A PLN 48,000 Recruitment Fee in Poland: What Happens When the Engineer Leaves After 30, 60 or 90 Days?
A company pays PLN 48,000 to recruit a software engineer in Poland. The engineer joins, completes onboarding, and resigns after 60 days.
Samarthya Pandey
Does the employer recover PLN 48,000, receive a partial refund, get another candidate without paying a second recruitment commission, or lose the entire fee?
The answer depends on the agency agreement.
Published recruitment guarantees in Poland offer materially different protections. Jobhouse, Winged IT, and HireWise describe three-month replacement arrangements, while Chaperone Royale publicly offers a choice between a new recruitment process and an 80% refund of its commission under specified circumstances.
Those are not financially equivalent promises.
A replacement search may protect the employer from a second placement commission without returning any cash. A refund reduces the amount permanently spent on the original recruitment, while a credit usually has value only when the employer purchases another qualifying service.
Ivvora examined publicly disclosed recruitment guarantees, international examples of documented refund and credit schedules, and Polish commercial court decisions involving failed placements.
We then applied these terms to a consistent PLN 48,000 recruitment-fee scenario to compare the consequences of an engineer leaving after 30, 60, or 90 days.
The analysis distinguishes actual published terms from hypothetical applications of those terms. It does not assume that every recruitment provider serves software-engineering employers or offers identical contractual protection.
What Happens to a PLN 48,000 Recruitment Fee When a Hire Leaves Early?
For this analysis, assume the following:
- The engineer earns PLN 20,000 gross monthly, or PLN 240,000 annually.
- The recruitment agency charges 20% of annual gross salary.
- The employer pays a PLN 48,000 placement fee, excluding VAT.
- The engineer leaves after 30, 60, or 90 calendar days of employment.
- The employer still needs to fill the same engineering position.
The original placement fee is:
PLN 240,000 × 20% = PLN 48,000
If the first hire leaves and the employer appoints another agency charging the same amount, total external placement fees can reach PLN 96,000.
A qualifying replacement guarantee may prevent that second commission.
A partial refund may instead reduce the original recruitment expenditure before the employer purchases another placement.
The relevant question is therefore not simply whether the agency provides a guarantee. It is what financial remedy the guarantee creates, when the employer becomes entitled to it, and whether the employer can actually use that remedy.
What Do Recruitment Agencies in Poland Publish About Their Guarantees?
Ivvora reviewed publicly accessible guarantee descriptions from recruitment businesses operating in the Polish market.
The disclosures establish different commercial approaches, but they are not identical signed agreements. Some describe specialist recruitment, while others cover broader professional or household-service roles.
Published Polish recruitment-guarantee comparison
| Provider | Published guarantee | Disclosed remedy | Cash refund expressly offered? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winged IT | First three months | Restart the recruitment search without an additional fee | Not stated |
| Jobhouse | Three months from employment start | Repeat recruitment without charge when the employee proves unsuitable or resigns during the stated trial-period circumstances | Not stated |
| HireWise | Three months, regardless of the reason for separation according to its public description | Recruit another candidate without charge | Not stated |
| HPC HR GROUP | Three months from hiring | Find and recruit another person for the same position without additional charge if the candidate leaves or the client ends cooperation | Not stated |
| NAJ International | Three to twelve months | Repeat the search without charge in specified circumstances | Not stated |
| Chaperone Royale | Three months | New recruitment process or refund of 80% of the paid commission under stated conditions | Yes |
Research reviewed October 9, 2026. These are provider-published service descriptions, not copies of individually negotiated master service agreements.
The providers’ scope matters.
Winged IT focuses on technology recruitment. Jobhouse offers permanent recruitment and IT-related services, while HireWise and NAJ International cover broader professional and management roles. Chaperone Royale specializes in domestic and private-household recruitment.
Chaperone Royale’s refund provision is therefore evidence that a Polish recruitment provider publicly offers a cash-refund option, not proof that an 80% refund is common for software-engineering placements.
