Clients
Permanent nursing recruitment for Australian healthcare employers
Registered nurses, enrolled nurses, midwives and clinical management. Nursing appointments are a flat fee per hire, not a percentage of salary — so agreeing a competitive wage no longer increases your recruitment bill. Management appointments are charged as a percentage of first-year salary.
Our standard fees are $12,500 for a registered nurse, $7,500 for an enrolled nurse, $3,500 for care staff and 18.3% on management. Subscription clients pay about a third less. Subscriptions start at a three-month term. Placing permanent nurses across Australia since 2013.
Who we work with
Two sectors, one team, one commercial model. Pick the one that describes you and you will get the numbers that matter to your board.
Aged care providers →
Residential aged care and home care. Care minutes, the 24/7 registered nurse rule and what missing a target now costs you in funding — plus the recruitment arithmetic behind it.
Private hospitals →
Theatre, perioperative, critical care, emergency, medical, surgical and midwifery. Margin pressure, specialist nursing shortages and theatre capacity.
Two ways to buy, and what committing gets you
Both are available and both stay available. The difference is $4,000 on every nursing appointment and 4.3 percentage points on every management appointment — which is what the subscription buys you, on top of the pipeline it builds.
No subscription — pay per placement
No upfront cost and no monthly fee. You brief a role, we fill it, and you are invoiced on the nurse’s start date. If nobody starts, there is no fee at all. Our standard fees apply: $12,500 per nursing appointment and 18.3% of first-year salary on management appointments.
Best if you make fewer than six permanent nursing appointments a year, or you want to test us on a single role first.
Subscription — the reduced fees
A fixed monthly fee, and $8,500 per nursing appointment instead of $12,500. The monthly fee builds and holds a pipeline of nurses for your sites — screened and in contact before a vacancy exists — rather than starting a fresh campaign each time a role opens. It is payable whether or not anyone starts that month. Management appointments drop from our standard 18.3% of first-year salary to 14%.
Best if you make six or more permanent nursing appointments a year at the entry tier, or you are carrying agency shifts you want to convert into permanent staff. The reduced fees are available to subscription clients only.
What the subscription buys: a pipeline, not a campaign
Paying per placement buys a campaign. A role opens, we advertise, we source, we screen, we shortlist — and when the role is filled, that work stops. The next vacancy starts from zero.
The subscription buys the opposite. The work carries on between your vacancies, so there is already a pipeline of nurses for your sites when you need one. That is the whole reason there is a monthly fee at all, rather than everything sitting in the fee you pay when someone starts.
We keep talking to nurses when you have no vacancy
Most of the nurses worth hiring are not applying for anything. They are in a job, open to the right move, and they take months of contact before they make it. That contact is what the monthly fee pays for — and it is the part that cannot be bought retrospectively once a resignation lands.
The pool is built for your sites, not a generic database
Screened against your disciplines, your locations and your salary bands. AHPRA verified, right-to-work checked and referenced before a vacancy exists rather than after one opens — so a shortlist starts from people we already know.
You can see it before you need it
Pipeline reporting by discipline and site shows you where the depth is thin. That turns a looming roster gap into a recruitment plan a quarter early, instead of an agency booking on the day someone resigns.
It also changes what happens on a bad week. When two registered nurses resign in the same fortnight, the conversation starts with nurses we have already screened and are already in contact with — not with an advert going live and a fortnight of waiting.
What committing is worth: the arithmetic
Without a subscription, a registered nurse is a flat $12,500, an enrolled nurse $7,500, a care staff appointment $3,500, and a management appointment 18.3% of first-year salary. With a subscription those become $8,500, $5,000, $2,500 and 14% — about a third less across the board.
