Margin per placement. Per week.
Bill rate, pay rate and what is left, by contractor, by client, by week. Visible to the owners and whoever they name, enforced on the server.
Industries · Engineering staff augmentation
Bill rate. Pay rate. One set of hours.
The business is the spread between the bill rate and the pay rate. Ceed keeps both on one record, per placement, per week.
For staffing firms of two to fifty people. Your payroll provider pays your people. Ceed computes what.
Northgate Analytics · Week of 10 Aug · 40 h approvedHeld
44.0 of 40 h
Fri 14 Aug · 4.0 h · Production incident, pipeline backfill after the Airflow upgrade · Devon R.
Held for approval. 4.0 h over the approved week.
ApproveDecline
$18,880
the month, at the bill rate
40 h
approved a week
$177
the overtime hour, if the client approves
$18.88
Ceed, this month
Trimmed on the timesheet. Or held at hour 41.
A contractor works four extra hours on a production incident. Payroll runs Friday at time and a half. The client’s manager trims the week to forty in the vendor management system on Monday, and the firm has paid for hours it cannot bill.
Ceed counts each contractor’s week against the approved hours as it is logged. Hour 41 waits for the client’s yes, and the statement your payroll provider pays from is computed from the same entries as the invoice.
“Bill rate increases are impossible to get from clients, so pay increases are stagnant and it’s been that way for years.”
Van Williams, IT staffing owner since 2007, on X, December 2024.
Held. Not hidden.
The hour that would push a client over budget is saved, marked, and waits for a yes or no. Nothing is billed quietly. Nothing disappears.
- Logged
4.0 h · Northgate Analytics · Incident backfill
- Held
Over the 40 approved hours. Waiting for the client’s yes.
- Approved
On the August invoice at $177. On Devon’s statement at $123.
One set of hours. Everything follows.
The statement. From the same entries.
The contractor’s weekly statement is computed from the hours the invoice used. Your payroll provider or your payment rails pay it. Ceed never holds the money.
Beside your applicant tracking system. And the client’s.
Recruiting stays in your applicant tracking system. The client’s vendor management system stays theirs. Ceed is the record of hours and money your side works from.
Invoice · Northgate Analytics · August 2026Computed
Senior data engineer · 160 h at $118.00$18,880.00
Approved overtime · 4.0 h at $177.00$708.00
Total$19,588.00
Computed from the assignment agreement dated 6 Apr 2026. Devon’s statement: 160 h at $82.00 and 4.0 h at $123.00, from the same entries.
From the field. In their words.
What staffing owners and recruiters say in public about bill rates, markups, timesheets and getting paid. Linked and dated. Not our words.
Said on X.
One of the main things I like about working contract roles is that the recruiter gets to “control the spread”.
Meaning: The client as a budget of X Bill Rate. Recruiters decide the pay rate to the candidate as long as they’re ok with the spread they make in between.
If it’s a contract role and say the bill rate is $100hr to client, I’ll aim to pay candidate ~60-70/hr. Keep in mind that’s not all profit bc if it’s a contract role and they’re on our payroll we have to account for overhead costs
Been in IT staffing since 1998 in Richmond VA, started my own staffing biz in 2007. … Bill rate increases are impossible to get from clients, so pay increases are stagnant and it’s been that way for years.
The issue is often not profitability. It is the timing gap between payroll and collections.
Said on YouTube.
Said elsewhere.
- YouTubeHow to Price Your Staffing ServicesAdvance Partners · October 2021 · 2 min · markup against margin
- RedditHow does your recruitment firm handle contractor timesheets, approvals and billing?r/RecruitmentAgencies · December 2025 · the weekly back-office flow, by hand
- RedditAgency owners and recruiters, what is your markup on contract fills?r/recruiting · June 2024 · 30 to 100 percent, and why
- RedditHow do staffing agencies actually price contractors to clients?r/ModernHiring · May 2026 · $50 paid, $70 to $90 billed
- XA $65 pay rate at a 45 percent markup bills at $94.25, a 31 percent margin@Kore1Staffing · September 2026 · markup is not margin
- ArticleStaffing Industry StatisticsAmerican Staffing Association · the size of the industry, weekly
Of what you invoice. That is the pricing page.
Invoice $18,880 this month for one placement and Ceed costs $18.88. Ten placements, $188.80. No seats, no tiers, no minimum.
Questions. Answers.
Approvals live in the client’s VMS. Can the hold fire before the client sees the timesheet?
Yes. The hold happens in Ceed the moment the contractor logs hour 41. The client’s vendor management system sees what you submit after the decision.
Bill and pay differ per placement. Does Ceed show margin per contractor?
Yes. Per contractor, per client, per week, per month. Who may see rates and margin is granted by the owner and enforced on the server.
The client cuts a rejected hour. Does the contractor’s statement change with it?
A declined hour stays on the record and off both documents. The statement and the invoice are computed from the same approved entries, so they cannot disagree.
We run payroll Friday and get paid net 45. Does the close reconcile the two?
The close freezes the month: hours, invoices and statements, computed from the same entries. What was paid out and what was invoiced are the same hours by construction. Collection stays with your bank.
Is 0.1% per placement, per client or flat?
It is 0.1% of what you invoice, whatever the count. Ten contractors billing $200,000 in a month cost $200. Corp-to-corp subs are paid from the same record.
From the blog: Held. Not hidden. The agreement said 40 hours. The month said 47. Other firms Ceed is for: Healthcare staffing · IT consulting · Software dev shops · all nineteen.