Payroll Cost Calculator
Add employees and estimate wages, employer payroll taxes, benefits, and the true annual cost per employee and across the whole team.
2026 FEDERAL BASIS: Employer Social Security is 6.2% up to $184,500 per employee and employer Medicare is 1.45%. FUTA defaults to 0.6% of the first $7,000 but remains editable.
| EMPLOYEE / ROLE | PAY BASIS | WAGES | EMPLOYER TAXES | BENEFITS + OTHER | TRUE ANNUAL COST | ACTIONS |
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HOW THE ESTIMATE IS BUILTVIEW CALCULATION BREAKDOWN
LOCAL TOOL: Employee labels and payroll assumptions stay in your browser and are not sent to WhateverTools. This is a planning estimate, not tax, accounting, legal, or payroll advice.
How much does an employee really cost?
An employee's salary or hourly wages are only the starting point. Employers may also pay their share of Social Security and Medicare, federal and state unemployment taxes, workers' compensation, health or other benefits, retirement contributions, bonuses, training, equipment, and other recurring employment costs. This calculator keeps those buckets separate so you can see the loaded cost per employee and the total payroll budget for the team.
Basic formula: true employee cost = wages + employer payroll taxes + benefits + retirement match + workers' compensation + other employer costs.
The federal payroll-tax values are visible instead of hidden.
For 2026, the employer Social Security rate is 6.2% on covered wages up to the $184,500 Social Security wage base, and the employer Medicare rate is 1.45% with no wage-base limit. The IRS standard FUTA rate is 6.0% on the first $7,000 of wages, with a credit of up to 5.4% that commonly produces a 0.6% effective rate. FUTA credit-reduction rules and employer-specific circumstances can change that amount, which is why the FUTA rate and wage base are editable here.
Official references: IRS Publication 15 (2026) and IRS FUTA credit-reduction guidance.
This answers the employer's question, not the employee's take-home-pay question.
Use this Payroll Cost Calculator when you want to estimate what a worker or a whole team costs the business. If you are trying to estimate what an employee may actually receive after federal tax, FICA, deductions, and state income tax, use the 2026 Paycheck Calculator instead.