This distinction prevents unrelated recruitment sectors from being used as false evidence of standardized Polish IT contracting terms.
The comparison establishes one important point: a three-month guarantee does not identify the employer’s actual financial remedy.
How Does a Replacement-Only Guarantee Work?
A replacement-only guarantee commits the recruitment provider to undertake another search if the original placement ends within the qualifying period.
Jobhouse expressly describes a three-month guarantee counted from the employee’s start date. When the employee is unsuitable or resigns under the stated conditions, the provider repeats the recruitment process without charging again.
Winged IT similarly states that it restarts a search without an additional charge if a placement ends within the first three months.
For the hypothetical PLN 48,000 placement:
| Outcome | External agency-fee expenditure |
|---|---|
| Original completed placement | PLN 48,000 |
| Engineer leaves during valid guarantee | PLN 48,000 already paid |
| Agency successfully provides a qualifying replacement without another fee | PLN 0 additional commission |
| Total placement fees | PLN 48,000 |
The employer avoids a second agency commission, but it does not automatically recover the original PLN 48,000.
There is another important limitation.
A commitment to conduct another search does not necessarily guarantee that an acceptable replacement will be hired by a specified date.
The agreement must distinguish between presenting candidate profiles, conducting another recruitment process, producing a qualified shortlist, and completing a replacement placement.
If the agency cannot fill the role, the contract determines whether the employer receives another remedy.
Where no fallback refund or credit is provided, the employer may have paid the initial commission while the vacancy remains open.
What Does an 80% Recruitment Refund Mean in Actual Currency?
Chaperone Royale publishes a three-month guarantee offering two options under specified circumstances:
- A new recruitment process conducted at the agency’s expense.
- A refund of 80% of the paid commission.
Its FAQ also states that if the client elects a new search but no replacement is hired, the client receives the stated refund.
That is a materially different structure from a guarantee offering only a replacement search.
Applying an 80% refund to an illustrative PLN 48,000 commission produces:
Refund = PLN 48,000 × 80% = PLN 38,400
Unrecovered original commission = PLN 9,600
| Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Original placement commission | PLN 48,000 |
| Cash refunded at 80% | PLN 38,400 |
| Original commission remaining with agency | PLN 9,600 |
| Separate replacement through another agency at PLN 48,000 | PLN 48,000 |
| Combined net placement-commission expenditure | PLN 57,600 |
This is a standardized financial illustration, not an actual engineering quote from Chaperone Royale.
There is also an additional contractual detail that changes the calculation.
Chaperone Royale’s FAQ identifies a separate PLN 2,000 registration fee that is nonrefundable and excluded from its placement commission.
If that actual advertised fee structure were applied alongside the hypothetical PLN 48,000 commission, the employer’s original cash expenditure would be PLN 50,000.
After an 80% commission refund, PLN 11,600 of that original expenditure would remain unrecovered.
Hiring another candidate through an agency charging PLN 48,000 would then bring combined net expenditure to PLN 59,600.
The additional PLN 2,000 demonstrates why a refund percentage must be evaluated against the exact charges it covers.
A guarantee refunding 80% of commission is not the same as refunding 80% of every amount the client paid.
Source: Chaperone Royale, published recruitment conditions.
What Happens Under a Recruitment Credit Instead of a Refund?
A recruitment credit is different from cash returned to the employer.
Rather than transferring money back, the recruitment provider permits the client to offset part of a previously paid fee against eligible future services.
To illustrate this structure using a publicly documented policy, Fuller International publishes an example of a 90-day guarantee with the following fee credits:
| Departure period | Published fee credit | Credit on PLN 48,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Days 0–30 | 75% | PLN 36,000 |
| Days 31–60 | 50% | PLN 24,000 |
| Days 61–90 | 25% | PLN 12,000 |
Source: Fuller International, Our Guarantee.
