Hiring Cost Calculator

Your CFO wants to know what hiring this $90K engineer actually costs. Salary is the headline number, but agency fees, benefits, equipment, payroll taxes, onboarding time, and the time-to-productivity ramp can easily double it. The calculator surfaces all of that.

Fill in salary, recruiting fee percentage, benefit load, equipment allocation, and the realistic onboarding time, and you'll see total first-year cost. For most knowledge-work hires in the U.S., the all-in is 1.5–2x base salary in year one.

The number's meant to inform decisions, not scare people out of hiring. Knowing the real cost helps with comp negotiations, headcount planning, and whether 'just doing it ourselves for a few more months' is actually cheaper.

The components stack in a predictable way. Base salary is the headline number; everything else compounds on top. Recruiting costs run 20–30% of first-year salary if you use an agency, lower with internal sourcing or direct referrals. Benefits load (health insurance, payroll taxes, 401(k) match, life insurance, paid leave) typically adds 25–40% in the U.S. — call it 30% for a reasonable mid-range estimate. Equipment (laptop, monitor, peripherals, license seats) adds another $3,000–8,000 depending on role. Onboarding consumes 3–6 months of partial productivity plus team mentorship time, which is harder to monetize but real.

A worked example: hiring a $90,000 engineer through a recruiting agency at 25%. Recruiting cost: $22,500. Benefits at 30%: $27,000 annually. Equipment: $5,000 first year. Onboarding: 4 months at 50% productivity costs you about 2 months of salary equivalent ($15,000) plus roughly 50 hours of senior engineer time at the equivalent loaded rate ($12,000). First-year all-in: $90,000 + $22,500 + $27,000 + $5,000 + $15,000 + $12,000 = $171,500. So a '$90K hire' actually costs you roughly $171K to bring on board for the first year. Year two onward drops to base + benefits + retention costs, around $117,000.

The point of this calculation isn't to discourage hiring — it's to inform the decision-making. If you're debating whether to hire a senior or two juniors, the per-hire overhead matters: two junior hires double the recruiting and onboarding cost, plus more management time. If you're considering contractor versus FTE, contractors avoid most of the benefits and onboarding overhead but cost 30–60% more on the hourly rate. The calculator surfaces the comparison data; the decision still requires judgment.

A frequently underestimated cost: bad hires. A mismatched hire that doesn't work out within the first six months costs roughly 1.5x their first-year compensation when you factor severance, replacement search, lost productivity during the gap, and demoralized team. That's why interview rigor — multiple rounds, technical evaluation, reference checks, take-home or paired exercises — costs less than rushing the hire. The calculator doesn't model bad-hire risk explicitly, but knowing the cost of a bad outcome helps justify the time investment in getting hiring right.