What this measures
When someone leaves, the cost is more than just backfilling a seat. Recruiting takes time and money, a new hire takes months to reach full productivity, and the gap in between has a real cost too. This calculator turns that into one annual figure based on your own numbers.
The formula
In Simple mode, cost per departure is a percentage of the departing employee's salary, commonly cited studies put full replacement cost somewhere between 50% and 200% of annual salary depending on how specialized the role is. In Advanced mode, you enter your own recruiting, training, and lost-productivity figures instead of relying on a percentage.
A quick example
Say the average departing employee earns $60,000, and you use the Medium setting of about 100% of salary. Losing 10 people in a year costs about $600,000. If you brought that down to 7 departures instead, the cost would drop to $420,000, a savings of $180,000 without changing anything else about the business.
Frequently asked questions
Why such a wide range, 50% to 200% of salary?
Because role complexity matters a lot. Lower-wage or easily backfilled roles tend to cost proportionally less to replace, while specialized, senior, or hard-to-hire roles can run well past a full year of salary once lost productivity and ramp-up time are counted. If you know your own numbers, Advanced mode lets you skip the percentage entirely.
What counts as "lost productivity"?
The output a role isn't producing while it's vacant, plus the slower pace of a new hire still learning the job. It's real money even though it never shows up as a line item on an invoice, which is exactly why it's easy to underestimate the true cost of turnover.
Should I use company-wide average salary or the specific roles that left?
Whichever you actually know. Using the specific departing employees' salaries is more accurate, especially if turnover is concentrated in higher or lower paid roles, but a company-wide average is a reasonable starting point if that's what you have on hand.
What does the turnover rate number tell me that the cost doesn't?
The dollar figure tells you the financial impact, the rate tells you how it compares to your total workforce, which is useful for benchmarking against your industry or tracking your own trend over time. Both come from the same numbers, just viewed differently.
Does this include severance or unused PTO payouts?
No, those are separate one-time costs tied to the departure itself rather than the cost of replacing that person. If you need those figures too, our Severance Pay and PTO Payout calculators handle them directly.