The retention commitment
Model a base-salary review, guaranteed and variable pay, a retention award and a review or benchmarking budget. See which changes recur and which happen once.
Employee Retention & Replacement Cost Calculator
Employee Retention & Replacement Cost Calculator
Compare a planned retention investment with the cost of recruiting again.
A salary review is easy to see in the budget. The cost of replacing an experienced colleague is often spread across a new package, hiring fees, onboarding, cover and management time. Bringing those assumptions together makes the discussion more useful.
Use this free employee retention and replacement cost calculator to compare two planned outcomes over one, two or three years. Built for HR teams and business leaders, it separates recurring pay, one-off costs and an optional estimate of business disruption. It supports a financial discussion alongside your judgement about the individual, the role and the needs of the business.
Explore the retention decision
Compare the two outcomes
- Enter the current base and common employer-cost assumptions.
- Set the proposed retention package and the alternative replacement package.
- Add one-off expenses once. Keep optional business disruption separate from budgeted expenses.
- Choose one, two or three years. Use the slider to inspect an illustrative cumulative cost at a chosen month.
- Download Excel or save a comparison file before leaving. There is no automatic saving.
Values update when you leave a field. Tab skips field help icons. Alt + H opens help for the focused input; Escape closes it. Hover or tap the icons for guidance.
Compare two assumed outcomes: a successful retention review, or a successful replacement. The calculator does not predict whether an offer will retain someone.
Compare the two outcomes
Retention budgetPay at the entered bonus scenario + retention one-off costs
Replacement budgetPay at the entered bonus scenario + recruitment and transition costs
Replacement minus retentionUnder your selected assumptions
Retention: recurring annual cost
Replacement: recurring annual cost
Retention: one-off costs
Replacement: one-off costs
Retention budgetReplacement budget
This is a full-year comparison, not a vacancy or payment calendar. Recurring costs accrue evenly; one-off costs are shown at month zero. No salary saving during a vacancy is deducted.
Optional business-impact assumption
Keep this separate from budgeted expenses. Use an estimate of lost contribution or productivity, not gross revenue or an expense already entered above.
| Period | Retention budget | Replacement budget | Replacement minus retention |
|---|
What this comparison includes and excludes
Retention base pay is current base multiplied by the proposed percentage increase. Annual base and guaranteed bonus, employer costs on those amounts, and other annual employer costs form fixed commitments. Entered variable pay and its employer costs are added as a separate annual scenario. The same annual other-employer-cost assumption is used for both outcomes.
The retention award and its employer costs, plus the review budget, occur once. Replacement costs occur once: the fee percentage of replacement base, additional hiring costs, onboarding expense, vacancy cover and overlap. Avoid counting annual pay or benefits twice. Employer on-costs are applied to pay, not external fees.
Both outcomes include full years of pay. Start dates, vacancy salary savings, pay inflation, discount rates, tax thresholds and the probability of either outcome are excluded. Estimated disruption is an optional economic assumption outside the budget. Costs alone do not determine the right employment decision; consider performance, role fit, the individual’s intentions and the needs of the business.
What You Can Evaluate
The replacement budget
Bring together the replacement package, recruitment costs, onboarding, cover and overlap. Compare one-off transition expenses with the ongoing annual commitment.
The wider business effect
Keep any estimated lost contribution or productivity separate from the headline budgets. Explore it as an additional assumption without disguising it as a booked expense.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this retention calculator compare?
It compares a successful retention outcome with a successful replacement outcome, using your entered costs. Both include full years of pay over the selected period, together with their one-off expenses. It does not predict whether an employee will stay, whether a replacement will be found or which employment decision you should make.
Which replacement costs can I include?
You can enter a replacement salary and bonuses, employer on-costs, recruitment fees, other hiring expenses, onboarding, vacancy cover and overlap. Review the scope of each amount so the same cost is not counted twice.
How are retention awards and review costs treated?
A cash retention award, its entered employer on-costs and the review or benchmarking budget are treated as one-off costs. The revised salary and annual package recur across the selected years. A review budget is your own assumption, rather than an Imperium quotation.
Does the calculation include the commercial effect of losing someone?
You can enter a separate business-disruption estimate, such as lost contribution or productivity. It is shown apart from the headline budgets and can be added to the replacement chart for discussion. It is not treated as a cash expense, and the tool does not estimate it for you.
Can I compare more than one year?
Yes. Select one, two or three years. Annual package assumptions repeat for each year, while one-off costs occur once. No future salary inflation, discounting, vacancy salary saving or detailed start-date phasing is assumed.
Can I export the results or return to them later?
Yes. Download the Excel comparison for discussion and save a JSON comparison file to reopen in the tool. There is no automatic saving. The chart is an illustrative cost build, rather than a payroll or invoice payment calendar.
How can Imperium help with the assumptions?
Salary benchmarking can help HR teams understand how current packages compare with an agreed peer group. If the business needs to recruit, we can assess the requirement, map the relevant market and undertake a retained search. The calculator itself does not provide market pay data or a recommendation about an individual employee.
Before you replace experience, understand what it will take to rebuild it.
Make the Next Decision With a Clearer View of the Market
Benchmark the package, understand the alternatives and plan the next step.
A meaningful retention review needs more than a percentage increase. It needs an understanding of the role, the individual and the market they could move into.
Imperium can provide bespoke remuneration research across commodity and financial markets. Where a replacement or additional appointment is required, our retained search approach connects that research to direct market mapping and candidate engagement.
Workforce planning resources
Explore Our Other Tools
Take the next part of your plan further. Use our free tools to explore team structure, budgets, packages, hiring priorities and the recruitment brief.
