Cost per hire calculator.

The real cost of filling a role — external recruiting spend plus internal time. Free calculator with industry benchmarks by role level.

Why cost per hire matters.

Most teams know what they spent on the job board. Few know what they spent in internal hours. This calculator captures both — and lets you compare against industry norms.

  1. 01
    Most companies underestimate it.Internal time — recruiter, hiring manager, interviewers — usually doubles the visible spend. CPH makes the hidden costs hard to ignore.
  2. 02
    Bad hires cost 3–5×.A bad hire costs 3–5× their annual salary in lost productivity, training, and replacement. Cost-per-hire is half the picture; quality-of-hire is the other half.
  3. 03
    Source-of-hire decisions.CPH by channel tells you whether referrals, agencies, or job boards actually pay off — most teams have never run the math.
  4. 04
    Forecast hiring budgets.When finance asks for a number for next year, CPH × planned headcount is the answer.

Calculate cost per hire.

Section 01

External costs

Job board postings (Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.)

External recruiter fees (typically 15-25% of salary)

Background checks, drug tests, reference checks

Relocation packages for out-of-state hires

Recruitment advertising and marketing campaigns

Staffing agency or headhunter fees

Section 02

Internal time costs

Hourly rate × hours spent for each role involved.

Internal recruiter time spent sourcing, screening, scheduling

Hiring manager time reviewing resumes and making decisions

Combined time of all interviewers conducting interviews

HR and manager time onboarding new hire (first 2 weeks)

Section 03

Hiring metrics

Total people hired in this period.

Average days from posting to offer accepted.

Common cost-per-hire mistakes.

  1. 01
    Not tracking internal time costs (recruiter, manager, interviewer hours)
  2. 02
    Forgetting to include onboarding and training time in calculations
  3. 03
    Not dividing total costs by actual number of hires (skews the metric)
  4. 04
    Failing to account for recruitment marketing and employer branding costs
  5. 05
    Not tracking time-to-hire alongside cost-per-hire
  6. 06
    Overlooking technology costs (ATS, job boards, assessment tools)
  7. 07
    Not comparing costs across different roles and departments

Best practices for tracking CPH.

  1. 01
    Track cost per hire by department, role level, and source
  2. 02
    Measure time-to-hire alongside cost-per-hire for complete picture
  3. 03
    Calculate quality of hire to ensure you’re not sacrificing quality for cost
  4. 04
    Review hiring metrics quarterly to identify trends and opportunities
  5. 05
    Benchmark against industry standards for your company size and location
  6. 06
    Balance speed, cost, and quality - optimizing only for cost can hurt quality
  7. 07
    Use data to negotiate better rates with vendors and agencies

Cost per hire vs. quality of hire.

Don't optimise the wrong number.

Cutting cost per hire is easy if you don't care about quality. A bad hire costs 3–5× their salary in lost productivity, training, and replacement — vastly more than any CPH win.

Cost per hireTotal investment to fill role
Time to hireSpeed of process
Quality of hirePerformance + retention
Manager satisfactionQuality of candidate slate

Track all four. Optimising any one in isolation creates problems elsewhere.

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Tracking CPH in spreadsheets? Build something better.

If you're running HR off a tangled spreadsheet, that's a tool problem. I build custom HR dashboards, applicant tracking views, and internal tools in Next.js — purpose-built for how your team works.

Email me

Built by Taro Schenker — full-stack developer who works with startups and local businesses.