Fuller International is included as an international contractual example, not as evidence of a Polish agency’s current standard terms.
Suppose the employer uses the entire credit for a second PLN 48,000 placement with the same provider.
At day 30, the credit is PLN 36,000, leaving PLN 12,000 to pay for the replacement placement. Combined placement-fee expenditure becomes PLN 60,000.
At day 60, the credit falls to PLN 24,000, producing PLN 72,000 in combined expenditure.
At day 90, the credit falls to PLN 12,000, producing PLN 84,000 in combined expenditure.
These calculations assume the entire credit is eligible for and applied to the next placement, with no additional charges.
If the employer no longer needs another employee, the credit may provide no immediately realizable cash benefit.
For that reason, a PLN 24,000 credit should not be treated as equivalent to a PLN 24,000 cash refund when comparing the employer’s financial position.
What Does a Published Sliding-Scale Cash Refund Look Like?
A separate internationally published refund policy provides a concrete example of a declining cash-refund schedule.
Remote Talentz, a US-based recruitment provider, publishes direct-hire terms that distinguish replacement searches from cash refunds.
Its direct-hire refund policy identifies:
| Days worked before departure | Published cash-refund percentage | Refund on PLN 48,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 1–30 | 100% | PLN 48,000 |
| 31–60 | 50% | PLN 24,000 |
| 61–90 | 25% | PLN 12,000 |
| 91 or more | No cash refund under the published scale | PLN 0 |
The provider also states that direct-hire replacement windows can vary from 60 to 180 calendar days depending on the role and that signed agreements with different terms control.
Under its published policy, the employer may elect an applicable refund instead of another search, and accepting the refund closes the guarantee.
Source: Remote Talentz, Refund Policy, August 9, 2026.
These published terms show how a stepped cash-refund policy can operate. They do not establish that Polish recruitment agencies generally offer this particular schedule.
They are useful in the financial comparison because the formula is explicit and the cash outcome is calculable.
Ivvora’s 30-, 60- and 90-Day Recruitment Guarantee Matrix
The following model compares five different remedies using the same PLN 48,000 original placement fee.
It includes three types of evidence: publicly disclosed Polish guarantees, published international contract examples, and a no-protection control scenario.
Monetary relief or contractual benefit from the original PLN 48,000 fee
| Protection model | Day 30 | Day 60 | Day 90 |
|---|---|---|---|
| No applicable protection | PLN 0 | PLN 0 | PLN 0 |
| Polish-style replacement-only guarantee | Replacement search, no cash refund established | Replacement search, no cash refund established | Depends on precise guarantee end date |
| Published 80% refund option, modeled on Chaperone Royale’s commission term | PLN 38,400 cash | PLN 38,400 cash | Subject to the actual three-month window |
| Published stepped cash refund, modeled on Remote Talentz | PLN 48,000 cash | PLN 24,000 cash | PLN 12,000 cash |
| Published stepped credit, modeled on Fuller International | PLN 36,000 credit | PLN 24,000 credit | PLN 12,000 credit |
All monetary amounts assume the same hypothetical PLN 48,000 commission and a qualifying claim. The actual Polish three-month guarantees should not automatically be equated with exactly 90 calendar days. The international examples are included for contractual comparison, not as Polish-market prevalence evidence.
The largest difference is not necessarily the amount advertised as guarantee protection.
It is the nature of the remedy.
A replacement-only guarantee may preserve the employer’s recruitment budget if the agency successfully fills the vacancy again.
A refund releases cash that can be used with another recruitment provider.
A credit may reduce a future invoice but depends on the employer being able and willing to use the same provider.
Without relevant contractual protection, none of those remedies can be assumed.
What Is the Total Cost If the Employer Must Recruit Another Engineer?
To convert the guarantee comparison into total external recruitment expenditure, assume the employer still needs an engineer and the second completed placement would otherwise cost PLN 48,000.