So the subscription is worth $4,000 on every registered nurse, $2,500 on every enrolled nurse, $1,000 on every care staff appointment and 4.3 percentage points on management — $6,020 on a $140,000 Nurse Unit Manager, $6,880 on a $160,000 Director of Nursing.2
For scale: Australian recruiters commonly charge 15% to 20% of first-year salary for permanent nursing placements, which on an $86,500 registered nurse salary is $12,975 to $17,300, and 20% to 30% on senior clinical appointments.1,2 Our standard $12,500 sits below the bottom of that range before any subscription, and our 18.3% below the senior range. The table below counts registered nurse appointments only, at the entry subscription of $1,950 a month.
| Registered nurse appointments a year | No subscription, at $12,500 | With the entry subscription | Your saving, or extra cost | Effective cost per hire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | $50,000 | $57,400 | −$7,400 | $14,350 |
| 5 | $62,500 | $65,900 | −$3,400 | $13,180 |
| 6 | $75,000 | $74,400 | $600 | $12,400 |
| 10 | $125,000 | $108,400 | $16,600 | $10,840 |
| 15 | $187,500 | $150,900 | $36,600 | $10,060 |
| 20 | $250,000 | $193,400 | $56,600 | $9,670 |
| 30 | $375,000 | $278,400 | $96,600 | $9,280 |
Every tier publishes its own break-even
The saving per appointment is identical on all three tiers, so the only thing that moves the line is what the subscription costs. Rather than leave you to work it out, here it is.
| Tier | Monthly, and a year | Pays for itself at | One hire below, and at the break-even figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single Site — up to 4 sites | $1,950$23,400 a year | 6 registered nurse appointments | −$3,400$600 ahead |
| Group — 5 to 20 sites | $4,500$54,000 a year | 14 registered nurse appointments | −$2,000$2,000 ahead |
| National — 21 sites or more | from $12,000$144,000 a year | 36 registered nurse appointments | −$4,000level at 36, ahead from 37 |
Those figures count registered nurse appointments, which carry the largest saving. An enrolled nurse saves $2,500 rather than $4,000 and a care staff appointment $1,000, so a mixed roster needs more volume to reach the same point — on a roster that is half enrolled nurses, 8 a year rather than 6 at Single Site, 17 rather than 14 at Group, 45 rather than 36 at National. Tell us your actual mix and we will give you your own figure in writing.
Management appointments bring every one of those figures down. Each one saves 4.3 percentage points, so a single $140,000 Nurse Unit Manager is worth about one and a half nursing appointments against the break-even.2 A single-site provider making twelve nursing appointments and two management appointments at $140,000 each pays $201,240 at our standard fees and $164,600 on the Single Site tier — a saving of $36,640. The same volume on the Group tier at $4,500 a month saves $6,040, which is why the tier has to match the sites you actually want covered.
If your volume sits below the figure for your tier, our standard fee is cheaper, and we will tell you that. We have not seen another agency publish the point at which its own offer stops being worth buying. We do, because the alternative is selling a subscription that a client works out was a mistake in month seven.
Nursing fees are flat either way, so they never rise because you agreed a competitive salary. Placement fees are invoiced in full on the nurse’s start date. No retainers, no instalments, no staged payments.
Recruitment pricing for aged care providers and private hospitals
| No subscription | With a subscription | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | None | From $1,950 |
| Registered nurse | $12,500 per appointment | $8,500 per appointment |
| Enrolled nurse | $7,500 per appointment | $5,000 per appointment |
| Management and senior clinical | 18.3% of first-year salary | 14% of first-year salary |
| Assistant in nursing, personal care worker | $3,500 per appointment | $2,500 per appointment |
| Do the fees rise with the salary? | No — flat, except management | No — flat, except management |
About a third off every fee
$4,000 on every registered nurse, $2,500 on every enrolled nurse, $1,000 on every care staff appointment, and 4.3 percentage points on management — $6,020 on a $140,000 Nurse Unit Manager and $6,880 on a $160,000 Director of Nursing.2
6 hires a year, at the entry tier
Each tier publishes its own break-even, and we hold ourselves to it: 6 nursing appointments a year at Single Site, 14 at Group, 36 at National. If your volume sits under the figure for your tier, our standard fee is cheaper and we will tell you so rather than sell you a subscription.
The reduced fees above apply to subscription clients only, and are the same on all three tiers. What changes between tiers is how many sites are in scope and how much service sits behind them — you do not buy a better fee by moving up. You should be able to work out roughly what this costs before you spend an hour on a call. Final pricing depends on site count, disciplines in scope and term.
Single Site
One home or hospital, or a group of up to 4 sites. Pays for itself from 6 registered nurse appointments a year.
$1,950 / month
- No cap on the number of permanent briefs you can raise. Delivery capacity for each tier is set out in your agreement
- One named consultant, direct line, no call centre
- Onshore-first sourcing: onshore AHPRA-registered candidates presented before any sponsored candidate
- Monthly pipeline report
3, 6 or 12-month term, then month to month.
