OnSumoTools

Cost-per-Hire Calculator

True cost-per-hire by sourcing channel, including recruiter time and SHRM benchmark comparison.

Sourcing channels

ChannelCost ($)HiresCandidates

Total cost per hire

$2,683

vs SHRM benchmark (2023)

-$2,017

Recruiter time: $1,750 ($34/hr) | Fixed: $550 | External: $5,750 | Hires counted: 3

Channel comparison

ChannelCPHPer candidateHire rate
AgencyHighest CPH$5,000$62512.5%
Job board$600$152.5%
Referral programLowest CPH$150$3020%

Referral program runs $150 per hire vs $5,000 for Agency. Shifting more reqs to Referral program could save about $4,850 per hire on external spend alone.

SHRM benchmark about $4,700 (2023). Industry CPH varies by role level and sector.

Benchmarks are planning references. Your actual CPH varies by role, location, and hiring volume.

How does the Cost-per-Hire Calculator work step by step?

Most organizations track only external recruiting spend and call that cost-per-hire. But internal recruiter time is a real cost: at $70,000 per year, a recruiter's time costs approximately $34 per hour. A hire requiring 40 hours of recruiter involvement adds $1,750 in cost before any job board fee or agency commission. This calculator captures both the internal and external components, lets you model multiple sourcing channels with their actual spend and hire counts, and shows you which channel produces hires at the lowest cost so you can shift budget accordingly.

What does a typical Cost-per-Hire Calculator result look like?

Recruiter annual salary: $70,000. Hours on this hire: 40. Overhead rate: 30%. Background check: $50. Onboarding: $500. Signing bonus: $0. Sourcing channels: LinkedIn job post ($500, 1 hire), employee referral ($200, 1 hire), recruiting agency ($18,000, 1 hire). Hourly rate: $33.65. Time cost: $1,750. Fixed costs: $550. Channel CPH: LinkedIn $500, Referral $200, Agency $18,000. Total CPH (3 hires): $7,000 per hire vs SHRM benchmark of $4,700.

Frequently asked questions

  • Why should I include internal recruiter time in cost-per-hire?

    Recruiter time is a real cost that most CPH calculations omit because it is not a cash outflow. But at $70,000 per year, a recruiter's loaded cost is approximately $44/hour including overhead. A hire requiring 40 hours of recruiter time costs $1,750 before any external fee. Excluding this understates true CPH and creates a false comparison between in-house and agency hiring.

  • Are agency fees worth it?

    Agency fees (typically 15-25% of first-year salary) are expensive but fast. For a $120,000 role, a 15% agency fee is $18,000 per hire versus $500-$1,000 for a LinkedIn post. The question is whether time-to-fill is a business risk worth that premium. For hard-to-fill engineering or executive roles where a 90-day vacancy costs more than the agency fee in lost productivity, the answer is often yes.

  • What is the difference between cost per hire and cost per candidate?

    Cost per hire (CPH) is total channel spend divided by the number of hires that came from that channel. Cost per candidate (CPC) is total channel spend divided by total candidates sourced from that channel. A channel with a low CPC but low quality of candidates produces high CPH. Tracking both helps identify channels that source at low cost but convert poorly versus channels that source fewer but higher-quality candidates.

  • What counts as a sourcing channel?

    Any path through which you find candidates: job boards (LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor), employee referrals, recruiting agencies, social media, career fairs, university recruiting, direct sourcing by the recruiter, and inbound applications from your career site. Each channel has a different cost structure and conversion rate. Tracking them separately is the only way to optimize spending.

  • How does the benchmark comparison help?

    Comparing your CPH to the SHRM benchmark of $4,700 tells you whether your recruiting function is more or less efficient than average. If you are significantly above benchmark, the channel breakdown shows which channels are driving the excess. If you are below benchmark, you have evidence that your recruiting strategy is cost-efficient, which is valuable for budget defense conversations.

  • Should I include the cost of a bad hire?

    This calculator covers direct recruiting costs only. The cost of a bad hire (reduced productivity, re-recruiting costs, manager time) is typically estimated at 50-200% of the role's annual salary. Some organizations track quality-of-hire metrics separately and weight them into their CPH. This tool gives you a foundation to add those multipliers if your organization tracks quality-of-hire scores.

Related tools

What does a hire really cost?

Ask most managers and they'll quote the job board fee or the agency invoice. The true figure is higher. It includes ads, referral bonuses, recruiter time, interviewer time, assessments, background checks and tools.

Cost per hire is total recruiting cost divided by the number of hires. The calculator builds it from all the pieces, then shows the breakdown in a stacked chart.

Break it down by channel

Different sources cost different amounts. A referral might cost a bonus. A job board costs a posting fee. An agency charges a percentage of salary, often 15 to 25 percent. Enter each channel with its spend and hires, and you can see which ones pay off.

A cheap channel that brings in the wrong people isn't cheap. Look at quality as well as cost: how long hires stay, how they perform.

Count internal time

Salaried recruiters and hiring managers aren't free. Every hour spent screening, scheduling and interviewing has a cost. If a hire takes 30 hours of staff time at $40 an hour, that's $1,200 that never shows up on an invoice. Leaving internal time out makes in-house hiring look cheaper than it is.

The SHRM benchmark

SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, has published average cost-per-hire figures in the thousands of dollars. The tool compares your result to that benchmark so you have context. Averages vary a lot by role, level and industry, so a senior engineer and a retail associate will look very different.

Use the benchmark as a rough check, not a target.

Agency fees

Are they worth it? Sometimes. For a hard-to-fill role, or when you lack internal capacity, an agency can save months. For high-volume or easy roles, fees add up fast. Run the numbers against your own pipeline before you decide.

Cost per hire versus cost per candidate

Cost per candidate divides spend by everyone who applied. Cost per hire divides by those who got the job. The second is the one the business cares about. And it should be weighed against the cost of a bad hire, which can run to many months of salary once you add lost output and a second search.

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