The first placement fee has already been paid.
For replacement-only protection, assume the original agency successfully provides another candidate under the guarantee without a new placement fee.
For credit-based protection, assume the employer applies the full credit to the next qualifying placement.
Modeled combined net external placement-fee expenditure
| Guarantee outcome | Departure at day 30 | Departure at day 60 | Departure at day 90 |
|---|---|---|---|
| No relevant protection; pay another agency | PLN 96,000 | PLN 96,000 | PLN 96,000 |
| Free replacement successfully delivered | PLN 48,000 | PLN 48,000 | PLN 48,000* |
| 80% cash commission refund, then new PLN 48,000 placement | PLN 57,600 | PLN 57,600 | PLN 57,600* |
| Stepped cash refund of 100%, 50%, 25%, then new placement | PLN 48,000 | PLN 72,000 | PLN 84,000 |
| Stepped credit of 75%, 50%, 25%, fully used on another placement | PLN 60,000 | PLN 72,000 | PLN 84,000 |
Day-90 results for published three-month arrangements assume the departure and claim occur within the actual contractual guarantee period. The published Chaperone Royale registration charge is excluded from this standardized commission-only table.
All five rows are mathematically comparable on external placement fees alone. They are not all commercially equivalent.
The free-replacement outcome assumes another suitable employee is successfully placed.
The credit outcome assumes the credit is fully redeemed.
The refund outcome assumes the employer has a valid contractual right to the stated refund and receives it.
The no-protection outcome assumes the employer must purchase another full-fee placement.
None of the calculations includes internal interviewing, onboarding, time without an employee, or salary paid during the first employment period.
Why Can Day 31 Be More Expensive Than Day 30?
Stepped refund and credit schedules create sudden changes in contractual protection.
Under Remote Talentz’s published cash-refund schedule, an employee leaving on day 30 falls within the 100% refund band.
The same employee leaving on day 31 moves into the 50% refund band.
For a PLN 48,000 fee, that difference is PLN 24,000.
| Departure day | Refund percentage | Cash refund | Original fee remaining unrecovered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | 100% | PLN 48,000 | PLN 0 |
| 31 | 50% | PLN 24,000 | PLN 24,000 |
| 60 | 50% | PLN 24,000 | PLN 24,000 |
| 61 | 25% | PLN 12,000 | PLN 36,000 |
| 90 | 25% | PLN 12,000 | PLN 36,000 |
| 91 | 0% cash refund | PLN 0 | PLN 48,000 |
The published policy makes day 31 potentially PLN 24,000 more expensive than day 30 in retained placement fees.
It also creates a PLN 12,000 difference between days 60 and 61.
This is not an assertion that a particular engineer’s productivity changes by those amounts overnight.
It is a contractual pricing discontinuity.
Employers should therefore check whether refunds are based on discrete bands, exact days worked, completed months, or a continuous prorated calculation.
Those methods can produce different outcomes from the same departure date.
Is a Prorated Refund the Same as a Sliding-Scale Refund?
Not necessarily.
Some agreements use prorated refund to describe a continuously declining amount based on elapsed days.
Others use the term for stepped refund bands.
The distinction can be demonstrated using two hypothetical 90-day arrangements.
A continuously prorated refund might use:
Refund = PLN 48,000 × (90 − Days worked) ÷ 90
That would produce:
| Departure day | Continuous 90-day prorated refund | Original fee retained |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | PLN 32,000 | PLN 16,000 |
| 60 | PLN 16,000 | PLN 32,000 |
| 90 | PLN 0 | PLN 48,000 |
By comparison, the documented Remote Talentz stepped refund schedule produces PLN 48,000, PLN 24,000, and PLN 12,000 at those respective days.
Both methods decline as employment duration increases, but their financial outcomes differ.
The continuous formula above is an Ivvora mathematical example, not a term attributed to Remote Talentz or a Polish recruitment agency.
