# Everything that goes into cost per hire, including what nobody invoices you for

Canonical: https://metix.ai/blog/cost-per-hire-breakdown

SHRM's benchmark average is $4,683 and its median is $1,244 (2021 data, published 2022), but the biggest cost-per-hire line appears on neither: hiring-manager and interviewer hours, which nobody invoices. The full component list, tool prices checked August 2026, and the hours-times-loaded-rate method for pricing the invisible slice.
Cost-per-hire breakdown: SHRM's $4,683 average vs $1,244 median (2021 data) and 2025 medians of $1,200/$10,625, the ANSI/SHRM external-plus-internal formula, ATS and sourcing subscriptions checked August 2026, agency fees, and the hours-times-loaded-rate method showing hiring-manager and interviewer time as the largest, uninvoiced component.
## FAQ

**What is the average cost per hire?**

SHRM's benchmark, published in 2022 from 2021 survey data, put the average at $4,683, widely rounded to nearly $4,700, with a median of $1,244 in the same table. SHRM's 2025 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking brief reports medians only: $1,200 for nonexecutive roles and $10,625 for executives. Averages get dragged upward by a handful of expensive hires, which is why the median is the more useful of the two numbers when they diverge this far.

**What costs count in cost per hire?**

The ANSI/SHRM cost-per-hire standard defines it as total external costs plus total internal costs, divided by total hires. External costs are invoiced: job ads, ATS and sourcing subscriptions, agency fees, referral bonuses, checks, travel, and relocation. Internal costs are mostly time, and SHRM's component list names only recruiter pay and benefits; hiring-manager and interviewer hours appear nowhere on it, and they are commonly the largest component.

**How do you calculate the cost of interviewer time?**

Hours spent on the hire, multiplied by the loaded hourly rate of the people spending them, where loaded means salary plus benefits, employer taxes, and overhead. An illustrative loop of six candidates through four one-hour interviews, plus screens, debriefs, and coordination, totals about 55 hours; at an assumed $90 loaded rate that is roughly $4,950 for one hire. Every input is an assumption rather than a statistic, and the result still rivals SHRM's entire published average.

**How does Metix AI reduce cost per hire?**

By attacking the internal line: candidates are screened for fit and interest before they reach your panel. Plans run $99 to $499 a month and include monthly Credits and AI Agents; Credits meter contact unlocks, Deep Search lists, and additional AI Agents rather than candidates delivered. The free 14-day trial includes 1 AI Agent and 500 Credits with no card required.