BENEFITS VS TURNOVER: WHAT EACH COSTS AND HOW TO BID IT.
A package costs a fixed amount per covered employee every month, whether the crew is busy or not. Replacing a field worker costs money too: the weeks the seat is empty, the recruiting, the onboarding and the weeks of lower output while the new person learns. In the example math below, one year of a package at $7,200 per employee costs about the same as one replacement at $7,380. For a five person crew, the package pays for itself through turnover alone only if it prevents about five departures a year, and that seldom happens. So the decision rests on hiring, on keeping the crew the owner wants, and on putting the cost into the bid rate so winning work does not erode it.
This page sets the two costs side by side, treats the first plan as a cash event, and shows how the cost gets into the bid rate. It does not say which plan to buy. A licensed broker or benefits advisor places plans, and plan rules, tax rules and state law differ, so the owner checks with the plan advisor and a tax professional.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A benefits package cost is what the contractor pays each year for each covered employee for health, dental and vision coverage, and turnover cost is what it pays when a field worker leaves and has to be replaced.
Figures printed here come from surveys cited with their year. Where a survey has no construction number, this page says so, and the worked example uses invented round inputs that the owner replaces with the company's own.
WHAT EACH COSTS.
What a package costs per employee, per year
KFF's 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey reports an average annual premium of $9,325 for single coverage and $26,993 for family coverage. Covered workers paid about 16 percent of the single premium on average, and the employer paid the rest. That survey covers firms with 10 or more workers, so a company with five employees gets quotes from a broker and uses those. Premiums vary by state, carrier, plan design and the ages of the people covered. Dental and vision are priced separately and add to the monthly total.
What losing a field worker costs
The cost has four parts. The vacancy: the crew works short, covers the hours with overtime, or the work waits. The search: ads, screening, owner and foreman time, a drug test. The start: safety orientation, equipment, paid training time. The ramp: a new person produces less than a settled one for weeks, and a crew leader spends time teaching. Gallup's 2019 workplace research puts the cost of replacing an employee at about one-half to two times annual salary across all industries, and calls that conservative. It is not a construction number, and a replacement cost for field workers that is verified and construction specific was not found for this page. The best number for a contractor is its own, counted from the last few people who left.
What the hiring surveys do and do not say
The 2025 AGC and NCCER workforce survey found that 92 percent of responding firms had difficulty hiring for open positions, 48 percent reported new hires who did not report to work or quit quickly, and shortages were the leading cause of project delays at 45 percent. The surveys found for this page did not measure whether a health plan wins hires or keeps them, so this page does not claim it. What the owner can do is count: offers declined, the reason each person gave for leaving, and what competing offers included. KFF's 2025 survey found that 61 percent of firms with 10 or more workers across all industries offered health benefits, which tells an owner what a candidate may be comparing against.
A package is a fixed cost and labor is not
The premium is billed monthly for each covered employee, and it does not change when hours drop. Labor cost follows the hours worked, and the package does not. That changes the cost per billed hour: the same $7,200 a year is $4.00 an hour over 1,800 billed hours and $4.80 over 1,500. A slow winter or a project that gets delayed spreads the plan over fewer billed hours, so each hour costs more.
The first plan is a cash event
When a company with a few employees adds its first plan, the monthly payroll cost goes up by the employer share of every covered employee on the first month of coverage. Premiums are usually billed monthly in advance, while the employee share comes out of paychecks over the month, and it covers only part of the bill. Carriers differ on the start date, on how many eligible employees must enroll, and on the minimum the employer must contribute, so the owner gets those rules from the broker before choosing a start date. Each of these is a line in the cash forecast, and the first renewal is a second cash event with its own page.
Cost added after the bid is signed
A job bid and signed before the plan started uses the old burden rate, and a fixed price contract does not reprice itself when a premium starts. The same thing happens at renewal, when the premium rises in the middle of a job. Pay-when-paid terms make it worse, because the premium is due on the first of the month and the pay application behind that month's labor may still be unpaid.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Take an employer share of $550 a month for medical and $50 a month for dental and vision. That is $600 a month and $7,200 a year per covered employee. Over 1,800 billed field hours it is $4.00 an hour. Over 1,500 billed hours it is $4.80.
Take a field worker paid $30 an hour, with loaded labor cost at $40. A three week vacancy covered by 120 hours of overtime at a $15 premium is $1,800. Recruiting and screening is $1,200. Onboarding, safety orientation and equipment is $1,500. Six weeks, or 240 hours, at 70 percent output loses 240 x 30 percent x $40, which is $2,880. The total is $7,380, before any schedule penalty or backcharge.
Five covered employees at $7,200 is $36,000 a year and $3,000 added to the monthly payroll cost. Divided by $7,380 per replacement, that is about 4.9 departures a year avoided before turnover savings alone cover the plan cost. The rest of the case is hiring and keeping the people the company wants, and the bid rate has to recover the $36,000 either way.
WHAT WE CHANGE.
SPM adds the employer share for each covered employee to the labor burden and divides it by billed hours, not paid hours. In the example, that adds $4.00 to every billed hour for a covered employee, and a blended figure when only part of the crew is covered. The estimating template gets the new rate before the next bid. See the labor burden page.
SPM lists the bids still open and the jobs already signed. Open bids are repriced with the new rate. Signed fixed price jobs keep the old rate, so SPM shows the owner what the plan costs on each of them, and change orders and extra work get the new rate.
SPM adds the monthly premium, the employee deductions and the first renewal date to the 13 week cash forecast, and checks the working capital before the owner picks a start date. The cost of the first hire and the question of when to hire are covered on the first employee and the afford to hire pages.
SPM sets up a simple record for each departure: the weeks the seat was empty, the overtime, the recruiting, the onboarding and the output on the job. After a year the owner has the company's own number to set against the survey ranges, along with the reason each person gave for leaving. It goes on the agenda of the monthly meeting.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 | $1,000 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 | $1,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 | $3,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 | $4,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 | $6,000 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 | $7,500 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 | $9,000 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually | Quoted individually |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we do the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Your office stops answering coding questions and stops fixing a reconciliation that will not balance on the last day of the month.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the books, the job costing, and the software. No payroll.
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