What the employer pays, what the employee pays, and the weighted share across coverage tiers. A simple average across tiers is wrong when most of your population sits in one of them. Every number on this page is calculated in your browser and never leaves your device.
Use the monthly premium for each tier, the part of it your organization pays, and how many people are enrolled in that tier today. The figures already in the boxes are examples to show the format, not benchmark data. If you have multiple plans (e.g., a PPO and HDHP, run this calculation per type of plan).
Employer share moves at every renewal, and the change from last year is the number that gets asked about. The HRAnalyst™ Workbook is a printable tracker for every calculator on this site, with the formula, the recommended cadence and space for four quarters. Join the list and we will send it, along with new calculators and workforce analytics as they publish.
Formula used
Employee Cost Per Month = Total Premium - Employer Contribution
Employee Cost Per Pay Period = (Employee Cost Per Month × 12) ÷ Pay Periods Per Year
Employer Share = Employer Contribution ÷ Total Premium
Weighted Employer Share = Sum(Employer Contribution × Enrolled) ÷ Sum(Total Premium × Enrolled)
Employer Cost Per Year = Sum(Employer Contribution × Enrolled) × 12
Employer Cost Per Enrolled = Employer Cost Per Year ÷ Sum(Enrolled)
Participation Rate = Sum(Enrolled) ÷ Eligible Employees
The weighted share divides total employer dollars by total premium dollars, so each tier counts in proportion to how many people are enrolled in it. The unweighted average shown beside it adds the four tier percentages and divides by four, which is why the two figures separate as soon as enrollment is uneven. Percentages on this page are calculated from unrounded values and only rounded for display.
The weighted share is the real number. An unweighted average across four tiers treats twenty one family enrollments the same as eighty four employee only enrollments, and produces a figure that does not describe your spending.
The unweighted average answers a question about plan design: on average, across the tiers you offer, how generous is the contribution formula. The weighted share answers a question about money: of every premium dollar leaving the organization this month, what proportion is yours. Both are legitimate figures. Only the second one belongs in a budget conversation, and it is the one people most often calculate the wrong way.
We do not publish an employer share benchmark on this page until the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation series has been loaded and checked against the tier structure this calculator uses. Until that is done the benchmark tile reads as pending rather than showing a figure we have not verified.
An unweighted average describes your plan design. The weighted share describes your spending. When most of your population sits in one tier, the two land several percentage points apart, and only the weighted one answers what finance is asking.
Cost per eligible employee is always the smaller of the two, because it spreads the same spending across everyone who could enroll rather than everyone who did. Name which one you mean every single time you present it.
Benefits costs get published on several different bases. Check the period and the denominator of any outside figure before you set it beside your own, or the comparison tells you nothing.
Put the employer benefits contribution next to salary and show the whole package. Coming soon.
Set what you spend on people against what the organization brings in
The calculators and content on HRAnalyst are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice. Compensation and compliance obligations vary by jurisdiction. Consult qualified counsel before acting on any result.
© 2026 HRAnalyst is a product of CompRatio LLC. All rights reserved.
Looking for salary data? Visit What It Pays™.