Cost per Hire Calculator

Your recruiting cost per engineering hire, internal and external, the SHRM way

FreeNo credit cardResults in 2 minutesUsed by 500+ companies

The cost figures below are placeholders, not benchmarks. Replace them with your own numbers for the same period.

1. Hires in the period

2. Internal costs

3. External costs

Result

Cost per hire
$2,910
Total recruiting cost
$11,640
Internal costs
$8,140
External costs
$3,500

Interview time is $8,140 of the internal cost: 4 hires x 20 hours x $101.74 per interviewer hour with benefits.

The formula

Internal costs = recruiter pay and benefits + hires x interview hours x interviewer wage x (1 + benefits %) + referral bonuses
External costs = job ads + agency fees + tools + travel and relocation + other
Cost per hire  = (internal costs + external costs) / number of hires
What this number does not include. The new hire's salary, onboarding and training after the start date, ramp-up time, and the cost of the role sitting empty while you search. Those are real costs; this calculator counts recruiting costs only, so track them separately.

How this works

The formula follows SHRM, which cites the ANSI/SHRM 06001.2012 cost-per-hire standard: cost per hire is the sum of recruiting costs divided by the number of hires. SHRM lists sourcing, applicant travel, relocation and recruiter pay and benefits among those costs. The calculator splits them into internal costs (your own people and bonuses) and external costs (what you pay outside firms and services).

Interviewer time is priced at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics mean wage for software developers, $71.20 an hour (OEWS, May 2025), plus benefits. In the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation for June 2026, private employers paid $14.07 in benefits for every $32.82 in wages, which is 42.9%, so $101.74 an hour. Every other number is yours to enter.

Worked example with the placeholders: 4 hires x 20 interview hours x $101.74 = $8,139.58 of internal cost. External costs are $2,000 of job ads plus $1,500 of tools, $3,500. ($8,139.58 + $3,500) / 4 = $2,909.90 per hire.

Sources (read November 12, 2026)

AY Automate places AI-native engineers with no recruitment fee. See AI engineer placement.

Frequently Asked Questions

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