Refery and Jack & Jill are both pay-on-success recruiting platforms serving startups. One runs on a human network of operator-scouts. The other runs on two AI agents. Here is the honest comparison — and why pricing is not the right thing to optimize for.
Jack & Jill, founded in London and raised $20M from Creandum in October 2025, operates two AI agents. Jack is the candidate-facing agent: candidates have a 10–20 minute conversation with Jack, who builds a profile, suggests roles from 14 million live listings, and can coach through interviews. Jill is the company-facing agent: hiring managers brief Jill on a role, and she surfaces candidates from Jack's network — reportedly 169,000+ engaged candidates as of late 2025.
When Jill finds a match, she makes an introduction to the candidate (through Jack) on behalf of the hiring company. The fee structure is 10% of first-year salary on successful hire, with a 3-month refund if the employee leaves. No exclusivity. Integration with Ashby is available for pipeline management.
The product is genuinely good. The AI conversations are natural, the match quality is high, and the pricing is half of a traditional agency. Jack & Jill is a serious platform and the right fit for many hiring situations.
Refery is the opposite bet: instead of optimizing for AI-driven scale, Refery optimizes for the quality of who is doing the referring. The network is 300+ curated scouts — founders of billion-dollar companies, CTOs from publicly traded tech companies, fund partners at top-tier VCs, senior engineers and talent leaders from the fastest-scaling companies.
When a hiring company sends a role to Refery, the platform routes it to scouts whose personal networks are most likely to contain the right person. The scout refers someone they know personally, have worked with, or have been watching for years. Every referral is vetted by Refery's committee before reaching the hiring company. The fee is 20% of first-year salary on successful hire, with a 90-day replacement guarantee.
The question is not which platform is better. The question is what kind of signal you want. Jack & Jill returns candidates that an AI agent has matched to your role from their engaged candidate pool. Refery returns candidates that a specific operator — someone who built or invested in the kind of company you are — has personally vouched for.
| Refery | Jack & Jill | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of candidates | Personal referrals from 300+ operator-scouts (founders, CTOs, investors) | AI-agent matching from 169,000+ engaged candidates on Jack's platform |
| Referral signal | Personal vouch from a named operator | AI-inferred fit score based on conversation + role brief |
| Success fee | 20% of first-year salary | 10% of first-year salary |
| Upfront cost | $0 | $0 |
| Replacement / refund | 90-day free replacement, or 50% fee credit | 3-month full refund if employee leaves or is dismissed |
| Already-in-pipeline policy | No fee | No fee |
| Service model | Managed — one Refery contact + vetting committee | Self-serve AI agents + human support |
| Geographic focus | San Francisco, New York | London, expanding in SF |
| Stage focus | Seed to Series B | Startups, scale-ups, knowledge-worker roles broadly |
| ATS integrations | Direct handoff; works alongside any ATS | Native Ashby integration |
The mistake most founders make when comparing these two is leading with price. At 10% vs 20%, the fee difference on a $200K hire is $20K — which sounds like a lot until you price out six months of a wrong senior hire at an early-stage company. The question that matters is which source of signal is more likely to produce the right hire.
The recruiting industry is in the middle of the same transition every other knowledge-work industry is going through: figuring out which parts AI can do better, which parts humans can do better, and where the two should work together. Jack & Jill is a strong expression of the AI-first bet. Refery is a strong expression of the human-first bet — specifically, the bet that for the most important hires at the most important stage of a company, operator-level signal still compounds in ways AI matching cannot yet replicate.
Both bets will be right for different hires. The practical posture for most founders is not tribal — it is pragmatic. Use AI-driven tools where they dominate. Use operator referrals where the signal premium matters. Adjust as the tools evolve.
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