# Work out the true cost of my first employee

A line-by-line budget for a first hire, including taxes, insurance, and training time, plus what the role must bring in to pay off.

- Topic: HR & Hiring
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: HR & Hiring, Finance, Plan, Fill-in Template, Step-by-step
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/work-out-the-true-cost-of-my-first-employee

## Prompt

```text
Help me budget for my first employee and see what they need to bring in to pay for themselves. This is step 2 of the 'Hire your first employee' pack; if you have the recommendation from step 1, paste it in.

**Role and hours:** [e.g. "part-time shop assistant, 25 hrs/week"]
**Pay I have in mind:** [HOURLY RATE or SALARY, or 'help me check a range']
**Location:** [COUNTRY/STATE/CITY]
**Benefits I plan to offer:** [paid time off, health, retirement, none yet]
**Equipment, software, or space they'll need:** [LIST]
**Step 1 output (optional):** [PASTE]

Build:
1. A cost table with line items: gross pay, employer payroll taxes and mandatory contributions, workers' compensation or equivalent insurance, benefits, equipment and software, recruiting costs, and my own time spent training in the first 3 months. Mark any rate you don't know for my location as [CONFIRM: local rate] rather than guessing.
2. Monthly and annual totals, and the fully loaded cost as a multiple of base pay.
3. A break-even view: how much extra revenue, or how many of my hours freed up, the role needs to justify itself, and by when.
4. A checklist of setup tasks before the first payday (e.g. registering as an employer, choosing a payroll system, required workplace notices) to verify with my accountant or local labor authority.

Keep the numbers easy to edit so I can plug in real figures. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
```

## What to fill in

- e.g. "part-time shop assistant, 25 hrs/week"
- HOURLY RATE or SALARY, or 'help me check a range'
- COUNTRY/STATE/CITY
- paid time off, health, retirement, none yet
- LIST
- PASTE
- CONFIRM: local rate

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.