Turnover Cost Calculator
What employee turnover costs you each year, and how much you can afford to spend on retention to cut it.
Example scenario—not a forecast or verified benchmark. Enable JavaScript to edit inputs, view charts, save locally and export your analysis.
Example inputs
- Average headcount
- 30
- Employees who left in the last 12 months
- 8
- Average salary of people who left
- 52,000
- Value of output vs. salary
- 2
- Recruiting cost per hire
- 4,000
- Onboarding and training cost per hire
- 2,500
- Separation cost per departure
- 1,000
- Working days a seat sits empty
- 30
- Share of the empty seat's work others cover
- 40
- Months for a new hire to reach full productivity
- 4
- Average productivity during ramp
- 50
- Target annual turnover rate
- 15
Example results
Turnover is costing you about $256K a year ($32K per departure); reaching 15% turnover would save $112K and justifies up to $3,737 per employee in retention spend.
- Annual cost of turnover
- $256,267
- Cost per departure
- $32,033
- Annual turnover rate
- 26.7%
- Savings at target turnover
- $112,117
- Break-even retention budget per employee
- $3,737
- Cost per departure as % of salary
- 61.6%
- Departures above target
- 3.5
What stands out
Turnover is 26.7% vs. your 15% target
That is about 3.5 more departures a year than target, each costing $32,033.
77% of the cost is lost output, not cash
Vacancy ($7,200) and ramp-up ($17,333) never show on the P&L as a line item, which is why turnover is usually underestimated.
Each departure costs 62% of the leaver's salary
At an average salary of $52,000, replacing one person costs $32,033 all in.
Retention spend up to $3,737 per employee breaks even
Hitting target saves $112,117 a year, so any retention program costing less than that pays for itself.
Next actions
- Run stay interviews with your top performers this quarter; preventing even one regrettable exit saves $32,033.
- Cut ramp time from 4 months with a written 30-60-90 plan and a named buddy; each month saved is worth $34,667 a year.
- Set a retention budget below $112K (pay adjustments, manager training, career paths) and track turnover monthly against 15%.
Model assumptions & limitations
- Output value = salary x 2. A fully productive employee is assumed to generate that much value; adjust to your revenue or gross profit per employee.
- 260 working days per year. Vacancy loss is reduced by the share of work colleagues absorb (overtime and burnout costs of covering are not counted).
- Ramp loss assumes a flat productivity level during the ramp period.
- Excludes harder-to-measure costs such as lost customer relationships, knowledge loss, and morale effects, so the total is conservative.