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What does a hire actually cost?

The salary is the sticker price. Add payroll taxes, benefits, PTO, equipment, software, and recruiting, and the true first-year cost is a lot higher. Adjust any input — no email required.

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The role you're considering

Start with the salary.

Annual base salary$58,000/yr

Illustrative default: ~$58K, a U.S. median for an SMB office manager / admin role.

Loads that scale with salary

Shown as a percent of base. Defaults reflect typical U.S. small-business employer costs — slide them to match your own benefits and state.

Payroll taxes10%of salary

Benefits14%of salary

Paid time off & holidays7%of salary

Fixed annual costs

Roughly flat regardless of salary. Recruiting & ramp is the first-year cost to source, interview, and bring someone up to speed.

Equipment & workspace$4,500/yr

Software & licenses$3,600/yr

Recruiting & ramp (first year)$6,500/yr

True first-year cost

$90,580/ year

1.56× the base salary

Base salary$58,000

+ Payroll taxes$5,800

+ Benefits$8,120

+ Paid time off & holidays$4,060

+ Equipment, software & recruiting$14,600

About 36% of this seat is cost on top of the paycheck — the part that never shows up in the salary number you advertise.

The managed alternative

Standard

Up to 8 people

Add bookkeeping and the money flows.

$1,000/ mo

Billed annually — $12,000/yr · 20% off monthly

A whole back-office function — no payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, or recruiting to layer on. One flat retainer, and nobody to onboard.

Compare Standard vs. hiring Costing a whole team? Try the team calculator →

How we calculate:Base salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, and PTO as a percent of salary, plus flat equipment, software, and first-year recruiting & ramp costs. Defaults are illustrative U.S. medians for an SMB back-office role (BLS employer-cost and SHRM cost-per-hire ranges) — your real number depends on geography, benefits richness, and how you hire. Nothing here is a quote, and nothing leaves your browser.

Where the numbers come from

Defaults track BLS employer-cost-for-employee-compensation ranges (benefits run ~29% of total comp) and SHRM's average cost-per-hire — adjusted to a U.S. small-business back-office role.

What a DeskFlow tier replaces

A flat retainer that covers the function — no payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, software, or recruiting to layer on, and no ramp before the work starts.

When it's worth a conversation

If the role wouldn't fill a 40-hour week, or you'd rather not own the hiring risk, the managed math usually wins. Book a 20-minute call and we'll quote you exactly.

Costing your whole back office? Use the team calculator →

Questions

The true cost of hiring, answered.

Why does a hire cost more than the salary?: A paycheck is only part of the picture. On top of base salary you pay payroll taxes (FICA, plus federal and state unemployment and workers' comp), benefits like health premiums and a retirement match, the cost of paid time off and holidays (you pay for days that aren't worked), equipment and workspace, per-seat software licenses, and the one-time cost to recruit and ramp the person in year one. Together these typically add 25–40% on top of base.
What is a fully loaded cost or load factor?: The load factor is the ratio of an employee's total cost to their base salary. A 1.3× load factor means a $60,000 salary actually costs you about $78,000 a year once taxes, benefits, PTO, and overhead are included. For a typical U.S. small-business back-office role the first-year load factor lands around 1.3–1.5× once recruiting and ramp are counted.
Are these default numbers accurate for my business?: They're illustrative U.S. medians, not a quote. Benefits richness, your state's unemployment and workers' comp rates, how you source candidates, and how long ramp takes all move the number. Every input on the calculator is editable so you can match your own reality — and the math runs entirely in your browser.
How is this different from hiring through DeskFlow?: When you hire in-house, you own the entire load: taxes, benefits, equipment, software, recruiting, management, and the risk if it doesn't work out. DeskFlow is a flat monthly retainer for a managed back-office team — finance, HR, admin, and operations — with no payroll taxes, no benefits to administer, no equipment to buy, and nobody to recruit or onboard. You get the function without the overhead of an employee.
Should I hire someone or use a managed service?: If the work is full-time, specialized, and core to your product, an in-house hire often makes sense. If it's back-office work — bookkeeping, payroll, HR admin, inbox and vendor coordination — that doesn't fill a 40-hour week or that you'd rather not manage, a flat-fee managed team is usually cheaper and faster to stand up than a hire, with no ramp and no single point of failure.

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The true cost of hiring, answered.

Why does a hire cost more than the salary?

A paycheck is only part of the picture. On top of base salary you pay payroll taxes (FICA, plus federal and state unemployment and workers' comp), benefits like health premiums and a retirement match, the cost of paid time off and holidays (you pay for days that aren't worked), equipment and workspace, per-seat software licenses, and the one-time cost to recruit and ramp the person in year one. Together these typically add 25–40% on top of base.

What is a fully loaded cost or load factor?

The load factor is the ratio of an employee's total cost to their base salary. A 1.3× load factor means a $60,000 salary actually costs you about $78,000 a year once taxes, benefits, PTO, and overhead are included. For a typical U.S. small-business back-office role the first-year load factor lands around 1.3–1.5× once recruiting and ramp are counted.

Are these default numbers accurate for my business?

They're illustrative U.S. medians, not a quote. Benefits richness, your state's unemployment and workers' comp rates, how you source candidates, and how long ramp takes all move the number. Every input on the calculator is editable so you can match your own reality — and the math runs entirely in your browser.

How is this different from hiring through DeskFlow?

When you hire in-house, you own the entire load: taxes, benefits, equipment, software, recruiting, management, and the risk if it doesn't work out. DeskFlow is a flat monthly retainer for a managed back-office team — finance, HR, admin, and operations — with no payroll taxes, no benefits to administer, no equipment to buy, and nobody to recruit or onboard. You get the function without the overhead of an employee.

Should I hire someone or use a managed service?

If the work is full-time, specialized, and core to your product, an in-house hire often makes sense. If it's back-office work — bookkeeping, payroll, HR admin, inbox and vendor coordination — that doesn't fill a 40-hour week or that you'd rather not manage, a flat-fee managed team is usually cheaper and faster to stand up than a hire, with no ramp and no single point of failure.