Turnover Cost Calculator

Calculate what it costs when an employee leaves: exit admin and severance, the work left undone while the seat is empty, recruiting a replacement and getting them up to speed, then the annual cost for your whole team.

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How to calculate turnover cost

Turnover cost per departure = separation + vacancy + recruiting the replacement + onboarding the replacement. Multiply by the people who leave in a year (headcount × turnover rate) for the annual cost. Time is priced at loaded pay: salary plus benefits and payroll taxes. With the defaults below, each US software developer who leaves on a $135,980 salary costs about $47,500, or 35% of salary.

1. Your team

Headcount

People in the team or company

Annual turnover rate

US information industry quits, 2025: about 15%

Average annual salary

US median, software developers

2. When someone leaves

Exit admin time

hours

Exit interview, access removal, handover

Severance

weeks

Usually 0 when people resign

3. While the seat is empty

Time to fill

days

Calendar days; SHRM 2025 median is 44

Work left undone

Share the team cannot absorb

4. Hiring the replacement

How you hire

Sets which cost applies

Cost per hire

SHRM 2025 median, nonexecutive

Interview time

hours

Screens and panels, all interviewers

5. Onboarding the replacement

Equipment, checks, training

$2,500 + $60 + $874

Manager and team time

hours

Setup, reviews, pairing

Ramp-up time

weeks

At 50% average output

6. What if turnover fell?

Cut turnover by

points

For example, from 15% to 10%

Cost per departure

Share of salary

Annual turnover cost

0 people leave a year. Cutting turnover by 0 points would save about $0 a year.

Per departure

Separation$0

Vacancy$0

Recruiting$0

Onboarding$0

Cash against time

Invoiced cash$0

Hours and lost output$0

Time share of the total0%

Time is priced at loaded pay: salary divided by 69.2%, the wage share of total compensation (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026), over 2,080 hours or 260 working days a year. Vacancy counts working days (calendar days × 5/7). Turnover rate: BLS JOLTS annual quits rates, 2025. Cost per hire and time to fill: SHRM 2025 recruiting benchmarking. Training: Training magazine 2025 Training Industry Report. Background check: Checkr pricing page. Hours, ramp-up and the work left undone are assumptions you can change.

Replacing an engineer through Second Talent

Recruiting, the employment contract, payroll and compliance are covered in one rate of $23 to $39 USD an hour, billed monthly ($3,599 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 replacement, so keep the onboarding lines in your plan.

Turnover cost questions, answered

How do you calculate the cost of employee turnover?

Add up four costs for each person who leaves, then multiply by the number of departures in a year. Cost per departure = separation (exit admin hours + severance) + vacancy (working days open × loaded daily pay × share of work left undone) + recruiting (cost per hire or agency fee + interview hours) + onboarding (equipment, checks and training + manager hours + ramp-up weeks × loaded weekly pay × 50%). 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).

How much does it cost to replace an employee?

For a US software developer at the $135,980 median salary (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025), about $47,500 with the calculator's defaults, or 35% of salary: $756 of exit admin time, $11,877 of work left undone over a 44-day vacancy, $3,089 to recruit in-house and $31,776 to onboard and ramp up the replacement. Hiring the replacement through an agency at a 20% fee raises it to about $73,500.

What is a normal employee turnover rate?

For voluntary departures, the US benchmark is the BLS quits rate. In 2025, quits averaged 1.3% a month in the information industry (about 15% a year), 2.3% a month in professional and business services (about 28% a year) and 2.2% a month across private industry (BLS JOLTS annual quits rates, 2025). Layoffs and retirements come on top, so total turnover runs higher.

How do you calculate your turnover rate?

Divide the number of people who left during the year by your average headcount over the year, then multiply by 100. If 8 people left a team that averaged 50, the annual turnover rate is 16%. Count voluntary and involuntary departures separately if you want to see how much of it you could have prevented.

Why is the vacancy cost so large?

While a seat is empty, some of the work does not get done. The calculator values that gap at loaded pay, the least the work is worth to you. SHRM's 2025 median time to fill is 44 days for nonexecutive roles (SHRM 2025 recruiting benchmarking), about 31 working days. At the default salary, each working day the seat stays half covered costs about $378. If teammates absorb all of it, set the share to 0%.

Which turnover costs are easiest to miss?

The ones nobody invoices: interview hours, the output lost while the seat is empty, and the weeks the replacement spends getting up to speed. With the defaults, about 90% of the cost per departure is time rather than cash. Knowledge that leaves with the person and the effect on the team that stays are real too, but the calculator leaves them out because there is no defensible way to price them.

How does Second Talent reduce turnover cost?

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 $23 to $39 USD an hour, billed monthly ($3,599 to $5,999 for 160 hours), with $0 cost until you hire. If an engineer leaves in the first 90 days, the one-time replacement guarantee covers the new search, which takes out the recruiting line above.

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