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Training ROI calculator

Work out the real return on your training spend, in dollars and as a ratio, before the next budget conversation.

Your numbers

Design, delivery, and time off the job
Productivity gain, error reduction, retention value
Training ROI
 
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What counts as a benefit in training ROI?

Anything you can put a dollar figure against: higher output per person, fewer errors or rework, less unplanned attrition, faster competence in role. If you cannot monetise it, keep it as a separate qualitative note rather than forcing it into the ROI figure.

How we calculated this

We subtract your total program cost from the annual benefit you monetised, divide the difference by the cost and multiply by 100. That is the return on investment (ROI) percentage, the fifth level of the Phillips ROI Methodology, which sits above Kirkpatrick's four levels of reaction, learning, behaviour and results. We also show the benefit-cost ratio (BCR), the benefit divided by the cost, because a ratio travels better in a budget meeting than a percentage does. The number stands for how much value the program returned for every dollar it consumed, on your figures alone. The working, the assumptions and the sources are below.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of competency frameworks in the HR Glossary.

Your working
Assumptions
  • The benefit is the monetised annual benefit you entered, and the result is only as defensible as that figure. Count only what you can put a dollar against (output per person, rework avoided, exits avoided, weeks to competence saved) and keep the rest as a qualitative note. An optimistic benefit inflates the return more than any other input.
  • The maths credits the whole benefit to the training. The Phillips method requires you to isolate the program's effect from everything else that moved the number (a new manager, a price rise, a strong quarter, a system that finally worked). Until you have done that, treat the result as an upper bound.
  • Total cost should include design, delivery, materials, and the salary value of time off the job. Leaving out time off the job, the largest cost in most programs, overstates the return.
  • No universal benchmark exists. Vendor-quoted ROI ranges have no traceable primary source and are not used here. Phillips is a way of measuring return, never a promised return.
  • The view is one year: an annual benefit against a one-off cost. If the benefit persists into year two the multi-year return is higher; if it fades, lower.
Sources

What to do about it

A return figure is an argument, and the argument is only as strong as the benefit line behind it. Most training reporting stops at attendance and satisfaction because nobody was ever asked to go further. These steps are for whoever owns the learning and development (L&D) budget line, or has to justify it to the person who does.

1

Rebuild the benefit line before you show the number to anyone

List every dollar you claimed and where it came from: output per person, rework avoided, exits avoided, weeks to competence saved. Strike anything you cannot trace to a record. Then discount for what else could have moved it (a new manager, say, or a strong quarter). A smaller, defensible return beats a large one that dies at the first question.

2

Take the ratio, the cost and the isolation note into the budget meeting together

A ratio with the working attached is a funding case; a bare percentage is a claim. Put the program cost, the benefit line and one sentence on what you did not credit to the training on a single page. Finance trusts a number more when it arrives with its own caveat.

3
Where a tool helps

Measure capability from the next cohort on, and stop counting completions as proof

Attendance and satisfaction tell you people showed up. Decide what someone should be able to do after the program that they could not do before, and assess that on the job four to eight weeks later. That assessment is the evidence the benefit line depends on, and almost nobody collects it.

4

Price time off the job and put it in the cost

The salary value of hours out of the role is the largest cost in most programs and the one most often left out. Add it, even if the return falls. A return that survives the full cost is one you can repeat next year without an argument.

5

Re-run this for every program above a threshold, every quarter

Pick a spend level above which the fifth level is compulsory. Track ROI and BCR by program over four quarters. The programs that keep paying get more; the ones that never clear 1:1 get redesigned or cut. That is the L&D budget defending itself.

Attendance is easy.
Capability is the proof.

Compono Develop is a learning management system (LMS) that tracks what people need to be capable of in their role, and whether they have got there, rather than what they clicked through. It runs the delivery side you expect (courses, enrolments, completions, compliance) and adds the part most LMSs skip: capability mapped to the role, assessed on the job, and visible by person and by team.

That is step 3 done inside the system your training already runs through, so the evidence behind the benefit line collects itself. The return above is only as good as your proof that capability moved. Develop is where that proof lives.

See how it works
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Common questions

What's a good training ROI percentage?

There is no universal benchmark, and vendor-quoted ranges rarely survive scrutiny. The honest answer is that any positive figure where the benefit calculation is conservative and defensible is a result worth reporting.

How is this different from Kirkpatrick?

Kirkpatrick's four levels measure reaction, learning, behaviour, and results. Phillips adds a fifth level that converts those results into a monetised return and isolates the training's contribution. This calculator works at that fifth level.

Is Australian training spend actually growing?

Yes. In Australia, 58% of employers are increasing their skills investment and 93% report having a training budget (AHRI, March quarter 2025), so the question is shifting from whether to invest towards proving the investment worked.

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.

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