About the Headcount Budget Calculator
This headcount budget calculator builds a 12-month personnel budget from your current team and a hiring plan. Enter today’s headcount and average salary, a burden rate for benefits and employer payroll taxes, any planned raise, and up to four groups of new hires with their salaries and start months. It returns the fully loaded cost for the year, the month-by-month spend and the run rate you will exit the year on.
It is meant for founders, finance teams and HR business partners putting together an annual plan or testing what happens if hiring slips by a quarter. Because a hire who starts in month 9 costs only four months of salary this year but a full twelve next year, the gap between this-year cost and exit run rate is often the most important number in the plan.
Costs are spread evenly by month: each hire is counted for the whole of their start month, raises apply from the month you choose, and recruiting costs (agency fees, job ads, referral bonuses) are booked once in the month each person starts. The burden rate is a single percentage of salary; 20–35% is a common planning range in the US, but use your own payroll data where you have it.
With the default inputs, the total headcount cost this year is $2,584,312.50. Change any value above to recalculate instantly.
How to use the headcount budget calculator
- 1Enter your current headcount and their average base salary.
- 2Set a burden rate for benefits and employer payroll taxes, and any planned raise with its effective month.
- 3Add up to four hire groups with the number of hires, salary and start month.
- 4Enter a one-time recruiting cost per hire.
- 5Review the annual total, the monthly chart and the exit run rate you will carry into next year.
Formula and method
Every salary is converted to a monthly fully loaded cost by adding the burden rate (benefits, employer payroll taxes, pensions and similar on-costs) and dividing by 12. Current staff are costed at headcount × average salary, with the raise percentage applied from the chosen month onward.
Each hire group is counted from the start of its start month to the end of month 12, so a month-3 start costs 10 months this year. Recruiting cost is a one-time amount per hire booked in the start month. The exit run rate is the loaded payroll for month 12 multiplied by 12, which shows the annual cost you carry into next year once all hires are on the books. Attrition and backfills are not modeled.
- Burden
- Benefits and employer taxes as a fraction of salary
- Start month
- Fiscal month (1–12) the hire begins, counted in full
- Hires
- Number of people in a hire group
Worked examples
20-person team adding 6 hires
Current staff cost $177,083 a month loaded, rising 3% from month 4, for $2,172,813. Two $95k engineers from month 3 (10 months), a $140k manager from month 6 (7 months) and three $70k hires from month 9 (4 months) add $387,500. Six hires × $4,000 recruiting brings the year to $2,584,313, but you exit the year at a run rate of about $2.86M.
Startup hiring 3 people at the start of the year
Five people at $100,000 with a 20% burden cost $600,000. Three $110,000 hires on day one cost 3 × $132,000 = $396,000. With everyone on board all year, the annual cost and the exit run rate are both $996,000.
One late-year hire
Ten staff at $60,000 plus 30% burden cost $780,000. A $120,000 hire starting in month 10 costs $156,000 a year loaded but only three months — $39,000 — this year, plus a $10,000 recruiting fee. Next year that hire adds the full $156,000, so the exit run rate is $936,000.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fully loaded employee cost?+
It is base salary plus everything the employer pays on top: health and other benefits, employer payroll taxes, retirement contributions, workers’ compensation and similar on-costs. Planning on salary alone understates people cost, often by 20–35% or more.
What burden rate should I use?+
Use your own payroll data where possible: total employer costs other than salary divided by total salary. In the US, employer FICA alone is 7.65% of wages up to the Social Security wage base, and benefits typically push the total burden to roughly 20–35% of salary.
Why is my exit run rate higher than this year’s cost?+
Hires who start part-way through the year only cost a fraction of their annual salary this year, but they cost the full amount next year. The exit run rate (month 12 × 12) shows the annual cost already committed before any new hiring, which is why late-year hiring can make next year’s budget tight.
Should recruiting costs be in the headcount budget?+
Many companies include them because they are driven by hiring volume: agency fees (often 15–25% of first-year salary), job advertising, referral bonuses, background checks and equipment. Keeping them separate, as this calculator does, makes it easy to see the one-time versus recurring cost.
How do I model attrition?+
This calculator assumes current staff stay all year. To allow for attrition, lower the current headcount by the people you expect to lose without replacement, or add a hire group for backfills starting in the month you expect to replace them.
Results are estimates for educational purposes and are not financial advice. Rates, fees and terms vary — confirm with your lender or a licensed advisor before making decisions.