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Comment by mdorazio | Hacker News Reader

Consultant here. 20% cut is pretty normal. 25% is a bit high, but not excessive.

Also, no, recruiters often don't charge a one-time fee anymore - they will often get an initial fee plus a percentage of the employee's salary if they stay for a full year.

To your next point, what you're describing about going direct to the client is not only likely a breach of contract, but also generally a dick move. If you want to get 100% of billable with no sales/subcontracting commission, find your own client.

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> To your next point, what you're describing about going direct to the client is not only likely a breach of contract, but also generally a dick move.

We haven't signed anything yet. I wouldn't go direct to the client immediately, but rather let him have his cut on the initial engagement. After that point, I feel like I would have more of a relationship with them than he does.

> Also, no, recruiters often don't charge a one-time fee anymore - they will often get an initial fee plus a percentage of the employee's salary if they stay for a full year.

Just to clarify: this isn't a full time engagement, but a short term hourly contract, with potential to extend to long term if things work out.

> If you want to get 100% of billable with no sales/subcontracting commission, find your own client.

This is what I'm struggling with. What does it mean to find a client? Is it the case that as soon as there is someone performing an introduction of any sort, they are entitled to an ongoing fee?

It seems like you're thinking about this in terms of perceived value fairness instead of objective if/then outcomes. If your friend hadn't brought the client to you, you would get exactly $0 from them. Ever. 80% of a profitable amount is a hell of a lot more than 80% of nothing.

If you've never actually landed a client yourself, it's a lot more difficult than you're likely thinking it is. I highly doubt this is merely an introduction based on nothing - more likely your friend has been working his network for a long time, vetting potential people who need work done, ruling out the ones that can't or won't pay a decent rate, setting up a business and all the contracts you need beforehand to make it easy to get started, etc. You're also probably not accounting for the fact that being a subcontractor has a lot of benefits. You're not that one that needs to chase POs, AP payments, renewals, etc. on a regular basis.

To your last question, it tends to be a spectrum in practice. A casual introduction that leads to a deal with no actual involvement from the salesperson will have a lower rate (possibly one-time) than one where the person is setting up the whole deal and subbing it to you. In your case, your friend already quoted the company a rate and they're ok with it, so this isn't a casual intro - he basically did the hard part for you.

The promised outcome of accepting poor terms in hope of future work is more work under poor terms.

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