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Cost to company calculator

Break a total package into take-home base, superannuation, and on-costs, so you can see what you pay and what your people actually get.

Your numbers

Package breakdown
 
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What is cost to company?

Cost to company is the total amount a business spends to employ someone across a year. It includes base pay, superannuation, bonuses, allowances, and any on-costs the employer carries, so it sits above the headline salary.

How we calculated this

We add superannuation to the base salary you entered at the 12% guarantee rate, then add the bonus and allowances on top. The result is what the package costs the business before payroll tax and the other on-costs, and it is also the value the employee can point to: base, super, bonus and allowances. Both views come out the same here because we apply super to base only and leave the on-costs to the True Cost of an Employee calculator. Change any line and the total moves with it. The working, the assumptions and the sources sit below.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of full-time equivalent (FTE) in the HR Glossary.

Your working
Assumptions
  • Superannuation is applied to base salary only at 12%, the guarantee rate that has applied since 1 July 2025 and does not rise further. Most bonuses and many allowances count as ordinary time earnings, so super is usually owed on them too and the true employer cost is a little higher than shown.
  • Bonus and allowances are treated as certain and paid in full. If the bonus is at risk, the employer view overstates the likely cost and the employee view overstates what they will actually receive.
  • On-costs are left out: payroll tax, workers compensation, leave loading and the leave provision. With super included, mandatory on-costs typically add about 25 to 40% to base in Australia, so the fully loaded figure is materially higher. Run the True Cost of an Employee calculator for it.
  • No income tax is modelled. Base here is pay before tax, so the employee's take-home is lower than the value shown.
Sources

What to do about it

A package figure answers "what does this seat cost". It says nothing about what the seat returns, and that is where offers get won or wasted. These steps are for whoever builds the offer or the budget line, whether or not they approve it.

1

Budget the employer cost, not the salary line

Take the figure above into the headcount request, then add payroll tax, workers compensation, leave loading and the leave provision so finance sees the real annual commitment. A role approved on base alone gets re-approved, awkwardly, when the on-costs land.

2

Check what super is being paid on

The calculator applies it to base. The ATO applies it to ordinary time earnings, which usually include bonuses and many allowances. Payroll gets this right most of the time; the offer letter often does not, and the difference is what surfaces in an underpayment claim later.

3

Show the employee the same breakdown

Most people read the base and ignore the rest. A one-page total remuneration statement (base, super, bonus, allowances, plus anything else you fund) is the cheapest retention tool you have, because it prices what leaving would cost them.

4
Where a tool helps

Write down what the package is buying

Before the offer goes out, put on paper what this role has to deliver in twelve months and how you will know. That line is what turns cost to company into return on the hire, and it is what you check against when the annual review comes round.

5

Re-run it when the package changes

Bonus schemes and allowances drift. Once a year, rebuild the employer cost for each role band and compare it with what the roles are producing. Roles that cost more than they return are usually a fit problem before they are a pay problem.

Step 4 asks what
the package is buying.

Compono is a talent intelligence platform: an applicant tracking system and an employee engagement platform built on the same people data. Payroll and finance tools price the seat well. Most of them have nothing to say about whether the person in it fits, or will still be there when the package is reviewed.

Step 4 asks what the package is buying. Compono answers it on both sides: a validated fit read before the offer, so the cost above is committed to someone who can do the job in your team, and a continuous read of engagement afterwards, so you know whether the return is arriving. The number above is the price. This is how you see what it bought.

See how it works
Compono
$34M
saved by VicRoads over two years

Common questions

What superannuation rate does this use?

It defaults to 12%, the superannuation guarantee rate that applies from 1 July 2025 (Australian Taxation Office). You can override the rate if your arrangement differs.

Why are the employer and employee views different?

The employer view counts everything the business pays out. The employee view counts everything the person receives as recognisable value. On-costs and some salary-sacrifice items show in one view but not the other, which is why the totals rarely match.

Does this calculate income tax or take-home pay after tax?

No. This tool decomposes the package into its cost components. It does not model personal income tax, so take-home base here means base pay before tax, not net pay in the bank.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the relevant authority in your country or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.

Next step

Business case

Build the business case

Turn this number into a document your CFO can question line by line.

Open the builder →Related tool

True cost of an employee calculator

Keep the same numbers moving. The next calculator picks up where this one stops.

Run it next →HR Glossary

Full-time equivalent (FTE)

The plain-English definition, with the calculators and rules that sit around it.

Read the definition →Talk to us

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