A contract using the word prorated without defining the formula leaves an important commercial question unresolved.
Does a Three-Month Guarantee Always Mean 90 Days?
No.
A guarantee expressed as three calendar months may not have the same endpoint as one expressed as 90 calendar days.
Calendar months have different lengths, and contracts may define the start and end of the guarantee differently.
The starting event also matters.
A recruitment agreement may measure the protection from the employee’s first working day, the contract-signing date, or another defined event.
Jobhouse expressly states that its three-month guarantee runs from the date employment begins.
Remote Talentz’s published policy refers to calendar-day windows from the start date.
These descriptions should not be treated as interchangeable without examining the signed agreement.
The precise endpoint matters because an employee resigning near the end of the third month may fall within one arrangement and outside another.
Employers should also distinguish the date a candidate gives notice from the actual final day of employment.
If the agreement covers an employee who leaves within the guarantee period, a resignation notice received before the deadline may not necessarily trigger protection when employment continues beyond it.
The contract must define the triggering event.
What Have Polish Courts Said About Recruitment Guarantee Disputes?
Published Polish court decisions show that recruitment guarantees are not simply marketing promises.
Their contractual conditions can determine whether an employer obtains a replacement service or remains liable for the original placement fee.
One particularly relevant decision involves recruitment for developer positions.
Case IX GC 570/16: A developer recruitment guarantee lost through late payment
In a dispute before the District Court for the Capital City of Warsaw, dated June 8, 2017, a recruitment agency sought PLN 14,760 for a developer placement.
The employer attempted to offset that obligation against alleged losses associated with the agency’s failure to provide replacement recruitment services for other programming positions.
The underlying agreement provided a three-month guarantee under which the agency would introduce replacement candidates when employment ended during the qualifying period.
However, the guarantee applied only if the client paid the recruitment invoice within 21 days of receiving it.
The court found that the relevant invoices had been paid outside that contractual period.
It rejected the employer’s attempt to rely on the guarantee as the basis for its claimed offset and found the original fee claim justified.
The decision also addressed the requirements for legally effective set-off, so the case should not be reduced to a general statement that every late recruitment payment automatically defeats a guarantee.
Its contractual significance is more specific: the parties had expressly made timely payment a condition of replacement protection, and that condition affected the outcome.
Source: Polish court record, IX GC 570/16.
A separate dispute distinguished the placement fee from the guarantee service
Another published Polish recruitment-contract dispute concerned an agency that had presented candidates who were subsequently hired.
The agreement provided a three-month guarantee involving one repeat recruitment process and presentation of up to three new candidates, subject to conditions including payment and written notification.
The employer argued that the agency’s guarantee performance justified withholding the original recruitment payment.
The court distinguished the already completed placement service from the subsequent recruitment-guarantee procedure.
It concluded that the original contractual service had been performed when the agreed recruitment resulted in hiring, and the separate guarantee procedure did not automatically eliminate the payment obligation.
Source: Published Polish court reasoning concerning recruitment and guarantee performance.
These are historical decisions concerning the particular contracts and facts before the courts. They do not establish universal 2026 recruitment-guarantee terms.
They do, however, demonstrate why the financial outcome depends on the signed agreement rather than an employer’s assumption that a failed hire entitles it to withhold payment.
Can Missing a Notification Deadline Eliminate Guarantee Protection?
It can, where the contract validly makes timely notification a condition of the remedy.
The Polish recruitment case discussed above included a separate written-notification requirement.
The employer was required to notify the agency within seven days of the relevant termination event.
That provision is significant because a hire can leave during the guarantee period while the employer still fails to complete the contractual steps required to invoke protection.
Consider a hypothetical employer whose engineer resigns on day 60.
The guarantee may cover a departure during the first three months, but the claim could depend on the employer:
- Notifying the agency within the agreed deadline.
- Providing the required written information.
- Confirming the reason employment ended.
