Cost Per Hire Calculator

According to SHRM's 2024 Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Report, the average cost per hire in the US is $4,700. For small businesses, under $3,000 is generally considered efficient. Costs above $7,500 per hire typically indicate over-reliance on expensive external agencies or inefficient sourcing. The right benchmark depends heavily on industry and role seniority — an executive search will always cost more than an entry-level hire.

CPH includes internal costs: recruiter salaries (the portion allocated to recruiting, not their full salary), employee referral bonuses, internal sourcing tool subscriptions (ATS, LinkedIn Recruiter, etc.), and administrative overhead. External costs include job board fees, third-party agency or headhunter fees, background check and assessment vendor fees, relocation allowances, and signing bonuses. The new hire's salary is explicitly excluded from the SHRM/ANSI definition.

Cost per hire measures what you spend to fill a role. Cost of vacancy (COV) measures what an unfilled role costs the business per day in lost productivity, missed revenue, or overtime. Both metrics matter together: a low CPH is meaningless if the position stays open for six months — the COV during that period likely far exceeds any savings from cheaper sourcing.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 2024 Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Report puts the average US cost per hire at $4,700. This is a cross-industry average. Technology and healthcare roles typically run $6,000-$10,000+, while retail and hospitality may be under $2,000. Small organizations generally spend more per hire than large ones due to lower recruiter efficiency and less bargaining power with job boards.

No. The SHRM/ANSI standard definition of cost per hire explicitly excludes the new employee's salary and ongoing employment costs (benefits, taxes, equipment). CPH is purely a measure of the recruitment process cost — what it costs to get someone to their first day, not the cost of employing them afterward. Including salary would distort the metric and make cross-company benchmarking impossible.

The most effective levers: (1) Employee referral programs — referral hires cost 40-60% less than agency hires and retain longer; (2) Employer branding — a strong careers page and Glassdoor presence reduces paid sourcing dependency; (3) ATS investment — structured tracking reduces recruiter time per hire; (4) Job board audit — measure cost-per-application per board and cut underperformers. Reducing agency reliance from 50% to 25% of hires can cut CPH by 30-40%.