Cost per hire calculator
Most cost per hire figures only count invoices. This one also counts the hours your team spends interviewing, the output lost while the seat sits empty and the weeks a new hire takes to reach full productivity.
One off cost to fill this role
$9,546 to $39,029
Roughly 9 to 35 percent of first year base salary, or $9,546 to $39,029 of real spend and lost output.
| Line item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Job board and advertising spendSponsored listings, niche boards and paid social for one requisition | $450 | $3,800 |
| Sourcing tools and seatsApplicant tracking, sourcing licences and background screening | $300 | $2,400 |
| Hiring manager and panel time16 to 34 loaded interviewer hours for a mid role | $1,257 | $2,670 |
| Vacancy dragOutput lost or covered by others while the seat sits open | $2,040 | $8,159 |
| Onboarding and rampReduced productivity in the first weeks plus onboarding, training and admin setup | $5,500 | $22,000 |
How we estimate this
External spend
- Agency and search fees are modelled as a percentage of first year base, from 15 percent at the junior end to 35 percent for retained executive search.
- Job board spend covers sponsored listings, niche boards and paid social for a single requisition, plus a share of applicant tracking and screening tooling.
- Internal recruiting is priced on recruiter hours at a loaded rate, which is the honest way to account for a salaried team member doing the work.
Internal time
Panel hours scale with seniority, from about 10 hours for a junior hire to 90 hours for an executive search including screening, scorecards, debriefs and reference checks. We price those hours at a loaded interviewer rate, which is salary divided by 2,080 hours and uplifted by 35 percent for employer taxes and benefits.
Vacancy drag and ramp
Vacancy drag prices the output that is lost or absorbed by other people while the seat is open. We apply 15 to 60 percent of the weekly salary value across your time to fill, because some roles cover cleanly and others stall revenue. Ramp assumes a new hire delivers partial value for the first weeks, costing between 0.6 and 2.4 months of salary equivalent depending on the complexity of the role.
What this excludes
- Signing bonuses and relocation packages.
- Immigration and visa sponsorship cost.
- The cost of a bad hire, which is usually several times this figure.
- Ongoing employment cost, which our true cost of an employee calculator covers.