Group
5 to 20 sites under one group. Pays for itself from 14 registered nurse appointments a year.
$4,500 / month
- Everything in Single Site, plus:
- Account team with named cover, so work continues when someone is on leave
- Quarterly workforce review against your staffing position
- Salary and fee benchmarking for your regions
- Sponsored pipeline built in the background where a role cannot be filled onshore
3, 6 or 12-month term, then month to month.
National
21 or more sites, multiple states. Pays for itself from 36 registered nurse appointments a year.
$12,000 / month
- Everything in Group, plus:
- All Australian sites in scope under one agreement
- Reporting formatted for board and executive papers
- 12-month rolling workforce plan by state and discipline
- Sponsorship program managed end to end, if you use it
3, 6 or 12-month term, then month to month.
Prices shown are the 12-month rate, which is the lowest. Three and six month terms are also available — see the term options below.
Subscription fees are payable monthly and are not refundable. Placement fees can be refunded under the 90-day guarantee. All figures in Australian dollars.
Choose a term: three, six or twelve months
This is a new way to buy nursing recruitment in Australia, and nobody should sign a year of something they have not seen work. So the shortest commitment is three months.
| 3-month term | 6-month term | 12-month term | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single Site — up to 4 sites | $2,750 / month worth it from 12 registered nurse appointments a year |
$2,350 / month worth it from 8 registered nurse appointments a year |
$1,950 / month worth it from 6 registered nurse appointments a year |
| Group — 5 to 20 sites | $6,300 / month worth it from 20 registered nurse appointments a year |
$5,400 / month worth it from 18 registered nurse appointments a year |
$4,500 / month worth it from 14 registered nurse appointments a year |
| National — 21 sites or more | from $16,800 / month worth it from 52 registered nurse appointments a year |
from $14,400 / month worth it from 44 registered nurse appointments a year |
from $12,000 / month worth it from 36 registered nurse appointments a year |
The twelve-month rate is 29% lower, and here is why
The set-up work is the same whether you stay three months or twelve: the scoping, the salary banding, the approval chain, and the first weeks of pipeline building before it starts producing anything. Over three months we have to recover that in the monthly fee. Over twelve we do not, so the rate is 29% lower on every tier — $9,600 a year less at Single Site, $21,600 at Group, $57,600 at National — and we hold it for the whole term.
If you are unsure, take three months. It costs more per month, but it costs a great deal less to be wrong. If it works, you move onto the twelve-month rate at the end of it.
At the end of any term the subscription continues month to month — 30 days’ notice on a three or six month term, 60 days on a twelve-month term. Nothing rolls into a new fixed term automatically.
Our recruitment process
- Scoping, once. We agree the sites, disciplines, salary bands, approval chain and reporting format. You brief us once rather than role by role.
- You brief a role. On the subscription, any number of roles at any time at no extra subscription cost — no purchase order per vacancy and no fee negotiation per hire. The placement fee still applies to each nurse who starts.
- We source and screen. Onshore, AHPRA-registered candidates first. Right-to-work verified, references checked, compliance documentation collected.
- You get a shortlist. Each candidate with a written summary a hiring manager can read in two minutes.
- You interview and decide. We coordinate, we manage the offer, and we stay in contact with the nurse through notice and onboarding — the period when accepted offers are most often lost.
- The nurse starts. Then you are invoiced. Once, on the start date.
We would rather send you three nurses than thirty CVs
Quality is easy to claim and hard to prove, so here is what it means in practice — and why our fee structure is built to enforce it rather than to reward the opposite.
Nobody reaches you unscreened
Every candidate we present has been interviewed by us, had their AHPRA registration verified, their right to work verified and their references checked — before you see them, not after you have shortlisted them. Each comes with a written summary a hiring manager can read in two minutes.
Short shortlists, on purpose
Three or four candidates we would stand behind, not everyone who answered the advert. If only two genuinely fit the brief, you get two and an honest explanation, rather than a longer list padded out to look like effort.
We turn work down
If a role cannot be filled well at the salary, the roster or the location on offer, we will say so and tell you what would need to change. Taking a brief we cannot deliver wastes a quarter of your hiring year and costs us the relationship.
