The advertised wage is only one part of a hiring decision. Recruiting, equipment, benefits, entered payroll burden, training and the time taken from an experienced mentor all arrive before the new person reaches steady output. Hiring Cost, Ramp-Up & Capacity Lab puts those costs on the same timeline as the capacity the business expects to gain. It is built for small and medium-sized businesses that weigh a new role, a contractor or overtime against the cash they have.

Compare a full-time employee, part-time hire, contractor, overtime and the no-hire baseline. Build a weekly productivity ramp instead of assuming full output on day one. Subtract mentor time and other displacement. Cap the benefit at real incremental demand, so unused capacity is not presented as sales.

The cash view shows one-time setup, recurring cost, incremental contribution, cumulative result and the lowest cash point. A capacity solution can therefore fail the funding gate even when it becomes profitable later. The report also shows the extra steady units needed to cover the recurring cost and the first break-even week when one exists.

Worked example from the fictional demo: 40 paid hours at $20 cost $800 a week; an entered 10% payroll burden adds $80 and benefits add $120, so the recurring cost is $1,000 a week. Recruiting and equipment of $5,000 are paid once in week 1. At one order per productive hour, a ramp of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% gives 10, 20, 30 and 40 orders, and five mentor hours in week 1 reduce the net gain to 5 orders. At $50 contribution per order the role needs 20 extra orders a week to cover its recurring cost — and because customers want only 30 extra orders a week, the rest of the capacity is shown as idle, not as sales. The lowest balance is $5,750 against a $5,000 floor and cumulative cash turns positive in week 12.

Gates come before any result. An option counts only if it delivers the required capacity by the week you set, keeps every week-end balance above your cash floor and stays within the mentor time your team can spare. Among the options that pass, the tool shows the one with the highest objective you choose — cumulative cash, NPV at your own rate, the highest lowest balance or net capacity. If no option passes every gate, it says so and shows the trade-offs instead of picking the least bad card.

The program uses payroll burden, benefit rules and worker classification entered by the user. It is not payroll, an applicant tracker or employment advice. Its job is to make assumptions comparable and visible. No AI guesses: every result shows its working, with the formula, inputs, rounding and assumptions one click away.

Try the three fictional demos — employee vs contractor vs overtime, a fast hire with deep mentor loss, and a strong capacity case that still breaks the early cash floor — then buy once for the full online tool and the offline file, or open it with an active PRO subscription.