HR Cost Calculator · Ontario
What is not having HR costing you?
Free Ontario HR cost calculator — annualized risk and opportunity cost of missing HR across turnover, compliance, productivity, and recruitment.
What Is the True Cost of Not Having HR?
Discover the hidden annual cost of inadequate HR infrastructure — from turnover and compliance risk to bad hires, litigation exposure, and productivity loss. Answer seven quick questions to get your total exposure.
Estimates are based on SHRM turnover benchmarks, Canadian employment litigation data, and Gallup engagement research. Results are directional — book a call for a custom diagnostic.
How many employees does your organization have?
Use a slider to select your headcount.
Numbers, not narrative.
- 01Annualized cost of turnover, recruitment, and bad hires for your headcount
- 02Compliance and litigation exposure from gaps in policy and process
- 03Productivity drag from missing HR infrastructure
- 04Where outsourced or fractional HR pays for itself in months, not years
Five exposures, one annual number.
Seven inputs — headcount, average salary, industry, current HR setup, turnover, terminations, and complaints — drive five separate cost models, then weigh the total against the cost of fractional HR.
- 01Turnover cost. Replacement cost per departure (benchmarked at ~75% of salary) applied to your turnover rate, with a penalty when there is no dedicated HR function.
- 02Compliance risk. Probability-weighted ESA, OHSA, and AODA exposure, scaled by an industry multiplier and your HR maturity.
- 03Bad-hire cost. A 7–15% bad-hire rate (lower with mature HR) applied to your annual hiring volume.
- 04Litigation exposure. Complaint volume and termination count weighted by settlement averages, with a documentation multiplier when HR is thin.
- 05Productivity drag & ROI. Manager hours lost to ad-hoc HR work, then the whole total expressed as a return multiple against a $4K–$10K/month fractional HR cost.
Anyone carrying HR off the side of a desk.
- 01Founders and owner-operators running a 10–500 person business with no dedicated HR, who only ever counted salary — not turnover, risk, and lost management time.
- 02CFOs and finance leaders who need an order-of-magnitude figure to weigh outsourced or fractional HR against the cost of the status quo.
- 03Office managers and admins handling HR part-time who suspect the exposure is real but need the number to make the case internally.
Outsourced HR — enterprise-grade HR without the fixed cost.
We run your HR function end-to-end — compliance, ER, talent, culture — for less than a single mid-level hire.
Questions, answered.
- What does the HR cost calculator estimate?
- It estimates the annualized cost of not having a real HR function — turnover, recruitment, bad hires, compliance and litigation exposure, and productivity drag — sized to your headcount and industry.
- What assumptions does the calculator use?
- It uses Canadian benchmarks for turnover cost (typically 0.5–2x annual salary), average recruitment spend, and compliance fine ranges from ESA and OHSA. You adjust the inputs to your headcount, mix, and current HR setup.
- How accurate is the HR cost estimate?
- It is a directional estimate, not an audit. The value is in seeing the order of magnitude — most Canadian SMBs underestimate HR cost by 3–5x because they only count salary, not turnover, risk, and opportunity cost.
- What should I do with the calculator result?
- Use the number as a baseline to compare against the cost of outsourced or fractional HR. In most mid-market cases, an embedded HR partner pays for itself within months, not years, once turnover and compliance exposure are priced in.
- Is the HR cost calculator free?
- Yes. The calculator is free, runs in your browser, and does not store your inputs. You can walk through your number with an HR partner in a 30-minute call afterward if you want a plan.
Cost is the prompt. The plan is the conversation.
Walk through your number with an HR partner — and what to do about it — in a 30-minute call.