🧱 Burden Builder: Your True Employer Cost
Know your REAL cost before you price anything. Your burden rate is the foundation of every bill rate, markup, and margin in the How To Charge suite; if it is wrong, every price you set is wrong. This calculator builds it line by line: employer payroll taxes, insurance and compliance, and operational costs, each converted to dollars per hour. Pick your state to load 2025 new-employer SUTA and workers comp planning defaults (editable, verify with your agency and carrier), see your pricing floor, and use the converter to turn any annual dollar bill into a rate.
Picking a state fills the SUTA and workers comp lines below with 2025 new-employer planning defaults. They stay editable; verify with your rate notice and carrier.
Step 1 · Your base pay rate
What you pay the worker per hour.
Step 2 · Employer payroll taxes (W2 employees)
6.2% up to the wage base limit ($184,500 in 2026).
1.45%, no wage limit.
0.6% effective after the SUTA credit, on the first $7,000.
YOUR state rate. Ranges 0.5% to 7%+. Pick your state above to load a planning default.
Step 3 · Insurance & compliance costs
Ask your WC carrier for your rate. Healthcare roles: 2% to 8%+ by class code.
Typically 0.3% to 1%. Annual premium divided by total payroll.
Required for clinical placements.
If 50+ FTEs, the ACA mandate applies.
Per-hire cost spread across hours.
Step 4 · Operational costs (optional, per-hour allocation)
Many staffing firms do not offer PTO.
ADP, Paychex, etc.
Indeed, LinkedIn, referral bonuses.
Typically 2% to 5% off the bill rate. Comes off YOUR margin.
Converter Step A · Your annual payroll base
Got a workers comp bill or insurance quote as a dollar amount? This converts it to a % and $/hr you can plug into Steps 2 and 3.
Average headcount over the year.
Converter Step B · Your annual costs (dollar amounts)
Your WC carrier annual premium or audit.
Monthly bill x 12.
Estimates for planning, not financial or legal advice. The numbers are illustrations built from your inputs; your market, your state, and your carrier decide the real ones.
Does this resonate?
You know your real cost. Now build the agency around it.
The platform's staffing agency roadmap walks you from entity setup through insurance, contracts, and your first placement, with this burden number priced in from day one.
Build my launch plan free →Good questions about this math
What is payroll burden and what belongs in it?
Everything employing a W2 worker costs beyond the wage: the employer share of Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%), FUTA (0.6% effective), your state's SUTA, workers comp, general and professional liability, health/ACA costs, screening and credentialing, plus operational lines like payroll processing and recruiting. Most staffing burdens land between 12% and 25% of pay.
How does the state dropdown work?
Pick your state and the calculator loads 2025 new-employer planning defaults: the SUI rate spread over your annual wages plus a typical field-labor workers comp band. They fill the SUTA and workers comp lines but stay editable, and every state's entry carries the same honesty note: your assigned rate comes from your state notice and your carrier, so verify before quoting.
My insurance quotes are dollar amounts, not percentages. How do I convert them?
Use the built-in converter: enter your headcount, hours, average pay, and each annual dollar cost, and it computes the percentage of payroll and dollars per hour for every line. Formula: annual cost / total annual payroll. A $18,000 workers comp premium on $561,600 of payroll is 3.21%.
What is the pricing floor?
Pay rate plus burden dollars per hour: the bill rate at which you break even before overhead. The calculator also shows bill rates and real gross profit at 45%, 55%, and 65% markup so you can see how much room each markup actually leaves.
Which other calculators use this number?
The Markup, Multiplier, W2 vs 1099 vs C2C, Budget & Revenue Simulator, and Goals & Financial Roadmap calculators all take your total burden percentage as an input. Build it here first; the master workbook links those tabs to this one for the same reason.
Do I get the Excel version?
Yes. The $27 one-time unlock includes the standalone Burden Builder workbook with every formula live plus the START HERE guide tab.
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