By Priya Raman, employment law and workforce costs
Turnover has a dollar amount. This calculator gives you a number you can put in a budget, or a conversation with a manager who thinks attrition is "just part of the job."
Treat this as a planning range. Real replacement cost depends on the role, the market and how the exit happens.
Take the calculator's own defaults: a $60,000 salary, a mid-level role, and 3 people who left this year.
In plain terms, three mid-level departures in a year cost this business $90,000, roughly the annual salary and a half of the role itself. Move the same three departures to the senior tier and the total can approach or exceed a full year's pay per person, which is why retention spending is so often cheaper than replacement.
Weigh retention against hiring with the cost-to-hire and contractor calculators.
The role-complexity dropdown drives the whole estimate. Each tier is a fixed multiple of salary.
| Role tier | Cost factor used here | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Entry-level | 20% of salary | Recruiting and a short ramp-up period for a role with a shallow learning curve |
| Mid-level | 50% of salary | Recruiting, a longer vacancy, and months of reduced productivity while the replacement ramps up |
| Senior or specialized | 100% or more of salary | Extended search time, deeper institutional knowledge lost, and a long path back to full output |
These factors sit inside the commonly cited 20% to 200% of salary range used across HR and workforce research. Your own numbers may land higher if the role is hard to fill in your market.
When someone quits, the cost is not just recruiting. It is the lost productivity while the seat is empty, the time managers spend interviewing, onboarding and training the replacement, and the months before that new hire reaches full output. Studies peg the total at roughly 20% of salary for entry roles, rising to 100-200% for senior or specialized positions.
Putting a dollar figure on it changes the math on retention. The cost of a raise, better management or more flexibility is often a fraction of what a single departure costs. This calculator makes that trade-off visible.
Roughly 20% of salary for entry roles, up to 100-200% for senior positions.
Recruiting, lost productivity, manager time, onboarding and ramp-up.
To justify retention spending against the cost of churn.
No, it's an estimate.