Onboarding Cost Calculator

Add the cash costs to the time costs. Onboarding cost per hire = equipment and software + paperwork and checks + training + (manager and team hours × loaded hourly pay) + (ramp-up weeks × loaded weekly pay × share of output lost). Loaded pay is salary divided by 69.2%, the wage share of total compensation for professional workers in private industry (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026). On a $135,980 salary that is $94.47 an hour or $3,779 a week.

For a US software developer at the $135,980 median salary (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025), about $31,800 with the calculator's defaults: $2,500 of equipment and software, $60 for a background check, $874 of training, $5,668 of manager and team time (60 hours) and $22,673 of output lost over a 12-week ramp-up. Only about $3,400 of that is cash; the rest is time. The cost scales with salary, so change it to match the role.

There is no current, independent US survey of onboarding cost on its own, so be careful with figures quoted without a source. The closest benchmarks measure parts of it. SHRM's 2025 median cost per hire, $1,200 for nonexecutive roles and $10,625 for executives, covers recruiting (agency fees, job ads, recruiter pay), not onboarding (SHRM 2025 recruiting benchmarking). Training magazine puts training spend at $874 per learner in 2025 (Training magazine 2025 Training Industry Report). The calculator adds the rest from your own numbers.

Equipment and software licenses, background checks and employment paperwork, training courses, the hours managers and teammates spend on setup, reviews and pairing, and the output the new hire has not yet reached while learning the job. The last two are easy to miss because nobody invoices them, but they are usually the largest.

US companies spent $874 per learner on training in 2025, up from $774 in 2024, and employees received 40 hours of training a year. The survey covered US corporations and educational institutions with 100 or more employees, from April to July 2025 (Training magazine 2025 Training Industry Report).

Checkr lists $29.99 per report for its Basic check, $59.99 for Essential and $94.99 for Complete, with some court and database fees passed through at cost (Checkr pricing page). The calculator defaults to $60.

It depends on the role, the codebase and how much support the hire gets, and there is no reliable single figure. The calculator assumes 12 weeks at 50% average output; change both to match what you see. At the default salary, cutting ramp-up from 12 weeks to 6 saves about $11,300 per hire.

Second Talent helps US startups hire vetted AI-Native Engineers and Specialists from Asia. Recruiting, the employment contract, payroll and compliance are included in one rate of $29 to $39 USD an hour, billed monthly ($4,599 to $5,999 for 160 hours), with $0 cost until you hire and a 90-day, one-time replacement guarantee. Your team still onboards the engineer into your codebase, so plan those hours either way.