Calculate the exact financial cost of every open headcount - lost revenue, productivity gaps, overwork costs, and total vacancy impact. Enter your vacancy details and get an instant cost breakdown. Free, no sign-up required.
Add the annual salary of the vacant role, vacancy duration in days, your organisation annual revenue, and total headcount.
Input the revenue attribution factor, team absorption rate, average team member salary for overwork cost calculation, and optional hiring and onboarding costs.
Instantly see your daily cost of vacancy, total vacancy cost, revenue loss, productivity loss, overwork cost, and total vacancy impact with severity badge and benchmark comparison.
Enter your vacancy details above and click Calculate Vacancy Cost to quantify the true financial impact.
Cost of Vacancy measures the financial impact of a role remaining unfilled, capturing direct revenue and productivity value lost and indirect costs of overwork and delayed hiring. Daily Cost of Vacancy = Annual Revenue Per Employee / Working Days Per Year Total Cost of Vacancy = Daily Cost of Vacancy x Vacancy Duration (Days) Revenue Loss = Daily Revenue Per Employee x Vacancy Duration x Revenue Attribution Factor Productivity Loss = (Annual Salary / Working Days) x Vacancy Duration x (1 - Productivity Factor) Overwork Cost = (Team Member Salary / Working Days) x Vacancy Duration x Overwork Factor Total Vacancy Impact = Total COV + Hiring Cost + Onboarding Cost
Research from SHRM and Gallup consistently shows that cost of vacancy ranges from 0.5x to 2x the annual salary of the role. - Sales / Revenue-Generating: 3x - 5x annual salary - Technology / Engineering: 1.5x - 2.5x annual salary - Finance and Accounting: 1.5x - 2x annual salary - HR / People Operations: 1x - 1.5x annual salary - Operations / Logistics: 0.75x - 1.5x annual salary - Customer Success / Support: 1x - 2x annual salary - Administrative / Support: 0.5x - 1x annual salary - C-Suite / Senior Leadership: 2x - 4x annual salary
Cost of vacancy (COV) is an HR and finance metric that quantifies the financial impact of a budgeted role remaining unfilled. It captures lost revenue, reduced productivity, overwork costs for remaining staff, and the cost of delayed hiring. Unlike cost per hire, which measures what you spend to fill a role, cost of vacancy measures what the business loses while the role stays open.