire | KRW 13,554,000 | KRW 11,247,600 |
RPO is KRW 115,320,000 cheaper in this illustrative case.
With the same role mix, the first integer-volume crossover is four annual hires, and the current 50-hire economic fee-per-hire break-even is KRW 4,806,400.
Neither figure is a market rate, legal cap or recommended fee.
It is a threshold under the remaining inputs and must be reviewed with scope, quality, service levels and contract risk.
A KRW 5,000,000 monthly base plus KRW 1,000,000 for each of ten hires produces KRW 70,000,000 of quoted recurring supply price.
The KRW 100,000,000 minimum adds a KRW 30,000,000 top-up.
Adding KRW 10,000,000 implementation produces KRW 110,000,000 of service supply price.
At 10% VAT and 0% recovery, cash and non-recoverable VAT are both KRW 11,000,000, so service economic cost is KRW 121,000,000.
At 100% recovery, the cash invoice remains KRW 121,000,000 but economic cost excludes the KRW 11,000,000 recoverable VAT.
Recruiter FTE and tools remain fixed on the in-house side, while RPO implementation, base and minimum remain fixed on the RPO side.
Role mix and per-hire vacancy and failure economics scale with volume.
Because the annual minimum creates a piecewise-linear RPO cost curve, one closed-form division can miss a second crossover.
The calculator therefore checks every integer hiring volume from one through 10,000 and reports every change in the lower-cost model.
Fixed-cost allocation causes the lower-cost model to change once as annual volume grows.
The RPO slope can change when the minimum commitment stops binding, so cost leadership can change twice.
The same model stays cheaper throughout the one-to-10,000-hire search range under the current assumptions.
Compare 30, 60 and 90 hires to see minimum-fee dilution and per-hire charges together.
Separately test whether the same in-house recruiter FTE could operationally support each volume.
Separate sales, technical and operations roles when daily vacancy value and fill time differ materially.
That avoids hiding the timing economics of a high-value group inside one portfolio average.
Run quote A and quote B separately to compare low-base and high-per-hire pricing with a higher-minimum and broader-replacement structure.
Align role coverage, geography, channels, service levels and guarantee exclusions before treating the result as like-for-like.
RPO is a business label, not one automatic statutory category under Korean law.
Review whether the actual service accepts job-opening or job-seeker requests, searches or recruits candidates and mediates formation of employment contracts, and how those activities are separated from other managed-process services.
The current Employment Security Act checked through the official Korean law API on August 4, 2026 has law ID 001765, MST 259231 and an effective date of July 24, 2024.
Article 2-2 defines employment placement and paid employment-placement business.
Article 19 covers registration for domestic paid placement and the announced-fee rule, with an exception for qualifying high-level or professional personnel.
This calculator does not decide provider registration, whether a service is placement, whether a role meets the exception or whether a contract is lawful.
The current Enforcement Decree has MST 284877 and an effective date of March 24, 2026.
Article 25(6) generally requires the Article 19(3) fee to be received after the job seeker enters an employment contract, subject to stated exceptions.
Current MOEL Notice 2017-22 on domestic paid-placement fees has official serial 2100000081610 and sets the general employer-fee framework.
The calculator cannot classify implementation, monthly base, minimum and per-hire RPO charges as placement fees or separate managed-service consideration, so scope and billing timing require review.
PIPA MST 270351 Article 26 covers written processing-entrustment terms, disclosure of entrusted work and processors, training and supervision, and consent for sub-processing.
Determine separately whether actual candidate-data flows are entrusted processing, third-party disclosure or another arrangement, and whether overseas systems are involved.
VAT Act MST 276117 Article 30 supplies the editable 10% starting rate, but the calculator does not decide taxability, exemption or input-tax recovery.
No.
Role mix, location, scope, volume, guarantee and employer brand make quotes different, so the calculator requires an actual quote rather than inventing an official average.
Use the actual share of working time spent on recruiting during the 12-month period.
If one recruiter spends half of working time on recruiting, enter 0.5 FTE and exclude unrelated HR work.
Only the entered fill-day difference and evidenced daily contribution loss enter the calculation.
Do not multiply total revenue or a theoretical productivity figure without evidence that it disappears during vacancy.
No.
It waives only the modeled replacement per-hire fee.
Onboarding and exit cost, retained client coordination and renewed vacancy remain.
The contract label does not decide that question.
Review the actual acceptance of job-opening or job-seeker requests, candidate search and recruitment, mediation toward an employment contract and separation from other process services under current law and the contract facts.
Cost is one decision dimension.
Compare candidate quality, process control, hiring-manager and candidate experience, privacy and security, service levels, flexibility and internal capability in a separate scorecard.
Official texts were checked on August 4, 2026.
Recheck the requirements, content and inputs together when the laws, notice or actual service and fee structure changes.
Return to the calculator and enter 12 months of allocated recruiter FTE, recruiting tools, role-level fill days and vacancy economics, plus implementation, base, per-hire and minimum terms from the written proposal.
Reviewing total cost, hiring-volume crossovers, the fee threshold and legal and candidate-data checks together creates a more explainable sourcing decision.