- Having paid the original invoice on time.
- Continuing to require the same or substantially equivalent role.
A company should not treat the employee’s departure date as the only relevant deadline.
The claim process can be as financially important as the guarantee duration.
Which Reasons for Leaving Are Covered?
Not every early departure is necessarily covered.
A published agency guarantee may distinguish among an employee’s voluntary resignation, dismissal for performance, termination during probation, redundancy, and a material change in the original role.
The distinction is visible in Polish providers’ public descriptions.
HireWise states that its three-month replacement guarantee applies regardless of the reason for separation.
Chaperone Royale identifies several specific qualifying situations, including an employee failing to satisfy the position’s requirements, certain candidate resignations, mutual termination, and failure to begin work.
Other providers describe a more general right to another search without publicly detailing every contractual exclusion.
For procurement purposes, the employer should test at least four scenarios before signing:
| Departure scenario | Contract question |
|---|---|
| Engineer resigns voluntarily | Does an ordinary resignation trigger the guarantee? |
| Employer dismisses engineer for documented performance problems | Is employer-initiated termination covered? |
| Company eliminates the engineering position | Is restructuring or redundancy excluded? |
| Engineer leaves after the company changes responsibilities materially | Does the original role description still control? |
The published marketing description should not be treated as a substitute for the exact eligibility clause.
What Happens If the Agency Cannot Find a Replacement?
This is often the most economically important unresolved condition in replacement-only agreements.
Suppose a PLN 48,000 recruitment fee includes a valid replacement guarantee.
The engineer leaves on day 45, the employer makes a valid claim, and the agency begins another search.
After several weeks, no acceptable candidate has been hired.
The original PLN 48,000 has already been paid.
Whether the employer can obtain cash back depends on whether the agreement includes a fallback refund, credit, extended search commitment, or other remedy.
A promise to restart recruitment at no additional fee does not necessarily mean the agency guarantees a successful replacement.
A stronger contract should identify what the agency must actually deliver, a reasonable timeline for the replacement effort, and what happens when the agreed objective is not achieved.
Chaperone Royale’s published FAQ expressly connects its unsuccessful replacement-search option to an 80% commission refund.
That fallback is not stated in every other provider’s public description.
This distinction creates a meaningful difference in financial exposure even when two providers advertise the same three-month guarantee period.
Does a Longer Guarantee Cost More?
Published Polish recruitment pricing also shows that guarantee duration can be priced as part of the recruitment service.
TUGENTE, a Polish recruitment consultancy using fixed recruitment fees rather than salary-linked commissions, publishes a price menu with one-, three-, and six-month guarantee options for different position categories.
Its publicly listed director-level prices are:
| Advertised guarantee duration | Published director-level recruitment price |
|---|---|
| 1 month | PLN 10,000 |
| 3 months | PLN 12,000 |
| 6 months | PLN 22,000 |
Source: TUGENTE, Recruitment Services and Pricing.
The price difference between one and three months is PLN 2,000.
Increasing the advertised guarantee duration from three to six months adds PLN 10,000 in this director-level schedule.
That is an 83.3% increase over the three-month price.
This is not software-engineering pricing and does not indicate that every agency charges a particular amount for extending protection.
It demonstrates a narrower commercial fact: at least one Polish recruitment consultancy publicly treats guarantee duration as an explicit pricing dimension.
An employer comparing two proposals should therefore check whether the lower price includes shorter protection.
A guarantee extension may have financial value, but that value depends on the actual remedy it provides, not the number of months alone.
How Much Can an Unsuccessful Placement Cost Beyond the Agency Fee?
The replacement and refund tables focus on recruitment commissions.
They do not measure every financial consequence of an engineer leaving.
The employer may already have paid salary, provided equipment, conducted onboarding, and allocated engineering time to mentoring the new employee.
Some of those expenses may produce useful work or recoverable assets. Others may need to be repeated for a replacement hire.
