Nobody publishes what German freelance agencies keep. The last survey with a number is from 2010, and the "€100 becomes €40" example that still circulates was never sourced. So judge an offer by two things you can check: the contract type (brokerage, service contract with the agency as your client, or Arbeitnehmerüberlassung, which makes you a temp) and the net rate after you have asked the recruiter or the end client what the budget is. Intermediaries bring 16% of DACH projects and a real shortcut into the shortlist. They also add a layer between you and your client.
"Hays, Solcom, GULP and the rest take 20 to 30 percent" is repeated at every freelancer meetup as if it were a published figure. It is not. This article starts with that gap, because the number you cannot know changes how you should negotiate the numbers you can.
Nobody publishes the margin
The Freelancer-Kompass 2026, 5,412 respondents surveyed between November 2025 and February 2026, has chapters on the market, on money and on politics. It has no chapter on intermediaries and no margin figure. Neither does any agency, association or ministry.
What exists is old. In autumn 2010, GULP asked 43 agencies and 359 freelancers the same question. The agencies said they deducted €22 per hour on average from the end-client rate; the freelancers estimated €22.70. Against an average asking rate of €71 at the time, that was roughly a quarter. A 2015 ChannelPartner piece offered a starker picture, "the client pays €100 an hour, €40 reach the freelancer", with no source behind it. Sixteen and eleven years later, neither number tells you anything about your next contract. Anyone quoting a precise 2026 percentage is repeating one of these.
Joachim Groth, 25 years an IT freelancer and board member of the IT Projektgenossenschaft, which itself places freelancers, puts the problem plainly:
"The intermediary does do quite a bit, but the problem is that what he does is usually completely opaque to us." (Joachim Groth)
The one exception he names is open book: "You can see, okay, I'm on €95, he sells me for €115." In that example the agency keeps about 17% of the client price. It is one anecdote from one cooperative, and he calls open book "the absolute exception". Treat it as a data point, not a benchmark.
Three contracts that all get called "working through an agency"
Legally, "I work through GULP" can mean three different things. Which one you signed decides who your client is, who pays you and whether you are still self-employed.
Brokerage. The agency introduces you, the contract is between you and the end client, the agency earns a placement fee from the client. Your invoice goes to the client. This is the cleanest form and the rarest in IT.
Service or work contract with the agency as your client. The agency contracts you (Dienstvertrag or Werkvertrag), then sells your work to the end client under a second contract. You invoice the agency, the agency invoices the client. This is the standard model, and the margin sits in the gap between the two contracts. Our guide to Werkvertrag vs Dienstvertrag explains what the label means for acceptance, warranty and termination.
Arbeitnehmerüberlassung. Here you are not a contractor at all. The agency employs you and lends you to the client under the Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz. The agency needs an official licence, the contract must be expressly labelled "Arbeitnehmerüberlassung" before you start, and the same worker may not be lent to the same client for more than 18 consecutive months. GULP publishes separate terms for exactly this product, so the paperwork can look very similar to a freelance placement from the same firm.
The AÜG matters even if you never intend to be a temp. If a chain arrangement turns out to be unlicensed or unlabelled Arbeitnehmerüberlassung, § 10 AÜG deems an employment relationship to exist directly with the end client. That is the client's problem first, but it makes clients nervous about long, integrated freelance engagements, and it is one reason agency contracts carry so many "you are independent" clauses. Whether you actually are independent is a question of how you work, not what the contract says. Run the free false self-employment self-check on your current setup before an auditor does. This is a practitioner explainer, not legal advice.
Find your own margin
Since nobody will publish the number, get it for your own contract.
Ask. Groth's rule is to call the recruiter before applying to find out whether the client is public or private sector, which industry and region, how much on-site time, how long the project runs. The budget question belongs in the same call. Some recruiters will name the client's ceiling; many will not. Either way you learn more from a five-minute call than from the posting.
Compare with the end client's budget once you are inside. The first negotiation is with the recruiter, but later you sit with the client every day. Groth is strict about one thing: "Everything you discuss with the client, you must also discuss with the recruiter." Do not undercut the agency behind its back. Do ask the client, at the right moment, what the project budgeted for the external role. The gap is your margin.
Use the community. Groth recommends Recruiter Rodeo, a rating platform for intermediaries, and simply asking in the Uplink Slack whether anyone has dealt with a given recruiter. That is how you find out whether "you are €10 above the other candidates" is a bluff.
Never bill "generously" to make up for it. Asked whether a freelancer could quietly log a few extra hours after a refused raise, he did not hesitate: "Absolutely out of the question. The moment you go along with that, you are open to blackmail." An agency that has caught you padding hours owns you for the rest of the contract.
