How much does B2B appointment setting cost?

Pricing is a monthly retainer, set by the meeting volume you want and how many targeting profiles you run. We quote on a call once we've looked at your market, because a campaign targeting UK recruitment agencies and one targeting US enterprise IT are not the same build. There's no setup fee and no long tie-in.

What's the difference between appointment setting and lead generation?

Lead generation gives you contact details and interest signals — you still have to work them. Appointment setting takes it to the end of the process: we run the outreach, handle the replies, qualify the prospect and put a confirmed meeting in your calendar. You join the call. If your team is short on time rather than short on names, appointment setting is the one that helps.

How many meetings will I get per month?

Most clients see 15 to 20 qualified meetings a month once a campaign is running. The range depends on your market size, your offer and how tightly you've defined your targeting. Narrower targeting usually means fewer meetings and better ones.

How do you qualify a meeting?

A meeting counts as qualified when the prospect matches your stated targeting profile, has decision-making authority or direct influence over the purchase, has confirmed a specific time, and understands what the call is about. We agree the exact criteria with you in writing before any campaign launches, so there's no argument later about what you're paying for.

Which industries do you cover?

We work across more than 300 B2B verticals, with the heaviest activity in recruitment, SaaS, IT services and marketing agencies. What matters more than your sector is whether your buyers are reachable by business email and your deal size justifies a booked meeting.

Which countries do you cover?

The UK and the USA. Our contact data covers over 11 million verified UK and US business contacts. We don't currently run campaigns outside these two markets.

How long until the first meeting is booked?

Around 30 days from signing, and that includes setup and infrastructure warm-up. The first one to two weeks go on targeting, list build, messaging and sending warm-up. Anyone promising booked meetings in week one is either skipping the warm-up or reusing a list, and both damage deliverability.

What happens after the meeting is booked?

The call is yours. We book the appointment and send reminders before it; you run the meeting and everything that follows — the pitch, the proposal, the close. We don't sell on your behalf and we don't take a cut of what you close.

Is your data GDPR compliant?

Our contact records are aggregated from publicly available business sources and cover business contacts in a business capacity. UK campaigns run on legitimate interest with opt-out honoured on every message, and we action removal requests immediately. US campaigns run under CAN-SPAM requirements.

Do I need my own sales team?

You need someone who can take the call and sell — a founder, an account executive, or one salesperson. What you don't need is an SDR function. The prospecting, outreach and booking is the part we replace.

Appointment Setting for Recruitment Agencies

Q: Which recruitment sectors do you cover?

Any sector where placement fees justify a booked meeting, including technology, finance, engineering, construction, healthcare, executive search and specialist contract markets.

Q: How do you avoid contacting companies we already work with?

You provide a suppression list of existing clients and accounts to leave alone, and we screen every campaign against it before sending.

3cpsmike
Aug 12
4 min read

Recruitment is a relationship business, and the hardest part is rarely the recruiting itself. It is getting in front of the hiring managers and HR leads who can give you a live role to work. Supernova AI books qualified meetings with those decision-makers so your consultants spend their time filling vacancies rather than chasing new clients. This guide covers who to target in a recruitment sale, the economics that make outbound worthwhile for agencies, when it is not the right fit, and the questions agency owners ask most.

Who the decision-maker is

In a recruitment sale the person you need is whoever owns hiring for the team with the vacancy. In smaller businesses that is often the owner or managing director; in larger ones it is a department head, a talent acquisition lead or an HR manager. The trap is spending effort on a contact who cannot commission a role and has to escalate. Good targeting goes straight to the person who feels the pain of an unfilled seat and controls the budget to fix it, because that is the person who will actually take a meeting and turn it into an instruction to hire.

The economics: why the numbers work

Recruitment has the deal economics that reward outbound. A single placement can be worth several thousand pounds in fee on contingent work, and considerably more on retained or executive search, while a client that keeps coming back is worth tens of thousands a year. Against that, the cost of booking a meeting with a potential client is small, and even a modest conversion from meetings to live roles pays for the campaign many times over. The addressable market is enormous, because almost every business hires, and hiring managers are reachable by business email, which is exactly the combination that makes appointment setting efficient for agencies.

When outbound fits, and when it does not

Outbound fits best for agencies with a clear specialism and a fee structure that justifies the effort: permanent, retained, executive and specialist contract desks all qualify. It fits less well for a pure high-volume, low-margin temp desk where each placement earns very little and the numbers only work at a scale that outbound alone will not reach. If most of your revenue comes from a handful of valuable client relationships rather than thousands of tiny placements, appointment setting is a strong lever. If it is the other way round, we will tell you on the first call rather than sign you up to a campaign that cannot pay back.

How a recruitment campaign is built

A recruitment campaign starts by defining the sectors and roles you place, then targeting the companies most likely to be hiring for them and the people who own that hiring. Messaging leads with the specific problem you solve, an unfilled role or a stretched internal team, rather than a generic pitch about your agency. We qualify each prospect against criteria you agree in advance, so a booked meeting means a genuine hiring conversation, not a courtesy chat. It sits naturally alongside your existing referral and repeat business, and complements the wider approach in our guide to lead generation for recruitment agencies and the market context in our UK appointment setting overview.

What to expect and what qualifies

Expect around 30 days from signing to your first booked meetings, including the infrastructure warm-up that protects your deliverability, then a steady flow of 15-20 qualified meetings a month once the campaign is running. A meeting is qualified when the prospect matches your target profile, owns or influences hiring decisions, has confirmed a time, and understands the purpose of the call, all agreed with you in writing beforehand. If you want to be sure the standard is high, our explanation of what a qualified meeting actually means is worth reading, and you can see how this fits a broader appointment setting strategy.

Frequently asked questions

How many client meetings a month can I expect?

Most agencies see 15-20 qualified meetings a month once a campaign is running. The exact number depends on how tightly you have defined the roles and sectors you place and how large that market is. A narrow, specialist desk may see fewer but higher-quality conversations.

Do you target hiring managers or HR?

Whichever owns hiring for the roles you place. For specialist and senior positions that is often the line manager or department head; for volume or early-career hiring it may be HR or talent acquisition. We agree the target roles with you before the campaign starts.

Which recruitment sectors do you cover?

Any sector where the placement fees justify a booked meeting, including technology, finance, engineering, construction, healthcare, executive search and specialist contract markets. Fit depends on your fee model rather than the sector itself.

How do you avoid contacting companies we already work with?

You provide a suppression list of existing clients and any accounts you want left alone, and we screen every campaign against it before sending. Nothing goes out to a company on your do-not-contact list.

Keeping your client pipeline as full as your candidate pipeline

Most agencies pour effort into candidate generation and leave business development to referrals and the occasional cold spell of ringing round. That leaves new-client flow at the mercy of how busy the team happens to be. A steady appointment setting campaign turns business development into a reliable channel that runs whether or not your consultants have time for it, so the flow of new client meetings does not dry up the moment everyone is heads-down on live roles. It is the difference between hoping for the next client and planning for them, and it keeps growth from stalling every time the desk gets busy.

If your consultants are spending billable hours prospecting for new clients instead of filling roles, talk to our team about booking 15-20 qualified meetings a month with hiring decision-makers in your market. You run the meeting; we get you in the room.