Recruitment agency vs job board in Cape Town: which is cheaper per hire?

Every Cape Town employer eventually faces the same question: pay a recruitment agency a chunky placement fee and let them do the work, or stick a job ad on a board and do the screening yourself? The honest answer depends entirely on what you're hiring for. The maths gets you most of the way there, but it also matters how much your own time is worth and how much of a specialist you actually need. Let's run the numbers properly — no vague "it depends" hand-waving. Want to skip ahead and just post ...