Our fee structure removes the incentives that damage quality
A flat fee means we do not earn more when you pay more. A recruiter on a percentage of salary is paid more for talking you into a higher offer. Our registered nurse fee is the same on a $95,000 nurse as on an $80,000 one, so the salary conversation is about what the market requires rather than about our invoice.
The guarantee puts our fee at risk on a bad placement. If a nurse we place leaves in their first 90 days we replace them at no further placement fee, and if we cannot deliver that replacement inside 90 days we refund the fee. Pushing a marginal candidate through to trigger an invoice is a good way for us to lose the invoice.
And the subscription pays us to build a pipeline, not to close a vacancy this week. When the monthly fee covers the work between vacancies, there is no reason to rush a shortlist so a placement lands inside the month.
Around 80% of the nurses we place are already onshore in Australia with current AHPRA registration and full working rights. That is a quality point as much as a speed one: Australian clinical experience, verifiable Australian references, and no visa condition that can change six weeks before a start date.
Opening a new site? Volume recruitment against a fixed date
Aged care groups commissioning a new home, and hospitals opening a theatre suite, a ward or a day surgery, both need a cohort of nurses live on a fixed date. IHR has been building those cohorts since 2013.
Commissioning is a different job from filling a vacancy. You are not recruiting one nurse, you are building a roster that has to be complete, credentialed and inducted on a date already sitting in a board paper — and every week of slippage carries full overheads.
We work backwards from the opening date
A cohort plan by discipline and shift, with offer dates set against your credentialing and induction lead times rather than ours. You see the whole roster as one plan, not as a queue of separate vacancies.
Cohorts run in parallel, start dates staggered
Clinical leadership first, because they interview and induct the rest. Then the nursing cohort in overlapping waves, so onboarding is not swamped in one week and there are experienced hands on the floor before the last group arrives.
We plan for the withdrawals
On any cohort of thirty, some accept and then do not resign from their current job. We build that into the plan from the start rather than discovering it a fortnight out — which is the difference between opening on time and opening short.
A 120-bed home opening with 30 registered nurses, 10 enrolled nurses, 60 care staff and four leadership appointments: about $755,000 at our standard fees, or about $582,000 on a Group 12-month subscription — a difference of around $173,000 in the year your hiring volume peaks
Volume is also where recruitment quality usually collapses: the pressure of a date is exactly what produces a stack of unscreened CVs. Everything above about screening and short shortlists applies harder at thirty appointments than at one, and the 90-day guarantee applies to every nurse in the cohort.
If you have a commissioning date, tell us the date first and the numbers second. The date determines whether the plan is achievable, and we would rather say so early than take the brief and miss it.
Our 90-day replacement guarantee
Clock one — the nurse
If a nurse we place resigns or is terminated for performance within their first 90 days, and the original invoice has been paid, we recruit a replacement at no further placement fee.
Clock two — us
From the day we receive your replacement brief, IHR has 90 days to present at least three candidates who meet the written brief. If we do not, the original placement fee is refunded in full.
The two clocks are deliberately kept separate. A free replacement that never arrives is not a guarantee, so the second clock runs on us. Replacement periods of three to six months are common in the market. Ours is 90 days, with a delivery deadline attached to it — if we do not present candidates meeting your brief within 90 days, you get the fee back.1
The guarantee applies to registered nurse, enrolled nurse and management appointments. It does not apply where the position is made redundant, withdrawn or materially changed, or where candidates meeting the written brief are not interviewed within 10 working days of presentation. Refunds apply to placement fees only, never to subscription fees. Full terms are in your agreement.
Placing permanent nurses into Australian healthcare since 2013
IHR Group has been supplying permanent registered nurses to Australian healthcare employers since 2013, under long-standing agreements that run year after year rather than placement by placement.
Over the 12 months to 30 June 2026, around 80% of the nurses we placed were already onshore in Australia with AHPRA registration and full working rights — no sponsorship, no visa wait, and typical start dates in weeks rather than quarters, subject to the nurse’s notice period and your onboarding.3 We source internationally as well, but it sits behind the onshore pipeline rather than in front of it, and there is no reason to start a sponsorship process for a nurse who is already living in the next suburb.
