Cost Per Hire Calculator
Use our free calculator to uncover true cost of recruitment with our cost-per-hire!
Internal Recruiting Costs
External Recruiting Costs
Hiring Volume
Enter internal costs
Add up your internal recruiting expenses like recruiter salaries, referral bonuses, and interview costs.
Add external costs
Include external expenses such as job board fees, agency fees, ATS costs, and employer branding.
Enter number of hires
Specify the total number of hires made during the period you're measuring.
Get your CPH instantly
Click calculate and get a detailed breakdown of your cost per hire with itemized costs.
What is cost-per-hire (CPH)?
Cost-per-hire (CPH) is a key recruiting metric that tracks the total cost of hiring a new hire brought into an organization.
This includes expenses such as sourcing and recruitment advertising costs, screening and onboarding time, recruitment marketing costs, referral bonuses and any other resource used in service of hiring a new candidate.
Cost Per Hire Formula
The cost-per-hire calculator uses the following formula to calculate the total hiring costs:
Cost-per-hire = (Internal Recruiting Costs + External Recruiting Costs) / Count(Hires)
Let's break it down:
External recruitment costs: These are expenses involved in hiring from outside sources (outside the organization). Examples include fees paid to recruitment agencies, job advertising costs, recruitment technology expenses, candidate travel and relocation costs, and pre-employment screening expenses.
Internal recruitment costs: These are expenses involved in hiring from within the organization. Examples include salaries of HR professionals or internal recruiting staff, costs of operating internal job boards, employee referral bonuses, interview-related expenses, and recruiter travel costs.
Total number of employees hired: This refers to the total number of individuals recruited and onboarded during a given period, regardless of whether they remain with the company afterward.
Why is cost per hire an important metric to track?
A cost-per-hire (CPH) calculator is a strategic tool that improve hiring efficiency and supports data-driven decision-making in HR practices.
It helps you understand the ROI of your hiring efforts. You can identify inefficiencies, reduce spend, and benchmark against industry standards.
These are the main benefits:
- Better tracking: It helps organizations capture all recruitment-related expenses, including hidden or indirect costs, providing greater transparency for budgeting and resource planning.
- Benchmarking: Calculating CPH enables companies to compare their hiring costs against industry benchmarks or competitors, helping assess the effectiveness of their recruitment processes.
- Continuous improvement: Regularly measuring CPH allows HR teams to evaluate different hiring strategies and optimize them over time.
- Budget planning: Understanding the average cost per hire helps forecast total recruitment expenses, making workforce and financial planning more accurate.
- Identifying areas for improvement: Analyzing CPH can reveal cost-intensive stages of the hiring process, enabling organizations to streamline operations and reduce unnecessary spending.
What Is the Average Cost per Hire in 2026?
The average cost per hire varies depending on factors such as industry, geographic location, and the type or level of the position being filled. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost per hire in the United States is approximately $4,800 in 2026.
Cost-per-Hire Example: Let's Dive into the cost?
Your company hired 25 new employees in Q1. During this period, you spent $75,000 on internal recruiting, $50,000 on external recruiting, and $15,000 on relocation and miscellaneous expenses.
Total Recruiting Costs:
- Internal recruiting: $75,000
- External recruiting: $50,000
- Relocation and miscellaneous: $15,000
Total: $140,000
To calculate the cost per hire (CPH):
CPH = $140,000 ÷ 25 = $5,600 per hire
What should be included in a recruiting budget?
When planning a recruiting budget, it's important to review all the costs your organization typically incurs during the hiring process. Creating a detailed and comprehensive list of potential recruiting expenses helps ensure accurate budgeting and better cost control. Common elements to include in a recruiting budget are:
- Job board fees: Costs paid to job boards or online platforms to post and promote job openings.
- Candidate assessment costs: Fees for pre-employment testing services, such as skills assessments, psychometric tests, or coding challenges.
- External recruiter expenses: Payments made to individual recruiters, recruitment agencies, or staffing firms for sourcing and placing candidates.
- Employer branding efforts: Expenses related to recruitment-focused events and initiatives, such as career fairs, campus recruiting events, and employer branding campaigns.
- Careers page costs: Costs associated with creating, maintaining, updating, and redesigning the company's careers page on its website.
- Internal recruiters costs: Often the largest portion of the recruiting budget, including recruiters' salaries, benefits, training, and travel expenses.
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- Quickly find top candidates with smart application management
- Improve team collaboration using built-in communication and workflows
- Offer a smooth candidate experience to strengthen your employer brand
- Count on 24/7 support for a hassle-free hiring process
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