Source candidates. Get their contacts. Keep your margins.
LinkedIn Recruiter costs $10,800/year. Agency sourcing tools want $500+/month. You're a headhunter -- you know what a bad deal looks like. $10 per search. Up to 300 matched candidates. ~$1 per contact reveal. No subscription, no contract, no nonsense.
Sourcing tools priced for enterprise. You're not enterprise.
You're an independent headhunter or a boutique search firm. You work on contingency or retainer. Every dollar you spend on tools is a dollar that doesn't reach your pocket.
The industry wants you to pay $500-$1,000/month for a recruiting platform, whether you place one candidate or twenty. That's $6,000-$12,000 a year -- a significant chunk of one placement fee, gone before you close a single deal.
What if you only paid when you actually sourced?
How headhunters use Superstar Sourcing
From job brief to shortlist in under 5 minutes.
Paste the job brief
Client just sent you a brief? Paste it straight in. "VP Engineering, Series B fintech, 15+ years, built teams of 50+, NYC or willing to relocate." No Boolean strings, no keyword games. Describe the candidate in plain English, just like you'd describe them to a colleague.
Preview matches for free
See a sample of candidates before you spend anything. Each one comes with a match score and a plain-English explanation of why they fit. Red flags are called out too -- mismatched seniority, wrong industry, gaps. If the results don't look right, refine your search. Still free.
Unlock up to 300 candidates for $10
Full profiles with work history, skills, LinkedIn URLs, and AI match explanations. Shortlist the ones that fit. Use multiple search tabs to try different angles on the same role -- cast a wider net or narrow down.
Reveal contacts and reach out
Found 15 strong candidates? Reveal their email and phone number for ~$1 each. That's $15 for direct contact info on 15 passive candidates. Export to CSV, load into your outreach tool, and start making calls. Total cost for this search: $25.
The economics that actually make sense
- 5-8 role searches
- ~20 contact reveals
- $0 in months you don't source
- 20-30 role searches
- Team collaboration built in
- Still cheaper than 1 LinkedIn Recruiter seat
- 50+ role searches
- Hundreds of contact reveals
- Volume discounts available
Prices are estimates based on typical headhunter workflows. Contact reveals (email + phone) cost ~$1 each. You only reveal the candidates you want to reach.
What $10 gets you
One search unlock. Contact reveals are separate -- you choose who to reveal.
Up to 300 matched candidates
AI-ranked by relevance to your description. Not random names -- genuine matches with explanations.
LinkedIn profile URLs
Direct links to each candidate's professional profile. Review their full background before reaching out.
AI match explanations
Know exactly why each candidate fits. Show your client the reasoning, not just a list of names.
Red flag detection
AI calls out potential concerns -- wrong seniority level, industry mismatch, frequent job changes. Filter before you present.
CSV export
Download your shortlist with profiles, match scores, and revealed contacts. Load straight into your CRM or outreach tool.
Multiple search tabs
Try different angles on the same role. "VP Engineering fintech" and "Head of Engineering payments" as separate tabs, compare results.
Why headhunters choose pay-per-search
Your pipeline is unpredictable
Some months you're working 10 searches. Some months, two. Subscription tools charge you the same either way. With pay-per-search, slow months cost less. Busy months cost more -- but you're billing more too. Your sourcing costs scale with your revenue, not against it.
Margins matter on contingency
On a contingency search, you don't get paid until the placement happens. Every fixed cost is a bet against yourself. A $500/month sourcing subscription means you need to place just to break even on tools. At $10/search, your risk on any given role is negligible.
You need passive candidates
Your clients aren't paying you to find people who are actively applying to jobs -- they can do that themselves. They're paying you to find the people who aren't looking. Superstar Sourcing searches across professional profiles to find passive candidates, including those who haven't updated their profiles recently.
Speed wins mandates
When you get a new brief, presenting a strong shortlist within days -- not weeks -- builds trust and wins repeat business. Describe the role, get 300 candidates, shortlist the best, reveal contacts, start outreach. The whole process takes minutes, not days.
Annual cost comparison
Based on 10 searches/month -- typical for a solo headhunter.
| Tool | Annual cost | Model |
|---|---|---|
| Superstar Sourcing | ~$1,200 | Pay per search |
| LinkedIn Recruiter | $10,800 | Annual subscription |
| SeekOut | ~$12,000 | Annual subscription |
| hireEZ | ~$10,000 | Annual subscription |
| Gem | ~$24,000 | Annual subscription |
Competitor pricing based on publicly available data. We make Superstar Sourcing, so we're obviously biased -- but the numbers are real.
What we're honest about
We launched in 2025
We're newer than SeekOut or hireEZ. We don't have 10 years of enterprise customers or a G2 page with 500 reviews. What we do have is a product that works, pricing that makes sense for headhunters, and a free preview so you can judge the quality before paying.
We're not a full ATS or CRM
We do one thing: find and surface candidate matches. We don't manage your pipeline, schedule interviews, or automate outreach sequences. If you already have tools for that, great -- we export to CSV and stay out of the way.
AI matching isn't magic
It's good -- better than Boolean for most searches -- but it won't perfectly understand every niche requirement on the first try. That's why search tabs exist: refine, try different angles, compare results. The free preview lets you validate before committing $10.
Your client needs a shortlist. You'll have one in 5 minutes.
$10 per search. Up to 300 candidates. ~$1 per contact reveal. No subscription. Try a free preview and see if the quality holds up.