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Retention Savings Calculator

Keeping people is cheaper than replacing them. This shows what lowering your turnover is worth. How many departures you would avoid at a target rate, what each one costs to replace, and the annual savings. It turns a retention goal into a dollar figure you can put behind the investment.

Before you start

about two minutes, your own figures. Nothing is stored and no sign up is needed.

What you will need. Employees, Average salary, Current turnover, Target turnover

Your turnover

Enter your team size, your current and target turnover, and the pay for the roles.
ppl
Average headcount.
$
For the roles that turn over.
%
Annual rate now.
%
The rate you aim for.
Replacement cost
%
Replacement runs 50% to 200% of salary by role: roughly 40% for frontline work, 80% for professionals, and up to 200% for leaders. It covers recruiting, onboarding, and the ramp to full productivity. 75% is a reasonable middle for a general workforce.

Annual retention savings

$0per year
Departures avoided
0
Cost per departure
$0
turnover

The math

This is an estimate, so set the replacement cost to your roles. A frontline departure costs far less than a specialist or leader, so a single percentage across very different roles is rough. The savings are also a ceiling: reaching a lower turnover rate takes real effort, and not every exit is preventable.
Email yourself this breakdown We send the figures you just produced, with your inputs beside them.

The method

How retention savings work

Every person who leaves and has to be replaced carries a cost. Recruiting, onboarding, and the weeks or months before the next hire is fully up to speed. Lower your turnover rate and you avoid some of those replacements, and the money you would have spent becomes savings. This tool compares your current turnover to a target, counts the departures you would avoid, and multiplies by what each one costs.

How this is calculated

What a replacement costs

Research from SHRM and Gallup puts the cost of replacing an employee at 50% to 200% of their annual salary, depending on the role. Frontline positions sit near 40%, professional and technical roles around 80% to 100%, and managers or leaders as high as 200%. The figure covers the visible costs of hiring. It also covers the harder-to-see losses in productivity and knowledge while the seat is empty and the new person ramps.

What counts as good turnover

It varies widely by industry and role. Compare your rate against a published benchmark for your industry, such as the BLS JOLTS survey's separations rates, updated monthly. Compare it against your own trailing years too, rather than a single rule of thumb. Some turnover is healthy and unavoidable. The useful target is not zero, but a rate that keeps your teams stable without overspending to hold people who would move on anyway.

Turning the goal into a number

Retention work competes for budget like anything else, so it helps to size the prize. If cutting turnover by a few points saves six figures a year, the arithmetic changes. A manager-training program or a pay adjustment starts to look like an investment rather than a cost. Because the saving repeats every year the lower rate holds, even a modest improvement compounds. Treat the result as the upper bound and weigh it against what the improvement will take.

Carry this into the decision

Cost your turnover in full

The in-depth Turnover Cost Excel breaks the replacement cost into its parts, prices the time of everyone involved, and gives you a board-ready figure to set retention spending against.

Get the Excel version

$29. 30 days. Reply to your receipt or email support@truestephr.com for a full refund. No form or explanation is required, and you keep the files.

Related

More free tools and the notes behind them

This tool estimates from the figures you enter. It is general information rather than legal, tax, or accounting advice, so check the result against your own records before you rely on it.

Use the number

The calculation is the start of the decision.

Keep the result, move the live assumptions into an editable workbook, and put the number to work inside the matched kit.

01 · Calculate

Run the free analysis

Change the inputs until the result reflects the business you actually operate.

02 · Keep and model

Email the breakdown

Use the result form on this page, then carry the assumptions into the editable version.

Get the Excel version →
03 · Decide

Apply it to the live issue

Apply the number inside the matched kit, and add a Setup Session if you want it running on your numbers.

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