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Tool · The hidden cost of your stack Your stack costs €140k.
Your invoices show 27.

The annual cost of a recruitment tool stack, for a 5-person firm. Only the subscriptions show up on an invoice. The rest appears nowhere: the friction between tools, the time spent choosing them, the migrations. And it comes out of your margin.

Book a demoRun the numbers for my firm

Your firm

5
130

Untick what doesn't apply to you. The assumptions are those of the breakdown below.

what shows up on an invoice

One dot = 1% of the counted cost.

€141,000real annual cost, visible and hidden.
81%of the cost never appears on an invoice.
12placements' worth of margin absorbed every year, at €12,000 gross margin each.
€11,340in Marvin Suite licences a year for 5 people, at €189 per user per month excl. VAT.
Set your tools, your hourly rate and your marginAverage estimate, to adjust to your stack and your line of business.

The breakdown, line by line

A subscription is visible.
You pay for the rest anyway.

For a 5-person firm. One visible line, three hidden ones, and the total.

  1. The visible cost

    The subscriptions you pay every month.

    ATS, CRM, LinkedIn Recruiter, outreach, AI notes, multiposting, invoicing. Around €2,250 excl. VAT a month for 5 people. That is the tip of the iceberg: roughly 20% of the real cost.

    ~€27kper year, for 5 peopleWith MarvinA Marvin Suite licence at €189 per user per month excl. VAT replaces most of this line: €11,340 a year for 5 people.

  2. Hidden · friction

    The time lost jumping from one tool to the next.

    Copying a LinkedIn profile into the ATS, exporting a CV to share it, retyping a client comment. Count 5 h a week per person. This cost appears on no invoice, but it weighs on your net margin.

    ~€94k5 h × 5 people × 47 weeks × €80With MarvinOne platform. No switching, no retyping.
    Calendar · a typical consultant week5 h between tools

    1. Mon

      LinkedIn profile copied into the ATS1 h

    2. Tue

      CV exported to share it1 h

    3. Wed

      Client comment retyped1 h

    4. Thu

      Info looked up in another tool1 h

    5. Fri

      Status entered twice1 h

    The breakdown's assumption

    5 hper person per week

    1. × 47 working weeks235 h
    2. × €80 an hour€18,800
    3. × 5 people€94,000

    Fictitious week: the lost hour is placed here for the example. The figure is the breakdown's assumption, not a measurement of your firm.

  3. Hidden · procurement

    The time spent choosing and renewing your tools.

    Picking an ATS, comparing outreach tools, negotiating a LinkedIn renewal, briefing the team: about 150 hours of founder time a year. Whole days that are not billed to a client.

    ~€12kper year, in founder timeWith MarvinOne decision, one platform. Procurement stops being a question.

  4. Hidden · migrations

    A tool change every eighteen months.

    An ATS that no longer copes, a CRM that changes its licensing, an outreach tool that shuts down. Each migration means one to two months of lower productivity, a risk of losing data, and ongoing clients who notice.

    ~€8kper year, spread over 18 monthsWith MarvinA platform that improves every week.

  5. The total

    Around €140k a year absorbed by tooling.

    At €12,000 gross margin per placement, that is the equivalent of 12 placements. One placement a month, going into your tools.

    12placements' worth of margin a yearWith MarvinMost of this line stays in your firm.
    12 placements at €12,000 of margin, laid out over the year: one dot per placement.

Consolidating is not a comfort.
It is a financial decision.

A single platform changes the nature of the cost: one licence to price, one tool to learn, no more friction to put up with.

The margin you recover funds your growth directly. Marvin costs €129 per user per month excl. VAT on Pro, €189 on Suite with every app, billed annually. 12-month commitment.

Let's do the maths together.
On your own data.

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