Sales rep turnover cost calculator

How much does it cost when a sales rep leaves?

More than the hiring bill, and less than the round numbers you see online. A departure costs money in three different ways. Some of it leaves the bank account: severance, an agency fee, job ads, training. Some of it is time your team spends instead of selling: interviews, onboarding, the manager redistributing accounts. And most of it is output that never happens: the weeks of notice when the rep has already left in their head, the empty seat, then the months it takes the replacement to reach full speed.

One thing works the other way: while the seat is empty, you do not pay it. Most turnover calculators forget that line, which is why they come out so high. This one subtracts it, and counts lost output in margin, not in revenue, since revenue you never made did not cost you its full amount.

With the default example (an SDR on $55,000 base and $25,000 variable, the Bridge Group medians), a departure costs about a third of annual pay. Raise the value of a meeting or slow the ramp-up and it climbs quickly: the empty seat and the replacement’s ramp-up are the two largest lines, far ahead of hiring itself.

SDR tenure, ramp time and turnover: the published figures

Where the usual numbers come from, and how much weight each deserves (checked November 2026).

• 40% a year

  Industry survey

  The Bridge Group, 2025 SDR Metrics Report (February 6, 2025, 351 B2B companies)

  Median SDR attrition in 2024, with half of teams between 21 and 57%. It breaks down into 13 points involuntary, 11 voluntary and 16 promotions: a promotion empties the SDR seat too, which is why the calculator offers it as a departure type. The same report gives an average tenure of 1.9 years, an average ramp-up of 3.0 months (the calculator’s default) and a median OTE of $80,000 split $55,000 base and $25,000 variable.

• $5,475

  Member survey

  SHRM, 2025 Recruiting Benchmarking (October 15, 2025, 2,371 respondents)

  Average cost per hire for non-executive roles ($35,879 for executives). It covers the hiring process only: no empty seat, no ramp-up. That is the “hiring” line of the calculator, not the cost of a departure.

• 0.5× to 2× salary

  Estimate, all jobs

  Gallup, “This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion” (March 13, 2019)

  Gallup states that replacing an employee “can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary,” calling it a conservative estimate. It covers every kind of job and gives no line-by-line method, so use it as a sanity check, not as your number.

Six-figure “cost of a lost SDR” claims circulate without a method. Your own number depends on four inputs above all: what a month of the seat is worth, how long it stays empty, how long the ramp-up takes, and how often it happens.

How the calculator works

The baseline is simple: the rep stays. The calculator only counts what changes when they leave, line by line.

1. 1

   Value the seat in margin

   For an SDR: meetings held per month × the margin one meeting brings (deal size × margin × close rate). For a closing rep: monthly revenue × gross margin. Revenue would overstate the loss.

2. 2

   Notice and severance

   During notice the rep is paid as usual, so the cost is the output they no longer produce. Severance depends on the law and the type of departure: none for a resignation, a contractual amount in the US, a statutory minimum in France.

3. 3

   The empty seat, both ways

   Output lost while nobody holds the seat, minus what colleagues absorb, minus the loaded pay you no longer spend.

4. 4

   Hiring and onboarding

   Outside costs (agency fee or job ads, training, equipment) plus the internal hours of everyone involved, at their loaded hourly cost.

5. 5

   The ramp-up curve

   The replacement is paid in full but reaches full output only after a few months. A steady curve loses half of the output over that period, a slow start two thirds, a fast start one third.

6. 6

   Pipeline, accounts and the manager

   Meetings or deals lost in the handover, customers who follow the rep, and the manager’s extra hours. Then the yearly cost: one departure × team size × attrition rate.

Severance and notice: what the law says

A summary for a United States or French employer, checked November 2026 against official sources. Information, not legal advice: your contracts and any collective agreement can change the amounts.

• United States: severance is a choice

  There is no requirement in the Fair Labor Standards Act for severance pay; it comes from a contract, a policy or a negotiation. For a single departure, notice is a custom, not a federal requirement: the WARN Act only covers plant closings and mass layoffs.

  U.S. Department of Labor, Severance Pay

• France: statutory severance

  After 8 months of continuous service, a dismissed employee is owed at least 1/4 month of pay per year of service up to 10 years, then 1/3 per year beyond, partial years pro rata.

  Service-public.fr, Indemnité de licenciement (checked June 5, 2026)

• France: mutual termination (rupture conventionnelle)

  The payment cannot be lower than statutory severance, whatever the length of service. Since January 1, 2026, the employer also pays a 40% contribution (up from 30%) on the part exempt from social charges.

  France Travail, Rupture conventionnelle en 2026 (September 7, 2026)

• France: resignation notice

  The law does not set its length: the collective agreement, the contract or local custom does. An employer who waives the notice on its own must still pay it.

  Service-public.fr, Préavis de démission (checked July 8, 2026)

Common mistakes when pricing turnover

• Counting the empty seat’s salary as a loss

  You stop paying the rep the day they leave. The loss is the margin the seat would have produced, minus that pay.

• Counting revenue instead of margin

  A deal you did not close did not cost you its full revenue, only the margin it would have left.

• Forgetting the ramp-up

  The new rep is on payroll from day one and at full speed months later. It is often one of the two largest lines.

• Counting interviews twice

  If interview hours are in hiring, do not add them again to the manager’s time.

• Ignoring promotions

  A promoted SDR is good news, but the seat still has to be filled and ramped. In the Bridge Group data, promotions are 16 of the 40 points of attrition.

• Using a generic 2× salary

  That figure is the top of a range covering every job. Your number depends on what the seat produces and how fast you replace it.

How to reduce the cost of sales rep turnover

Two ways: fewer departures, or cheaper ones. The second is often faster.

• Shorten the empty seat

  Keep a job description and an interview scorecard ready, keep in touch with the runners-up of the last hire, and start hiring as soon as the notice is handed in.

• Shorten the ramp-up

  A written 30-60-90 day plan, call reviews from the first week, call lists ready before day one.

• Protect the handover

  Calls, notes, next steps and open deals logged in shared tools, so accounts do not go cold when their owner leaves.

• Keep reps longer

  A comp plan they can hit, less admin, a visible path to the next role. The calculator tells you how much each point of attrition is worth.

Related tools and guides

Before the hire, during the ramp-up, and to keep the reps you have.

• Sales Rep ROI Calculator The other side of the coin: when a new rep pays for themselves.
• 30-60-90 Day Onboarding Plan A ready-to-use plan to shorten the ramp-up.
• Sales Job Description Generator Post the replacement’s job the day the notice arrives.
• SDR Interview Scorecard Structured interviews that end in a decision.
• In-House vs Outsourced SDR Calculator Hire again, or hand prospecting to an agency?
• SDR Variable Pay Simulator A comp plan reps can hit is a retention lever.
• How to reduce SDR turnover Why SDRs leave and the retention playbook.
• SDR onboarding plan The first weeks of a new SDR, step by step.
• SDR interview questions Questions, role play and red flags.
• SDR salary in the US Base, variable and OTE benchmarks.