The real cost of turnover reaches well beyond the recruiter's invoice, vacancy, onboarding, the months of ramp-up and the knowledge that walks out the door. Enter one role and we'll estimate the full figure.
Takes ~1 minute · Estimates only · Figures stay in your browser until you choose to share them
Full Cost Estimate
Beyond the obvious
Cost Breakdown
Six cost categories
Annual Exposure
If it happens again
Retention Upside
What it's worth
When someone resigns, the recruiter's invoice is the part you can see — and it's rarely the biggest number. The real cost of losing an employee is scattered across the weeks the seat sits empty, the onboarding and supervision a replacement needs, the months before they're fully productive, and the client relationships and hard-won context that walk out the door with the person leaving. Because most of it never appears on a single line item, owners routinely underestimate what turnover is actually doing to the business. The True Cost of Employee Turnover calculator pulls those hidden costs into one figure, so you can see the full scale of a single departure rather than just the bill from the agency.
You enter a few details about the role — the annual salary (including super), how complex or senior the position is, how long it typically takes to fill, and how you recruit (job boards, a mix, or an agency). From those inputs the tool builds an estimate across six categories: recruitment, vacancy cost while the seat is empty, onboarding and training, ramp-up to full productivity, knowledge and relationship loss, and administrative offboarding costs. It presents the all-in total, shows it as a percentage of the role's salary, breaks the cost down category by category (largest first), and projects your annual exposure if departures at this level recur — alongside the estimated yearly value of even a modest improvement in retention. Every figure is a salary-relative assumption, not a measured cost for your business: the tool is upfront that role complexity and time-to-fill drive the estimates, and that your real numbers will vary with industry, seniority and how the exit is handled. Treat the total as a directional sense of scale, not a precise quote.
Australian SME owners and managers who want to understand the true, all-in cost of losing a team member — and what better retention is actually worth.
The short answers are here. For anything else, ask below or get in touch.
It's an estimate. The calculator builds each cost category from salary-relative assumptions and the role details you enter — it doesn't pull real figures from your payroll or accounts. That's deliberate: it gives you a fast, directional sense of scale before you invest time gathering precise numbers. Your real costs will vary with your industry, the seniority of the role, how quickly you fill it, and how the departure is managed, so treat the total as a well-reasoned starting point rather than a quote.
These tools work together to give you a clearer picture of your business.
Use these results to make better decisions. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on them, an advisor can walk through what they mean for the business.
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