Hiring glossary
What is cost per hire?
Cost per hire is the total amount you spend to fill a job, divided by the number of people you hire. It is the price tag on adding someone to your team, and it is usually bigger than people expect.
Quick definition
Cost per hire = (all your internal hiring costs + all external hiring costs) ÷ number of hires. In 2026 the average is about $4,700 per hire according to SHRM, and far higher for senior roles.
What actually goes into it
The job-board fee is the part everyone sees. The real cost hides in the pieces around it.
- External costs: job ads, agency or referral fees, background checks, and your hiring software.
- Internal costs: the hours your team spends writing posts, reading resumes, and interviewing. This is the big, invisible one.
That hidden time cost is why slow, manual screening is so expensive. Every hour spent reading the wrong resumes is money spent on the hire, even though it never shows up on an invoice.
Why it matters and how to lower it
Knowing your cost per hire tells you where your money and time actually go. For a small business, the fastest way to lower it is rarely cutting the job-ad budget; it is cutting the hours wasted on screening. When software ranks applicants for you, your team spends time only on the strong few, which shrinks the largest part of the cost.
CurriculoATS does that ranking automatically and costs $100 a month ($50 early-bird) with no per-seat fees, so the tool itself stays a small, fixed line item. Estimate your own number with the cost per hire calculator.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average cost per hire?
About $4,700 in 2026, according to SHRM, for a typical non-executive role. Executive and specialized hires cost much more, often tens of thousands. Your number depends on the role, your tools, and how much staff time the process takes.
How do you calculate cost per hire?
Add all internal costs (staff time spent hiring) and external costs (ads, agencies, software, checks), then divide by the number of people you hired in that period. A free cost per hire calculator can do it for you.
How can I reduce cost per hire?
Focus on the hidden cost: staff time. Using software to screen and rank applicants means your team only reviews the strongest few, which cuts the largest part of the bill. Flat-price tools also keep the software cost predictable as your team grows.