Headcount Budget Calculator NZ 2026
This calculator costs a hiring plan across a year and gives you the two numbers a budget actually needs: what the plan costs in year one, and what it costs once everyone is in place for a full twelve months. Those are different figures and confusing them is one of the most common planning errors there is. Someone starting in month seven costs half a year in year one and a full year from then on, so a plan that looks affordable in the first budget can arrive the following year with a step change nobody flagged. You enter each planned hire as a row: how many people, their salary, the month they start, and the one off cost of recruiting and setting each of them up. The calculator phases the salary by start month, adds employer KiwiSaver and the ACC work levy on top, adds the setup costs once per person, and reports the year one total alongside the full year run rate. Two things worth adding to any plan built this way. Equipment, software licences and workspace are real per person costs and belong in the setup figure rather than being discovered later. And any team of size loses someone during a year, so a plan that assumes nobody leaves will understate both the cost and the hiring effort needed to reach the target headcount. It is built for owners, managers and finance people putting a staffing plan in front of a board or a bank.
| Role | How many | Salary each | Start month (1 to 12) | Year one salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $140,000 | |||
| 2 | $67,500 | |||
| 3 | $30,000 | |||
| 4 | $0 | |||
| 5 | $0 | |||
| 6 | $0 |
The run rate is what the same plan costs once everyone has been in place for a full twelve months, and it is the number the following year's budget has to carry. Setup and recruitment are one off and do not repeat.
How it works
Each row's year one salary is the number of people multiplied by the salary, multiplied by the share of the year they are there. Starting in month one gives twelve months, month four gives nine, month seven gives six, and so on. The plan's year one salary total is the sum of the rows. Employer KiwiSaver and the ACC work levy are applied to that total, and the setup cost is added once for every person hired. The full year run rate repeats the calculation with every role costed for a whole twelve months, which is what the plan will cost from the following year regardless of when people actually started. Setup and recruitment are excluded from the run rate because they are one off.
Worked example
A plan hires two people on $70,000 from month one, one on $90,000 from month four and one on $60,000 from month seven, with $3,000 of recruitment and setup for each. In year one the first pair cost a full $140,000, the second hire costs nine twelfths of $90,000 which is $67,500, and the third costs six twelfths of $60,000 which is $30,000, so $237,500 of salary. Employer KiwiSaver at 3.5 percent and an ACC work levy of 0.67 percent add about $9,904, and four lots of setup add $12,000, giving a year one cost of roughly $259,404. Once everyone has been in place a full year the same four roles cost about $302,093, which is nearly $43,000 more than the first year and is the figure the next budget has to absorb.
Related calculators
- Agency Fee or In House: how to fill these roles.
- True Cost of an Employee: the loaded cost of one of them.
- FTE: the plan expressed as full time equivalent.
- Span of Control: how many people the roster actually needs.