Can the business carry this one?
Not whether the role is worth it — whether the business can carry it. We work out your runway from real payroll taxes, month by month, and show you the month the decision stops being reversible.
Free, and no card. About four minutes. Skip anything optional and we'll tell you what got left out — an email is only asked for at the end, for the month-by-month.
Informational only — not audit, attest, legal, tax, or investment advice. Employment and payroll rules are state-specific; confirm state unemployment and final-pay obligations with your payroll provider or counsel.
Whether you can carry the hire is a different question from whether it is worth it
Most hiring calculators answer the returns question: take the salary, apply a multiplier of somewhere between 1.25 and 1.4 to approximate the loaded cost, compare it against what the role is expected to add, and produce a verdict. That is a reasonable way to think about whether a role earns its keep over a year. It is not much use to an owner trying to work out whether payroll clears in month seven, because a multiplier is a convention and a convention will not tell you when the cash runs out.
This tool builds the employer cost from the published rates instead. Social Security at 6.2% applies until the employee's wages reach the annual contribution base and then stops; Medicare at 1.45% never stops; federal unemployment tax applies to the first $7,000 of wages each calendar year and, for employers who pay their state unemployment tax on time, drops to 0.6% after the state credit. Those bases reset every January, which is why the projection runs month by month against cumulative wages per calendar year rather than applying an annual percentage. Where you do not supply a figure — benefits, state unemployment — it is excluded and the result says so, rather than being filled with an average that would make the answer look more precise and less true.
The output that usually changes the decision is not the month cash runs out. It is the month the decision stops being reversible: the point where projected cash falls below the cost of unwinding the hire, so the business is carrying it either way. That month comes first, and knowing it is the difference between a hire you can stop and a hire that has to work. That month, the options and every limitation are free; the month-by-month table asks for an email address. The arithmetic runs in your browser, and your figures are not kept anywhere unless you sign in and press save.
Frequently asked questions
What does a new hire actually cost beyond the salary?
Employer Social Security at 6.2% up to the annual wage base, Medicare at 1.45% with no cap, and federal unemployment tax at 0.6% on the first $7,000 after the full state credit — plus state unemployment tax, benefits, equipment and recruiting. This tool computes the federal taxes from the published rates rather than applying a rule-of-thumb multiplier to the salary.
Why compute month by month instead of using a annual multiplier?
Because the wage bases reset each calendar year. A hire starting in October pays the federal unemployment wage base twice within five months, and an annual figure hides that. Month by month also separates the start date from the month the role begins producing, which is where these decisions usually go wrong.
What is the month you can no longer reverse the decision?
A hire is undoable only at a price — notice or severance, accrued time off, and the employer taxes on both. Once projected cash falls below that cost, the business is committed whether the hire works out or not. That month arrives before the month cash runs out, and it is the number most affordability calculations leave out entirely.
What happens if I do not know my benefits cost or my state unemployment rate?
They are excluded, and the result says on its face that they are excluded and that the real cost is higher. No national average is substituted. A runway figure resting on an unmarked average is a wrong number that looks like a right one.
Is this the same as deciding whether the role is worth it?
No, and the distinction matters. Whether the role pays for itself is a returns question. Whether the business can carry it is a cash question, and the answer can be no for a role that is obviously worth doing.