The organization may also face a period when the position is vacant.
An appropriate model separates external placement charges from incremental costs caused by the departure.
Incremental failed-placement cost = Unrecovered initial recruitment fee + New placement charges − Applicable credits or refunds not already netted + Repeat onboarding and evaluation costs + Measurable vacancy impact
The formula must avoid double-counting.
For example, if the original fee is already shown net of the refund, the refund should not be subtracted again.
Salary paid for work genuinely performed should also be distinguished from financial loss caused by a failed recruitment.
A developer who leaves after sixty days may still have delivered useful work.
Similarly, an unfilled vacancy does not automatically create lost revenue equal to the engineer’s salary.
Financial estimates of vacancy impact require evidence about delivery delays, substitute contractor spending, or demonstrable lost contribution.
What Should Employers Negotiate Before Paying a Recruitment Fee?
The procurement goal is to make the financial consequences of early departure explicit before an agency begins the search.
The employer should require written answers to the following issues.
| Contract provision | Question to settle |
|---|---|
| Fee calculation | Is the commission based on gross annual salary, guaranteed compensation, or another measure? |
| Payment trigger | Is the fee earned at offer acceptance, contract signature, or the candidate’s first working day? |
| Guarantee starting point | Does protection begin at signing or employment commencement? |
| Guarantee duration | Is it 30, 60, or 90 calendar days, or a defined number of calendar months? |
| Eligible departures | Are resignation, performance dismissal, mutual separation, and failure to start covered? |
| Replacement obligation | Must the agency provide profiles, complete another search, or successfully fill the role? |
| Replacement deadline | When must the agency deliver the agreed replacement outcome? |
| Refund fallback | What happens if the replacement effort is unsuccessful? |
| Credit terms | Can a credit be used for another vacancy, and does it expire? |
| Claim procedure | What documents and notification deadlines apply? |
| Invoice conditions | Can late payment invalidate a guarantee? |
| Changed role | Does protection survive modifications to salary, seniority, location, or responsibilities? |
| Second replacement | Does a replacement employee receive a new guarantee or only the balance of the original period? |
The actual cost of the recruitment arrangement depends on the answers.
A 20% agency proposal offering a meaningful refund fallback may create a different risk profile from a cheaper agreement that offers only another search.
However, the more expensive agreement is not automatically better.
The employer must still evaluate candidate quality, likely usefulness of the remedy, contractual conditions, and the actual cost of replacing the hire.
Ivvora’s Findings From Published Recruitment Guarantees
Comparing the documentary sources with the standardized PLN 48,000 model produces several findings.
| Finding | Evidence or modeled result |
|---|---|
| Polish recruitment providers do not all publish the same remedy | Replacement-only arrangements and an 80% cash commission-refund option are both publicly documented |
| Three-month guarantees can differ in covered events | HireWise describes broad separation coverage, while other providers list specified triggering circumstances |
| A replacement guarantee is not necessarily a refund | Jobhouse and Winged IT describe a new recruitment process without an additional fee |
| A cash refund can coexist with a replacement option | Chaperone Royale publishes both choices and an unsuccessful-search fallback |
| A refund may exclude separate fees | Chaperone Royale identifies a nonrefundable PLN 2,000 registration charge |
| Published international credit schedules can decline sharply | A 75%/50%/25% schedule yields PLN 36,000, PLN 24,000, or PLN 12,000 of credits on the modeled fee |
| Published international cash refunds can have day-specific cliffs | Remote Talentz’s schedule changes the modeled refund by PLN 24,000 between days 30 and 31 |
| Late payment can defeat contractual protection | A published Polish developer-recruitment dispute involved a 21-day invoice-payment condition |
| Extended guarantee duration can carry a separate price | TUGENTE’s director-level published fee increases from PLN 12,000 for three months to PLN 22,000 for six |
The most important result is that the phrase recruitment guarantee does not establish the amount an employer can recover.