Recruitment fees: questions from CFOs and procurement
A fixed monthly fee is an ongoing running cost rather than a one-off charge each time you hire, and some finance teams treat the two differently — which can mean a different approval path. Your finance team will make its own assessment. Here is what you need for that conversation.
How much do nursing recruitment agencies charge in Australia?
Permanent nursing placements are commonly charged at 15% to 20% of first-year salary, and senior nursing or clinical management roles at 20% to 30%.1 Our standard fee is a flat $12,500 per nursing appointment — a flat fee rather than a percentage, so it does not rise with the salary you agree — and 18.3% of first-year salary on management appointments. Subscription clients pay $8,500 per nursing appointment and 14% on management appointments. The reduced fees are available to subscription clients only.
Is this RPO? Procurement will want to benchmark it against RPO rates.
No, and that benchmark is the wrong one. RPO is typically sold per recruiter per month, commonly reported at roughly US$8,000 to US$15,000, and buys embedded headcount running your process.1 This buys outcomes: a fixed monthly fee plus a fixed fee on each nurse who starts. The correct comparator is the percentage-of-salary placement fee you pay today, and the arithmetic is set out above.
What happens if we hire nobody in a month?
On the subscription you pay the monthly fee and no placement fees. It buys continuous pipeline work — sourcing, screening and talent-pool building carry on whether or not a role closes that month, which is what stops the next vacancy becoming an agency booking. Assess it over the year, not the month. Without a subscription there is no monthly fee at all, and you pay only when a nurse starts, at $12,500 per nursing appointment.
What if we hire far more than expected?
The subscription does not change, so your effective cost per appointment falls. There is no cap on the number of briefs you can raise; delivery capacity for each tier is set out in your agreement, and if your volume moves you to a larger tier we will tell you before it does.
Do we have to commit to a year?
No. Subscriptions run on a 3, 6 or 12-month term. The 12-month rate is 29% lower on every tier because the set-up work is the same whichever you choose, but three months is a real option and it is the one we suggest if you have not worked with us before. If it works, you move onto the 12-month rate at the end of it.
Can we exit?
At the end of your term the subscription continues month to month — 30 days’ notice on a 3 or 6-month term, 60 days on a 12-month term. Nothing rolls into a new fixed term automatically. We would rather earn the renewal than lock you into a long initial term.
Can you staff a new site opening?
Yes, and it is one of the strongest cases for a subscription — a commissioning year is when your hiring volume is at its highest and a per-placement model costs you most. We work backwards from your opening date, run the cohort in parallel with clinical leadership first, stagger start dates so onboarding is not swamped, and plan for the candidates who accept and then do not resign. The detail is here.
How do you keep quality up on a large volume brief?
The screening does not change: every candidate is interviewed by us, AHPRA verified, right-to-work verified and referenced before you see them, whether it is one appointment or thirty. Shortlists stay short, and the 90-day guarantee applies to every nurse in a cohort — which is what makes it expensive for us to lower the bar under date pressure.
Does this replace our agency spend or sit on top of it?
It is designed to reduce it. Agency shifts are a symptom of unfilled permanent positions rather than a substitute for filling them. If you want a defensible business case, model the subscription against your agency invoices for the last 12 months as well as your placement fees — that comparison is usually the larger number.
Who owns the candidate relationship and the data?
You own the records of every candidate we introduce to you, and they are handed over in full if the agreement ends. IHR retains its own records as required by law and by the candidates’ consent.
Book a call
Send Chris Bailey a short email and he will call you back. Bring your last 12 months of placement fees and agency invoices, and we will model your actual volume against both options — and tell you plainly if you are better off staying as you are.
Email Chris Bailey to book a call
Or write to chris.bailey@ihrgroup.com.au directly, or call +61 (0)2 9231 8481.
Sources
1. Australian recruitment fee benchmarks, 2025–26: Manpower Australia and Experis Australia (percentage ranges by seniority and typical three to six month replacement periods). RPO per-recruiter pricing is an international benchmark quoted in US dollars and is included for comparison only.
2. Healthcare Australia, registered nurse salaries in Australia, 2026. Figures are national average base salary, excluding superannuation, penalties and allowances. Management salary figures are illustrative.
3. IHR Group placement records, 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. Available on request.
Figures on this page are indicative and were current at the date of publication. Nothing here is legal, financial, tax or procurement advice.
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