How intermediaries actually choose
Dirk Franzke has spent more than ten years on the intermediary side of the market, still holds shares in a project brokerage, and co-founded Expert Brokers, a coaching business that teaches freelancers to work the provider channel. He sells a system, so read his numbers as a practitioner's, not a study's. With that said, his description of how a request travels through an agency is the most useful ten minutes of his Freelance Unlocked talk.
"Every project intermediary, every provider out there has an inner circle, a group of people he mentally runs through every time." (Dirk Franzke)
A request comes in by mail, phone or WhatsApp. The recruiter thinks of ten or fifteen people they have placed before. One large German interim provider, he says, runs a WhatsApp group where the team first asks each other who they know. Only then does the project go out to the portals, where, by his count, around 130 applications arrive and a shortlist of three to five profiles goes to the client.
Groth confirms the volume from his side of the table: "far more than 100 applications" per posting at his cooperative, and no staff to read them all. So agencies filter by two limits: the first 24 hours, and a price ceiling. Above it, or with no price stated, you are not even in the pre-selection.
Franzke's conclusion is not "apply everywhere". Germany has, he says, well over 500 providers. About 20 will be relevant to your skills and industry, and three or four become your go-to partners.
"With 200 profiles you are only comparable. In the inner circle you are one of a few." (Dirk Franzke)
His mix: a couple of large providers for deal flow, where personal relationships are hard because contacts move on, plus smaller, owner-led firms where you get into the inner circle faster but see fewer requests. Sandra Franzke, his co-speaker, adds the profile side: recruiters who are not domain experts must place you in a drawer within seconds, so the first page needs a role, a one-line positioning statement and results, not a list of everything you have ever done.
The clauses to read before you sign
Which of the three contracts is it? If the word Arbeitnehmerüberlassung appears anywhere, you are being offered employment, and your day rate is now a wage.
Non-solicitation (Kundenschutzklausel). Nearly every agency contract forbids you to work for the end client directly for a period after the project. There is no published data on typical lengths. Negotiate the scope: limit it to the specific client unit you worked for, and ask for it to end with the project or shortly after. A clause that covers the whole group for years is a career restriction.
Non-compete. Some contracts also forbid you to work for the client through another agency. That is a different restriction with a bigger effect on your next rate. Strike it or shorten it.
Payment terms. The agency gets paid by the client, then pays you. Under § 271a BGB, a payment term above 60 days is only valid if expressly agreed and not grossly unfair to you. Thirty days from invoice is a reasonable ask; "payment after receipt of client payment" shifts the client's credit risk onto you. Groth notes that intermediaries have gone bankrupt in the last two years. If a client asks to cut your rate mid-project, he says, start looking at alternatives immediately, because it means the client may soon stop paying the agency.
Rate and remote. Publish and quote only your remote rate through the agency; the on-site premium is negotiated later with the specifics in hand. Groth's cooperative sees about a third of projects fully remote.
Reference clause. Groth announces at the start of every project that he will insist on a written reference at the end, so there is no discussion later. Put it in writing with the agency; clients forget, and after five years without testimonials the gap is hard to close.
When direct beats intermediary
Franzke is candid that intermediaries come with a cost beyond the margin: "Between you and the client there are many layers, many filters." Projects sourced directly tend to be the ones you actually want, and often pay better. He also names a structural benefit: two or three direct clients in parallel remove the concentration risk of one agency contract that can end overnight.
But direct acquisition takes time that agencies save you, and the Kompass channel data (2025 edition) puts intermediaries at 16% of project sources, behind platforms (34%) and personal networks (23%). The realistic answer is both: agencies for baseline utilisation, direct clients for margin and choice. Our piece on platforms as the number one client channel has the full channel mix, and the 187-day formula tells you what rate you need after the margin, whatever it turns out to be.
What to do on Monday
- Pull out your current agency contract and answer one question: brokerage, service contract, or Arbeitnehmerüberlassung? If you cannot tell, ask the agency in writing.
- Read the non-solicitation and payment clauses and write down the two changes you will ask for at the next extension.
- Pick your 20 relevant providers by industry and function, then choose three to invest in. Deregister mentally from the other 480.
- Call before you apply. Sector, region, on-site share, duration, budget ceiling. Quote your remote rate only.
- Start one direct-client action this week: a former colleague, a past client, a signal in your own network. Franzke's pipeline advice is to keep it running while you are in a project, not two weeks before it ends.
Whatever the agency keeps, your rate has to cover your costs, your reserve and your pension after the deduction. If you would rather compare offers with the company itself in the room, a free 9am profile puts you in front of DACH companies hiring freelancers directly.
Quotes by Joachim Groth and Dirk Franzke translated from German.
Freelance Unlocked is co-organized by 9am together with Uplink and freelancermap. This article draws on the sessions of Dirk Franzke, Sandra Franzke and Joachim Groth at Freelance Unlocked 2026. Watch the full talks above, and join us at the next edition: freelanceunlocked.com.
