Employee Turnover Cost Calculator
How much does it cost to replace an employee?
On the figures this page opens with, replacing somebody on $40,000 costs $14,592 — 36.48% of their salary. The largest single line is not the agency fee: it is the $5,385 of ramp-up while a replacement works below full productivity. Only $6,550 of the total ever arrives as an invoice, which is why turnover is routinely under-costed.
Replacing somebody costs more than the agency fee, and the largest line is usually the one nobody sends an invoice for.
Five lines, each one you can argue with. Change any figure and the total moves.
Built by Muhammad Shahzeb Anwar, MSc Industrial and Organizational Psychology, who also writes the paid version of this tool. Most turnover calculators quote a borrowed rule of thumb of 50 to 200 per cent of salary. This one shows you five lines you can argue with instead.
What one leaver cost
The defaults describe an ordinary mid-level role. Replace them.
The five lines, and which one is real
The empty desk. The post sits unfilled and some of the job stops happening. Rarely all of it: colleagues absorb part, which is why the percentage matters.
Finding a replacement. Advertising, agency fees, and the hours your own people spend shortlisting and interviewing. This is the part everybody counts.
Settling them in. Training, equipment, and the colleague who answers questions all week instead of doing their own work.
Getting up to speed. The weeks before the new person is fully productive. On ordinary figures this is the biggest line on the page - and there is no invoice for it, which is precisely why it gets left out.
The exit itself. Handover, admin, the final conversations.
Why the ramp-up is the number that changes decisions
Somebody working at 30% in week one and reaching full productivity after twenty weeks has, on a straight line, delivered about 65% of the job across those twenty weeks. The missing 35% is real work that did not happen, and it is charged to nobody.
Put a salary of forty thousand through the default figures and that single line comes out larger than the agency fee. Nobody argues about the agency fee, because it arrives as a bill.
What this is useful for
Mostly, for comparing a cost you can see against a cost you cannot. A retention measure, a counter-offer, a flexible working request or a manager training budget all get judged against a number - and if that number only counts the agency fee, the comparison is decided before it starts.
What this will not tell you
This prices one departure. It will not tell you whether your turnover is too high, because there is no correct rate - a seasonal employer and a specialist consultancy cannot be held to one figure. It does not know why the person left, and it cannot tell you whether anything would have kept them.
Questions people actually ask
How much does it cost to replace an employee?
It depends on the salary and how long the post sits empty, but the honest answer is that the invoiced part - advertising, agency fees, training - is usually the smaller half. The largest single line is typically the weeks a replacement spends below full productivity, and nobody bills for that.
What is the ramp-up cost of a new hire?
The shortfall between what a new starter delivers and what the role needs, across the weeks until they are fully productive. Somebody starting at 30% and reaching full output after twenty weeks has delivered roughly 65% of the job over that period; the missing 35% is the ramp-up cost.
Does this include the cost of the person leaving being unhappy?
No, and it should not pretend to. Effects on the people who stay are real and are not something a calculator can put a number on without inventing one.
Is anything I type here stored?
No. It runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded and there is no sign-up.
Cite this tool
Free to use and free to quote. If a figure here is useful in something you are writing, a link back is all that is asked.
Muhammad Shahzeb Anwar, MSc Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Employee Turnover Cost Calculator. Shahzeb Speaks. https://www.shahzebspeaks.com/employee-turnover-cost-calculator/
The other free tools
Each one answers a single question and refuses the ones it cannot. All free, none asks for an email address.
Want it for the whole year, not one leaver?
The paid Employee Turnover Cost Calculator adds the annual view, saved roles you can compare side by side, and a turnover rate that refuses to report itself on a headcount under thirty - because below that, one leaver moves the percentage by seventeen points.
See the full tool