What the Glossary Card Already Says, and Why It Stops There
VA Horizon’s own glossary entry on splits networks is written to help a buyer weigh a real decision neutrally: a splits network costs no upfront prospecting effort but shares the fee and depends on network partners having matching orders, while outbound business development keeps the full fee but requires ongoing work to generate that pipeline directly. The card deliberately declines to take a side, because the right answer genuinely depends on a specific firm’s own network relationships.
That neutrality is exactly the right call for a buyer’s decision guide. It is also exactly why there is room for a different, more direct statement here: not which option is better for a given firm, but what VA Horizon itself is and is not trying to be.
What a Splits Network Charges and Does
Top Echelon’s TE Network, a long-running example of the model, charges a one-time $350 startup fee, $150 a month in ongoing membership, and takes a 6% brokerage fee on placements made through the network, with the remaining placement fee split between the two collaborating recruiters after that cut. Top Echelon reports the network includes more than 500 agencies and over 1,000 recruiters across the United States and Canada, a smaller, more specific population than the “30,000-plus recruiters” figure the company separately cites for its broader training and platform reach.
The mechanic itself is straightforward: a recruiter with a candidate but no matching job order, or a job order but no matching candidate, works with a network partner who has the other half of the match, and both sides split the placement fee once it closes.
A Splits Network Trades Candidates and Orders. VA Horizon Generates Neither.
A splits network is fundamentally a sourcing-side tool: it exists to help a recruiter fill a job order or place a candidate they already have by matching with a network partner who holds the other half. VA Horizon does not sit anywhere in that exchange. It never trades a candidate or a job order with anyone.
VA Horizon operates one layer earlier, generating brand-new client relationships directly through outbound business development, meetings with hiring managers a firm did not have before. That is a demand-generation function, not a sourcing-side matching mechanism, a genuinely different layer of the business.
Why a Firm Can Run Both at the Same Time
Because the two solve different problems, they are not competing options a firm has to choose between. A splits network partner might supply the candidate or the order that fills a specific req. VA Horizon supplies the meeting that creates a brand-new client relationship in the first place, one that did not exist before the outbound conversation happened.
A firm running both is paying for two different functions that happen to both touch the same broader goal of winning and filling more job orders, not double-paying for the same thing.
What Real, Practitioner Discussion Confirms About This Channel
A discussion thread in the r/recruiting community, on the specific topic of how recruiters get new job orders, names joining a splits network, pointing to services in the same category as BountyJobs and Relode, as a real, commonly used alternative to running outbound prospecting for every new order. That confirms splits networks as a genuine, recognized channel in the industry, distinct from firm-run outbound BD, exactly the distinction this piece is drawing.
Nothing in that discussion frames a splits network as a substitute for a firm generating its own new client relationships. It is framed as a way to move existing candidates and orders, not to create new ones.
Where VA Horizon Sits
VA Horizon is not trying to replace, undercut, or improve on a splits network’s fee-share model. It is a different service entirely: a paid outbound business-development function that books new-business meetings directly, with no shared placement fee and no dependency on any network partner having a matching order on hand.
A firm’s splits network membership and its relationship with VA Horizon can run side by side without either one competing with the other, because neither one is trying to do what the other does.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.