What it is
A split fee arrangement is when two recruitment agencies collaborate on a single placement instead of competing for it. One agency, often called the client-side or job order recruiter, holds the mandate and the relationship with the hiring company. The other, the candidate-side recruiter, holds a suitable applicant, usually sourced from its own pipeline or a niche network. Between them they fill a role that neither could have filled alone, and the placement fee the client pays is divided between the two agencies rather than kept by one.
The default split is 50/50, though 60/40 in favour of the client-side agency is common too, on the argument that a client relationship is harder to build and defend than a single candidate. Independent recruiters and smaller agencies often work splits through dedicated networks such as Top Echelon, NPAworldwide or EK Talent Exchange, which broker introductions between members and take a small brokerage cut, typically around 6 percent, off the top. What makes any split enforceable is the split fee agreement itself, the document that fixes the percentage, the ownership of the candidate and the client, and the rules for the handoff, and it is signed before either side's confidential details are exchanged, not after.
The agreement gets signed before the candidate's name does. Never after.
Why it matters
A split turns "I don't have anyone for that" or "I don't have a live mandate for you" into a placement instead of a dead end. An agency sitting on a strong candidate with no matching brief, or a client relationship with no candidate to offer, can still bill by pairing up with someone who has the other half. For a niche desk or a solo recruiter, splits meaningfully widen the addressable market without adding headcount or reach into unfamiliar territory.
The risk sits entirely in trust. Once a candidate-side agency reveals who its candidate is, or a client-side agency reveals who its client is, the other party technically has enough information to go direct and keep the whole fee. That is exactly what a signed split fee agreement, usually including a non-circumvention clause, exists to prevent. Splits done on a handshake, after names have already changed hands, are where most disputes over ownership and payment start.
How boilr handles it
boilr does not run a split network or draft the agreement, that stays a relationship between the two agencies, but it makes sure a split mandate is worked exactly like any other account once it lands on your desk. Because your ICP and live buying signals are already telling you which client relationships you own and which mandates are actually moving, it is easy to see the moment an inbound candidate from a split partner does not fit anything you are currently running, which is precisely when a split is worth proposing instead of passing.
Once a split is agreed, the mandate is tracked through the BD pipeline like any other job order, and the terms, whose client it is, whose candidate it is, and the agreed percentage, sit in the Company Brain alongside the rest of that account's commercial detail. Nobody on the desk has to remember a side arrangement from memory, and the split shows up correctly when it is time to invoice, not as a surprise.
