Total annual cost, monthly cost, hourly cost, and multiplier across a range of salaries, using the benefits and overhead percentages you entered.
Annual salary
Total annual cost
Cost / month
Cost / hour
Multiplier
$40,000
$57,060
$4,755
$27.43
1.43×
$50,000
$71,325
$5,944
$34.29
1.43×
$60,000
$85,590
$7,133
$41.15
1.43×
$75,000
$106,988
$8,916
$51.44
1.43×
$100,000
$142,650
$11,888
$68.58
1.43×
$150,000
$213,975
$17,831
$102.87
1.43×
Estimates only — not financial, tax, or professional advice.
100% private — every number you enter is calculated in your browser and never sent to our servers.
What it calculates: Total Annual Cost, Cost Per Month, Cost Per Hour, Employer FICA Taxes.
Updated 5 June 2026 · Transparent assumptions
The offer letter figure is not the budget line
Between employer payroll taxes, benefits and the overhead a seat consumes, the fully loaded cost of an employee commonly lands 25% to 40% above the salary. A 100,000 salary with 20% benefits and 15% overhead costs roughly 143,000 once employer FICA is added.
Budgeting against the salary alone is the single most common error in early hiring plans, and it compounds: a team of ten planned at salary cost is short by roughly three people’s worth of budget by the time the year is out.
6.2% up to the wage base, 1.45% on everything
The employer contribution modelled here is US FICA: Social Security at 6.2% on wages up to the annual base, plus Medicare at 1.45% with no ceiling. The wage base is indexed each year, so the employer cost stops rising for Social Security once a salary passes it.
That ceiling makes the loaded multiplier fall as salaries rise. A senior hire well above the wage base carries proportionally less employer payroll tax than a junior one, which is worth knowing when comparing the cost of one senior against two juniors.
Space, equipment, software and the cost of the people who support them
Overhead here is the share of indirect cost each employee consumes: workspace, hardware, software seats, IT and HR support, training, and recruitment amortised across the expected tenure. Companies that measure it usually find 10% to 20% of salary, with remote-first teams at the lower end.
The reliable way to set the figure is to divide total indirect cost by headcount rather than to guess a percentage. The overhead rate calculator does that allocation properly if you have the total to work from.
Ramp time, unemployment insurance, equity and state-level charges
The model covers federal FICA only. State unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, local payroll levies and any applicable employer health mandates vary by jurisdiction and sit outside it, as do equity grants and bonus accruals.
Nor does it price ramp time. A new hire is rarely fully productive for the first quarter, which is a real cost of hiring even though it never appears on a payroll report — worth adding to the first-year figure when the question is whether a role pays for itself.
Sources & References
Figures on this page are checked against primary, authoritative sources. Links open in a new tab.
Results are estimates for planning and analysis based on the figures you enter. They are not accounting, tax, or financial advice — verify with your own records and a qualified professional before making decisions.
Published the calculator with its formula, worked example, assumptions, limitations and a bespoke guide, and added an automated formula test suite covering it.
Tested the employer FICA contribution against the Social Security wage base cap and uncapped Medicare, plus benefits and overhead on salary.
Tested that the Social Security component stops growing above the wage base while Medicare keeps scaling, so the loaded multiplier falls as salary rises.
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