Model · Enterprise desk · 2 minutes
The salary line is the opening bid. By the time the burden, the recruiter, the equipment and the quiet months of ramping are counted, year one costs half again the sticker — and the budget that didn't know it is how good hires become resented ones. This instrument writes the honest invoice before you sign it.
The number on the offer letter, gross.
Payroll taxes, benefits, pension. 18–30% is the usual range; some jurisdictions run higher.
Contingent search bills ~20–25% of base on placement; retained executive search 30–35%.
Hardware, licences, relocation help, the works.
Senior roles run 3–9. During ramp the model bills half the loaded cost as drag.
Tools, software, space — per year, per person.
Nothing you type leaves this page. The instrument runs entirely in your browser; there is no account and no record.
Heavier than it looks.
$315,850
year-one total for a $180,000 base
| Base salary | — |
| Employer burden | — |
| Recruiter fee | — |
| Onboarding, one-off | — |
| Ramp-up drag — paid, not yet producing | — |
| Seat overhead | — |
| Year one, all in | — |
| If full speed takes | Year-one total | × base salary |
|---|---|---|
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
The trainer's hours are missing. Every ramp month consumes senior time — if a principal spends five hours a week onboarding, price it at their rate and add it to the drag.
A wrong hire roughly doubles the invoice: you pay the year-one total, then severance, then the search again — while the seat produces nothing twice. The premium for taking hiring slowly is usually cheaper than this page.
Equity is outside the model. If the offer carries options or shares, their expected annual value belongs on top of the loaded cost, haircut applied.
Everything below is calculated from your inputs. Nothing is fetched, nothing is looked up.
loaded_annual = base × (1 + burden) + seat
ramp_drag = ramp_months × (loaded_annual / 12) × 0.5
year_one = loaded_annual + recruiter + one_off + ramp_drag
premium = (year_one − base) / base
The gauge reads the hidden premium — everything year one costs beyond the base — with the line at the house 50%: the level a well-run budget should expect. Past 75% the instrument calls the load heavier than it looks; past 100%, year one costs two stickers.
The 0.5 ramp factor is a convention: during ramp the seat is paid in full and produces about half. Break-even at cruise is loaded_annual / 12 per month — the value the hire must clear once ramped, printed in the reading.
Limitations. Burden varies by country and benefits policy — use payroll's figure where you have it. Manager time spent training, backfill, and equity compensation sit outside the model and all push the true figure up, not down.