# Cost per Hire Calculator

> Calculate recruitment cost per hire by adding external costs (ads, agencies) and internal costs (recruiting team time) and dividing by the number of hires.

Category: Salary, HR & payroll · Applies to: Worldwide · Last updated: 2026-10-29
Interactive calculator: https://calculators.geekmidst.com/calculators/recruitment-cost-per-hire-calculator

Cost per hire adds everything spent on recruiting in a period, both money paid to outside parties and the cost of your own recruiting team, and divides it by the hires made.

Also called: Recruitment cost calculator, Hiring cost calculator.

## Inputs
- Advertising and job boards (default 3000; optional)
- Agency and search fees (default 15000; optional)
- Other external costs (default 2000; optional)
- Recruiting team costs (default 20000; optional)
- Other internal costs (default 5000; optional)
- Hires in the period (unit hires; default 10)
- Currency

## Results
- Cost per hire
- Total recruiting cost
- External costs
- Internal costs

## Formula

```
Cost per hire = (External costs + Internal costs) ÷ Hires
```

Where:
- External costs: money paid to outside parties
- Internal costs: your own recruiting staff and related spending
- Hires: hires that started in the same period

## Worked example
1. External = 3,000 + 15,000 + 2,000 = $20,000; internal = 20,000 + 5,000 = $25,000.
2. Cost per hire = 45,000 ÷ 10 = $4,500.

**Result:** Spending $45,000 on recruiting to make 10 hires is a cost per hire of $4,500.

## What the result means

Track the figure over time and by role type. A rising agency share usually drives cost per hire up; comparing with the salary of the role gives a sense of proportion.

## Assumptions and limits
- Costs and hires cover the same period.
- It measures cost, not quality: a cheap hire who leaves in three months may cost more in the end.

## Questions

### Should internal costs be included?

Yes. The widely used cost-per-hire standard counts both external and internal costs; leaving out recruiter pay makes in-house recruiting look free.

### Which hires count?

Hires made in the period you measured costs for. Some teams split internal moves from external hires and report each separately.

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- [Time to Hire Calculator](https://calculators.geekmidst.com/calculators/time-to-hire-calculator)
- [Offer Acceptance Rate Calculator](https://calculators.geekmidst.com/calculators/offer-acceptance-rate-calculator)
- [Employer Cost of Employee Calculator](https://calculators.geekmidst.com/calculators/payroll-employer-cost-calculator)

Source: GM¹X CalcVerse — https://calculators.geekmidst.com/calculators/recruitment-cost-per-hire-calculator