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Cost per hire is a standard recruiting metric — the total internal and external costs of recruiting, divided by the number of hires made. It's distinct from Customer Acquisition Cost, which measures marketing and sales spend per new customer rather than recruiting spend per new employee.
This calculator applies the standard SHRM/ANSI cost-per-hire formula to your recruiting costs and hire count.
How it works
Enter your total internal recruiting costs (like recruiter salaries and internal tools) and external recruiting costs (like job board fees and agency fees), plus the total number of hires made. The tool adds the costs together and divides by the hire count.
- Enter internal recruiting costs ($).
- Enter external recruiting costs ($).
- Enter total hires.
- Click Calculate to see your results.
Examples
10 hires with mixed costs
$15,000 in internal costs and $10,000 in external costs across 10 hires comes to $2,500 per hire.
Who should use it
- Benchmarking recruiting efficiency across a quarter or year.
- Comparing recruiting cost trends before and after a process change (like adopting a new applicant tracking system).
Industry applications
- Human resources and talent acquisition
- Workforce planning and budgeting
Advantages
- Uses the standard, widely-recognized SHRM/ANSI cost-per-hire formula.
- Simple way to benchmark recruiting efficiency over time.
Limitations
- A single blended average can obscure real differences between hiring costs for different role types or seniority levels.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Leaving out internal costs (like recruiter time) and only counting external, out-of-pocket expenses like job board fees.
- Comparing cost-per-hire figures across very different role types (like entry-level vs. executive) without noting that context.
Best practices
- Track internal and external recruiting costs separately over a consistent time period (like a quarter or year) for the most accurate and comparable cost-per-hire figure.
Tips
- For a more precise picture, calculate cost per hire separately for different role categories (like entry-level vs. senior/executive roles), since costs can vary substantially between them.