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Every setup has a cost. Here are four.

None of these four knew the number until we counted it.

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Four results

How we count

Clients are described, not named.

Every client figure on this page comes from a payroll export or the client's own estimate, and each case says which.

Figures marked † are industry benchmarks. We show them so you can see the size of the risk. No client on this page paid them.

  • Measured ·
  • Client-reported ·
  • Estimate ·
  • † Benchmark

VC-backed SaaS · Rippling

92% less onboarding work. About $66,000 a year back.

If every new hire takes days of someone's hands-on time, you pay twice: once in hours, and again if the hire walks.

What it was costing them

Every new hire took 25 hours of hand work: accounts, laptops, benefits, then chasing whatever got missed. At $80 an hour and three hires a month, that's $6,000 a month before the new person did a day of real work.

What it was risking

The hours are the small number. A hire who starts without access, a laptop or benefits starts doubting the decision. Gallup puts the cost of replacing an employee at one-half to two times their salary.† For a $150,000 engineer, that's $75,000 to $300,000. Lose one hire a year to a bad first week and it costs more than a year of setup hours.

What we did

  • Built one Rippling sequence. Add the person once, and accounts, laptop and benefits follow.
  • Put identity first in the sequence, so access is right on day one.
  • Left the team with review and exceptions. Nothing else.

Before and after

BeforeClient-reportedAfterClient-reported
Hands-on hours per hire25Under 2
Setup cost per month (3 hires)$6,000Under $480
Setup cost per year$72,000Under $5,760

More than $5,500 a month back. About $66,000 a year. And every hire starts ready.

What we'd do differently:
We started device provisioning before the client had settled on an identity provider, and redid part of it when the access model changed. We agree the identity model first now.
Evidence:
Before is client-reported: 25 hours per hire at $80 an hour fully loaded, three hires a month. After is client-reported: under 2 hours per hire with the new sequence. †Gallup, 2019. The $150,000 salary is an example, not this client's number.
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Healthcare · 3 entities · Payroll inherited in an acquisition · Biweekly

80% less payroll time. About $23,000 a year back.

If payroll only works because one person knows the spreadsheet, you have a single point of failure on a two week timer.

What it was costing them

Payroll came with an acquisition and was never rebuilt. Every two weeks, the Director of Operations spent 12 to 13 hours reconciling three entities by hand, sometimes after hours. That's about 325 hours and $29,250 a year of a director's time.

What it was risking

If she was out, payroll was at risk. And every manual reconciliation is a chance for an error. EY puts the average cost of one payroll error at $291.†

What we did

  • Put all three entities on one payroll platform.
  • Wrote each entity's rules into an SOP, so she could hand the work off.
  • Moved exception review to the start of the cycle, away from the deadline.

Before and after

BeforeClient-reportedAfterClient-reported
Hours per cycle~12.5~2.5
Hours per year~325~65
Director time per year~$29,250~$5,850

With the SOP in hand, she started delegating. She reviews payroll now. She used to rebuild it every two weeks.

260 hours a year back. About $23,000 of director time.

What we'd do differently:
The SOP came second. It should have come first. Writing it earlier would have surfaced entity rules nobody had written down.
Evidence:
Time valued at $90 an hour. Hours are client-reported midpoints across 26 cycles. †EY, 2022. An industry benchmark, not this client's number.
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In progress · Digital agency · Team paid in several countries · Rippling

The founder is out of payroll. 5 to 6 hours a month back.

If you're the founder and you still run payroll, every hour there is an hour you're not selling or hiring.

What it was costing them

There was no HR function. Payroll, time and contractor pay sat in separate tools, and the founder spent 5 to 6 hours a month holding it together.

What it was risking

A team built mostly on contractors across countries carries misclassification risk. In California, willful misclassification carries civil penalties of $5,000 to $15,000 per violation, and $10,000 to $25,000 per violation for a pattern or practice.†

What we did

  • Took the founder out of payroll.
  • Built the HR function from nothing: payroll, time and contractor pay on one platform, new hire access tied to onboarding, quarterly reviews and applicant tracking added.
  • Advised them through the move from contractors to an employer of record (EOR), one country at a time.
  • Ran onboarding and hiring support through the move, so growth didn't wait.

Before and after

BeforeClient-reportedThis yearClient-reported
Founder hours on payroll5 to 6 a month0
Payroll, time and contractor paySeparate toolsOne platform

The founder hasn't touched payroll since.

Where it stands:
The EOR move is still underway. Full results publish when it's done.
Evidence:
Hours and growth are client-reported. †California Labor Code 226.8. Industry context, not a penalty this client faced.
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Lending · 3 entities · Payroll in 8 states

Over $450k in hidden cost and compliance exposure, found and put right.

The company was growing fast, and finance was running HR on top of closing the books for three entities. Nobody had looked under the hood of payroll, benefits or compliance.

  • Payroll overspend

    $300k a year

    Overtime ran about $8,000 a week, and nobody saw it until payroll closed. We put it on a daily report with a morning alert. Two months in, it was under $1,000 a week, 88% less.

  • Benefits errors

    About $104k a year

    Coverage tiers were wrong, people were on the wrong plans, departed employees were still being billed, and active employees were missing from the life insurance bill. We rebuilt the benefits setup alongside the company’s benefits broker.

  • Compliance exposure

    Up to $48.6k in potential I-9 fines

    We found the missing I-9s and reverified the whole team. The last forms are closing now.

  • Harassment training

    Required harassment training was overdue. It is back on a calendar, with the owner enforcing it. That risk is not counted in the total.

  • We took over a stalled Rippling implementation and finished it: 3 entities, payroll registered in 8 states.

Over $450k in cost and exposure: about $404k a year, plus up to $48.6k in potential I-9 penalties.

The I-9 figure is the maximum potential penalty under current federal rates.

Where it stands:
The company moved to an ongoing managed people operations retainer.
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How the work runs

Fixed scope and fee agreed in writing. Extra work only with your written approval.

  1. Discovery,
  2. configuration,
  3. validation,
  4. go-live, then
  5. handoff:
    • training and docs,
    • 30 days of hypercare and
    • a 60 day defect warranty.

Full scope is on each service page.

See each service page

Who runs the work

We ran HR inside a law firm as it grew from about 50 to 1,000+ people. That is where the bar was set.

Every engagement runs to it:

  • a named owner,
  • a written scope, and
  • the same team that built the system running the operation behind it.

What is your setup costing you?

Twenty minutes by video. Bring your headcount and your pay cycle, and we'll give you a first number.

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