Employee turnover costcalculator.
Add up what it costs to replace the people who leave, from your own figures: the exit, the empty seat, recruiting, onboarding and the time a new hire takes to get up to speed. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you type is stored or sent to us.
Example figures: replace them with yours
In a year, or any period. Enter 1 for the cost of one leaver.
Adverts, agency fees, assessments and interview time.
Courses, equipment, licences and trainers’ time.
Add detailCurrency, leavers by role, the exit, the empty weeks, time to get up to speed, the pay bill, and what fewer leavers would save.
Count leavers
Total annual pay for the same group, to show turnover as a share of it.
When someone leaves
More costs for one leaver, added to recruiting and onboarding. Leave out anything you can’t put a figure on.
Severance, pay in lieu of notice and outplacement, where they apply.
HR, manager and IT hours: exit interview, handover, paperwork and access.
While the role is empty
Overtime, temporary or contract cover, and output you lose and can put a figure on. The pay you no longer pay the leaver offsets some of this, so count only the extra.
The time to hire calculator works out weeks to fill from your own dates, and can send them back here.
Recruiting the replacement
Your recruiting cost per replacement goes in the field at the top.
Opens the cost per hire calculator in the same currency.
Getting up to speed
The output you pay for but don’t yet get while the new hire learns the role.
If the new hire works at about half pace on average until they are fully productive, enter 50.
Anything else
Anything else you can put a figure on, such as work that had to be redone or contract penalties.
If turnover fell
Choose a reduction to see what it would save, with the same cost per leaver. It doesn’t include what the change would cost you.
Result
Cost of turnover, 10 leavers
$55,000
In this example, replacing 10 leavers at $5,500 each comes to $55,000. So far that counts recruiting and onboarding only.
| Recruiting the replacement | $4,000 |
| Onboarding and training | $1,500 |
| Cost per leaver | $5,500 |
| Leavers | 10 |
| Total cost of turnover | $55,000 |
Cost per leaver × leavers, from your own figures. No averages or percentages of salary are added. Add the exit, the empty weeks and the time to get up to speed under “Add detail”.
Show the figures as a table
| Recruiting the replacement | $4,000 |
| Onboarding and training | $1,500 |
In plain English
Replacing 10 leavers costs us an estimated $55,000, or $5,500 per leaver on average. The largest part of a leaver’s cost is recruiting the replacement, at 73%. These are our own figures: no industry averages or percentages of salary are added.
The link holds your figures, so anyone with it sees them.
Early leavers
The bad hire cost calculator adds the pay and time spent on someone who didn’t work out. Carries your recruiting and onboarding costs across.
The formula
What does employee turnover cost?
The cost of employee turnover is what you spend because someone leaves and has to be replaced: the exit itself, covering the empty role, recruiting and onboarding the replacement, and the output you don’t get while the new hire learns the job. Add those up for one leaver and multiply by the number of leavers.
Formula
Cost of turnover = (separation + vacancy + recruiting + onboarding and training + lost output + other costs) × number of leavers
Vacancy = weeks empty × extra cost per week. Lost output = weeks to full productivity × weekly pay and benefits × share of output lost.
This calculator adds up only the figures you enter. It applies no percentage of salary and no industry average: published estimates vary widely with what they count and how they were measured, and your own figures are the ones that apply to your organisation.
What to count
Where to find each figure.
- Separation: severance and notice pay from payroll, plus the hours HR, the manager and IT spend on the exit, priced at a loaded hourly cost (pay plus benefits and employer taxes).
- Vacancy: overtime and agency or contractor invoices for the weeks the role was empty. Count only what you paid on top of the leaver’s pay.
- Recruiting: adverts, agency fees, assessments and interview time for the replacement. The cost per hire calculator works this out.
- Onboarding and training: courses, equipment and licences, and the time of whoever trains the new hire.
- Lost output: ask the manager how many weeks a new hire in the role takes to work at full pace, and roughly how far short they fall on average over that time.
Getting it right
A figure finance will accept.
- Work out roles that differ a lot separately. One average cost per leaver hides the difference between a junior role and a senior one.
- List separately what you can’t put a reliable figure on, such as lost customers, lost knowledge or the effect on the team. Leaving it out of the total keeps the number defensible.
- Count the leavers you replace. A role you decide not to refill has no recruiting or onboarding cost.
- Use the total to judge what keeping people is worth: if a change keeps a few of them, compare its cost with what those leavers would have cost.
To find how many people are leaving, and whether they chose to, use the turnover rate calculator.
Questions
About the cost of turnover.
How do you calculate the cost of employee turnover?
Why doesn’t the calculator use a percentage of salary?
Should I subtract the salary saved while the role is empty?
How do I estimate lost output while a new hire gets up to speed?
Is turnover cost the same as cost per hire?
Does this tool store what I type?
Related: offer letter template, turnover rate calculator, cost per hire calculator, cost of a bad hire calculator, how to decrease employee turnover and quality of hire.
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