Remote vs On-Location Worker Cost Calculator

A remote versus on-location comparison is not only a rent line on the P&L. Fully loaded cost per person already bundles salary, benefits, equipment, software, and workplace overhead. Productivity then rescales headcount into an output proxy: 60 people at 90% productivity count as 54 productive employees. Dividing total cost by that productive headcount shows whether a cheaper remote package still delivers output at a lower unit cost. The remote vs on-location worker cost calculator requires remote headcount plus on-site headcount to equal the total. Total staffing cost = remote employees × remote cost + on-site employees × on-site cost. Productivity-adjusted employees = remote × (remote productivity / 100) + on-site × (on-site productivity / 100). Cost per productive employee = total cost / productive employees. Remote cost share is the remote payroll slice of total cost, not the remote share of headcount. Finance and people teams use the model when a lease is up, when a hybrid policy is rewritten, or when a vendor sells “30% savings from remote work” without an output adjustment. If on-site cost is $95,000 with 100% productivity and remote cost is $70,000 at 90%, the remote package can still win on unit cost. If remote productivity collapses because of coordination loss, the unit-cost advantage disappears even though the wage bill fell. Costs must share a period—annual fully loaded cost is the usual choice—and productivity should be a relative index, not a utilization guess mixed with overtime hours. The model ignores hiring difficulty, tax nexus, security, and attrition. Hybrid workers who split weeks should be assigned to the group that owns their desk cost, or split into two lines in separate scenarios. Treat the result as a planning identity, then validate costs with HR and workplace finance before a location policy change that you cannot reverse quickly.