Cost per Hire Calculator
Calculate cost per hire from your recruiting spend and hires, with a separate screening workload estimate. Your amounts stay in the browser.
This calculator runs on plain arithmetic in your browser — the hires and cost amounts you enter are never sent to an AI model or provider, and there is no daily limit. Select Calculate to see a result; changing any field afterwards marks the result as stale until you calculate again.
Example output
Synthetic example — illustrates the structure only, not a real submission.
Cost per Hire Calculator — result
Inputs
- Hires: 6
- Internal recruiting costs: USD 12,000.00 per month
- External recruiting costs: USD 6,000.00 per month
- Candidates screened: 120
- Average screening time: 30 minutes per candidate
- Loaded hourly cost: USD 40.00 per hour
Formula
- Cost per hire = (internal recruiting costs + external recruiting costs) / hires
- Screening hours = candidates screened × average screening minutes ÷ 60
- Screening labour estimate = screening hours × loaded hourly cost
Cost per hire
USD 3,000.00 per hire, for the month entered. (USD 18,000.00 total recruiting costs ÷ 6 hires)
Screening workload estimate (kept separate from cost per hire)
- Screening hours: 60h
- Screening labour estimate: USD 2,400.00
Assumptions
- All costs and the hire count are for the same period: per month.
- "USD" is a display label only — no currency conversion is applied.
- The screening workload estimate is informational only. It is never added into internal recruiting costs or cost per hire, since that would double count it.
- This is a direct calculation from the numbers you entered — not a savings estimate, ROI projection, industry benchmark, or price recommendation.
A synthetic example for illustration — not a real submission.
How this works
Enter the number of hires and your internal and external recruiting costs for one period (a month, a quarter, or a year) — cost per hire is (internal + external) ÷ hires. Optionally add a screening workload: candidates screened and the average screening time per candidate give screening hours (candidates × minutes ÷ 60), and a loaded hourly cost turns that into a labour estimate. The workload estimate is shown separately and is never folded into cost per hire, since that would double count it. Every number here comes directly from what you typed — there is no benchmark, no savings claim, and no prediction.
Limitations
- This is arithmetic on the numbers you enter — not a hiring-cost benchmark, savings estimate, or ROI projection.
- Currency is a label only; amounts in different currencies are never converted or combined.
- The screening workload estimate assumes a single average screening time across all candidates.
- Nothing is saved — refreshing or leaving this page clears everything you entered.
Frequently asked questions
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How to calculate cost per hire
Cost per hire equals your total recruiting costs divided by the number of hires made in the same period. Add the internal costs and the external costs, divide by the hires you actually made, and use the same period for the costs and the hires.
- Add your internal costs for the period, such as recruiter pay and referral bonuses.
- Add your external costs for the same period, such as agency fees, job ads and background checks.
- Count the hires you made in that period. Do not count interviews or offers.
- Divide the total cost by the number of hires.
For example, internal costs of 12,000 and external costs of 6,000 across 6 hires give (12,000 + 6,000) ÷ 6 = 3,000 per hire. Be consistent about which costs you include. Decide the list once and use it every time, so that your numbers can be compared from one period to the next.
How much does it cost to hire someone?
It depends on the role. SHRM's 2025 benchmarking gives an average cost per hire of $5,475 for nonexecutive roles and $35,879 for executive roles. To get your own number, enter your costs and hires in the calculator.
The SHRM figures come from its 2025 benchmarking press release. The survey ran from 9 January to 3 March 2025 and 2,371 SHRM members responded. The data is not weighted.
If you use a recruitment agency, many agencies charge a percentage of the first-year salary. As an illustration, Randstad's guide works through a 20% fee on a $100,000 salary, which is $20,000.