Guarantees can preserve the original agency-fee investment, return part of it in cash, or reduce the cost of purchasing another service.
Each produces a different economic outcome.
Research Methodology and Limitations
This research combines publicly available Polish recruitment-provider disclosures, two historical Polish commercial court decisions, internationally published refund and credit policies used for clearly labeled structural comparisons, and Ivvora’s original financial calculations.
Research date: October 9, 2026.
Polish provider sample: Winged IT, Jobhouse, HireWise, HPC HR GROUP, NAJ International, Chaperone Royale, and TUGENTE were examined for publicly stated guarantee conditions or guarantee-related pricing.
The providers were selected for the availability of relevant published information. The sample is not statistically representative of all recruitment businesses in Poland.
International contractual examples: Fuller International and Remote Talentz were included to document concrete credit and cash-refund schedules. Their terms are not represented as Polish agency contracts or Polish-market benchmarks.
Court records: Polish case IX GC 570/16 and a separate published recruitment dispute were examined for the contractual treatment of replacement guarantees, original placement-fee obligations, and claim conditions.
Those decisions involve historical agreements and fact-specific outcomes. They should not be interpreted as establishing a mandatory recruitment-guarantee structure in 2026.
Financial model: Ivvora assumes a PLN 48,000 original placement fee derived from a 20% commission on PLN 240,000 annual gross salary.
Where replacement costs are modeled, a second PLN 48,000 fee is assumed unless the contract supplies a free replacement or an applicable reduction.
The financial comparisons exclude VAT and assume valid, timely guarantee claims.
Limitations: The published provider pages are not necessarily the complete contractual terms attached to any individual engagement. Guarantee exclusions, notification procedures, remedies, and fallback arrangements may be negotiated separately.
This research does not include signed client agreements, confidential refund settlements, independently collected recruiter quotations, or an empirical dataset of failed software-engineering placements.
It cannot establish the average recruitment refund received by employers in Poland, the proportion of agencies offering cash refunds, or the frequency with which guarantee claims succeed.
No professional legal review is represented as having been completed.
Principal sources:
- Winged IT: IT Recruitment Costs and Replacement Terms
- Jobhouse: Permanent Recruitment and Three-Month Guarantee
- HireWise: Recruitment Process and Guarantee
- HPC HR GROUP: Candidate Guarantee
- NAJ International: Client FAQ
- Chaperone Royale: Recruitment Refund Conditions
- TUGENTE: Recruitment Pricing and Guarantee Duration
- Remote Talentz: Published Refund Policy
- Fuller International: Published Fee-Credit Guarantee
- Polish Court: IX GC 570/16
- Polish Court: Recruitment and Guarantee Dispute
What Is a PLN 48,000 Recruitment Guarantee Actually Worth?
A software engineer leaving after 30, 60, or 90 days does not determine the recruitment cost by itself.
The signed agency agreement determines the employer’s contractual protection.
A replacement-only guarantee may prevent a second commission if the original provider completes another placement.
A cash refund may allow the employer to switch providers while recovering part of the initial expenditure.
A credit can reduce the cost of another placement but may be less useful when the employer no longer needs additional recruitment services.
Without applicable protection, hiring a second engineer through another PLN 48,000 placement arrangement can increase combined external recruitment fees to PLN 96,000.
The published Polish court disputes reinforce another important distinction: guarantee protection can depend on payment and notification conditions, not simply whether the original employee left early.
For employers purchasing permanent recruitment services in Poland, the financially useful comparison is therefore not which agency advertises the longest guarantee.
It is how much of the original fee remains exposed, what remedy becomes available when the hire leaves, and how reliably that remedy can produce a completed replacement or recoverable cash.
Ivvora provides research and planning information. Country-specific legal, employment, tax and payroll decisions should be reviewed against current requirements and the facts of the individual case.
Explore hiring costs →