Cost per Hire Calculator
Adds internal and external recruitment costs and divides by the number of hires, showing which side of the cost the money actually goes.
Result
Enter the costs and the number of hires to see the result.
The calculation runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent to a server. Results are for information only and are not legal advice.
The costs that never get invoiced
Internal recruitment costs — HR team time, hiring managers in interviews, reference checks, internal advertising — are real money, but nobody sends an invoice for them, so they rarely appear in the comparison when an employer is deciding whether to use an agency.
This calculator adds the internal and external sides and divides by the number of hires, so the two are finally on the same page.
Frequently asked questions
- What should go into internal costs?
- Hours spent by HR and by hiring managers, valued at their loaded cost; reference checking; internal job advertising; and the administrative time around offers and onboarding.
- Does this include the cost of the role staying open?
- No — and that is often the largest number of all. Work not done while the seat is empty does not appear here; it has to be estimated separately against your own output.