SaaS Headcount & Hiring Plan Calculator
Payroll is usually a SaaS company's biggest cost. Build your team role by role, add cash and revenue, and see total payroll, monthly burn and the runway your hiring plan leaves, before you sign the offers.
Your numbers
Your team / hiring plan
Add each role with its headcount and fully-loaded monthly cost (base salary plus benefits, taxes, equipment and overhead, often 1.2–1.4× base).
Cost by role
| Role | Heads | Cost / head | Monthly cost | % of payroll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | - | - | 100% |
How the headcount planner works
Add each role with its headcount and fully-loaded monthly cost, then your cash, revenue and non-payroll costs. The calculator totals your payroll, works out monthly net burn (payroll + other costs − revenue), and divides your cash by that burn to get runway. It's a static snapshot, it holds revenue flat, so treat the runway as the conservative "if nothing else changes" figure. For growth over time, use the scenario calculator or a full model.
Use fully-loaded cost, not base salary
The most common headcount-planning mistake is budgeting base salaries and being surprised by the real bill. A role's fully-loaded cost adds employer payroll taxes, benefits, software, equipment and a share of overhead on top of salary, commonly 1.2–1.4× base. Plan with the loaded number and the runway you see is the runway you'll actually get.
Why headcount is the lever that matters
For most SaaS companies, people are 60–70% of total spend, which makes the hiring plan the single biggest driver of burn and runway. Two extra engineers can quietly shorten runway by months. That's why every offer is really a runway decision: the question isn't just "can this hire add value?" but "does the payoff land before the cash does?" Model the plan first, see the headcount planning guide for when to make the key hires, and hire deliberately. This is a fast estimate, not a forecast; for phased hiring against a live model, build it in a full financial model.
Save your hiring plan
Planning your next hires? Subscribe and we'll send this plan plus founder-friendly runway and fundraising guides.
Tie hiring to the whole model
Adlega turns a headcount plan into a live model, phase hires over time, see the impact on runway and cash month by month, and goal-seek to a target.