Alfaleads Group HRD Anastasia Saveleva shares her expert perspective on the true cost of hiring in iGaming in 2026 — and explains why businesses almost always underestimate this metric.
The Real Cost of an Employee
One of the questions I get asked most often is: how much does it actually cost to hire someone?
In most cases, the business perspective is fairly straightforward — salary, recruiter effort, and some interview time. In reality, especially in fast-moving and highly competitive industries like gambling and betting, hiring is not a one-off expense. It’s a complex system of interconnected processes, where every stage directly impacts the final outcome.
Based on our internal data, over the past year at Alfaleads Group, we hired 136 employees, with an average cost per hire of $325 and an average time-to-hire of 38 days. Notably, 87% of new hires successfully pass their probation period.
Recruitment Is Just the Entry Point
Every hire starts with recruitment — but this is also the stage businesses tend to oversimplify the most.
In practice, the cost structure goes far beyond a recruiter’s salary or agency fee. It includes:
- Internal recruiter salaries and success bonuses, or agency fees based on a percentage of the candidate’s salary;
- Time invested by hiring managers in interviews, alignment, and decision-making;
- Paid HR tools: LinkedIn, job boards, HRM systems, Telegram channels, telephony;
- Paid job promotion across social media;
- Referral bonuses for candidates recommended by employees or partners.
In some cases, relocation costs also come into play — flights, temporary accommodation, and initial support such as legalisation, bank account setup, and residence permits.Individually, these costs may seem minor. Collectively, they form a substantial investment that goes far beyond initial expectations.
Onboarding — The Hidden Cost Center
Once a new hire joins, another often-overlooked phase begins: onboarding.
During this stage, HRBPs, team leads, and colleagues are heavily involved in training, knowledge transfer, and integration. At the same time, the company invests in the employee’s workspace — equipment, licenses, system access, and internal tools.
A key factor here is the ramp-up period — the time it takes for a new hire to reach full productivity. During this phase, employees are still learning, making mistakes, and gradually building efficiency.
For the business, this translates into delayed output and missed potential — a cost that is rarely accounted for, yet directly impacts overall performance.
The Costliest Factor: Getting It Wrong
The most expensive part of hiring isn’t the process itself — it’s the risk of making the wrong decision.
The Cost of Wrong Hire metric captures this best. If a hire doesn’t meet expectations, the company loses not only recruitment resources, but also onboarding investments, salary paid during employment, and potential revenue. On top of that, the need to rehire can increase total costs by two to three times. Meanwhile, teams lose time, and the business loses speed and momentum.
In practice, this risk is the strongest argument for a more structured and deliberate hiring approach.
The iGaming Factor
In iGaming, the cost of a hiring mistake is amplified by the nature of the market.
We operate in an environment of intense competition for talent, where strong candidates can be counter-offered and hired away very quickly. This often pushes companies to accelerate hiring decisions — sometimes at the expense of quality.
Another challenge is high workload and, as a result, faster employee burnout.
At the same time, many roles have a direct impact on revenue — especially media buyers, affiliate managers, and product managers. A hiring mistake in these positions can almost immediately affect financial performance.
Final Thoughts
Today, the real cost of hiring typically ranges from two to four monthly salaries of the employee — and in some cases, significantly more. However, this is not a fixed constant.
In practice, companies that build strong in-house recruitment systems and optimize every stage of the process can significantly reduce Cost-per-Hire — reaching benchmarks similar to those at Alfaleads Group. For us, this transformation took around five months.
High-quality hiring is ultimately about precision, structure, and understanding the impact of every decision along the way. And in this context, I would encourage businesses to ask themselves a simple question:
Are you measuring the real cost of hiring — or are you still relying on a simplified model that doesn’t reflect reality?
