US · Scaling
What is a good fill rate for a staffing agency?
How to define fill rate correctly by niche and client, and why speed, quality and redeployment matter alongside the percentage.
The short answer
A good fill rate is the percentage of genuine, accepted requisitions filled within the client's required window, measured by niche and role rather than blended across the book. A high-volume agency may target 80 percent or more on repeatable roles; scarce clinical and specialist roles need a different baseline. Define the denominator before comparing.
Key facts
- Measure against
- Accepted, qualified requisitions with a defined deadline
- Avoid
- Counting every speculative or cancelled request
- Pair with
- Time to fill, retention and gross profit per order
Fill rate is easy to inflate and easy to misuse. If you count a requisition that was withdrawn, already filled internally or never had an approved rate, you are measuring market noise rather than delivery.
Write the denominator into the client review: accepted requisitions, qualification agreed, start date known, and no cancellation before your submission. Then publish the result by occupation, location and shift pattern so the number can guide decisions.
Speed is not enough. A fast fill that walks out in week one is a failed placement with a delayed invoice. Put retention at seven, thirty and ninety days next to fill rate and the picture becomes commercially useful.
Compare like with like. A general warehouse order and a night-shift ICU nurse role do not share a credible benchmark, and blending them punishes the specialist desk for doing harder, higher-value work.
Use the metric to improve the funnel: source quality, interview attendance, compliance turnaround, offer acceptance and client response. The number is a diagnosis, not a trophy.
United States
How this differs by US state and metro
The answer above holds nationally. What changes locally is registration, insurance, wage rules and how much cash each contractor consumes — these are the states and metros founders ask us about most.
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia · Pittsburgh · Allentown
Healthcare, hospital and allied staffing across Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania guideNorth Carolina
Charlotte · Raleigh–Durham · Greensboro
Banking, financial services and professional contract roles in Charlotte
North Carolina guideSouth Carolina
Charleston · Greenville · Columbia
Automotive and advanced manufacturing around Greenville and Spartanburg
South Carolina guideNew York
New York City · Brooklyn · Long Island
Financial services, legal and professional contract staffing in Manhattan
New York guideMetro-level wage, bill rate and startup cost detail:
Local questions
Does this change if I start in Pennsylvania?
The national answer holds. What changes in Pennsylvania is local: Healthcare, hospital and allied staffing across Philadelphia and Pittsburgh Check the Pennsylvania page before you register anything, and model the cash gap on Pennsylvania pay rates rather than national averages.
Is the answer different in North Carolina than in Pennsylvania?
The economics are the same shape; the local detail is not. In North Carolina: Banking, financial services and professional contract roles in Charlotte That affects your registration checklist and your working capital number, not the underlying principle.
Which US cities does this apply to?
All of them — but we publish metro-level bill rate, wage and startup cost detail for Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Raleigh–Durham and more, because pay rates and buyer mix vary far more between metros than between states.
Do I need a separate licence in every state I place in?
You register where you have employees and where you do business, not once nationally. Most states require unemployment insurance and withholding registration plus workers' compensation cover; a minority licence employment agencies, and some cities — New York City among them — licence separately from the state. Confirm each state and city before your first placement there.
Sources
General information for recruitment and staffing founders, not legal, tax or accounting advice.
Go deeper
How to scale a recruitment agency past the founder
The four constraints that stop recruitment agencies growing — founder dependency, biller retention, client concentration and cash — and the sequence that removes them.
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