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Hire a GTM engineer or use an agency: year-one cost calculator
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At the defaults, a US GTM engineer hire costs about $232,674 in cash in year one: a $157,500 base plus employer payroll tax, benefits, a 20% recruiting fee and $8,000 of tools. A $10,500 build plus twelve months of a $6,500 retainer comes to $88,500. Change any input to your own figures.
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How this calculator works
- Base salary $157,500: OneGTM's median advertised midpoint for US GTM engineer roles, across 444 roles with a published pay range, data as of 2 November 2026. It is the middle of the range each employer advertised, not a salary anyone was paid. (OneGTM, The GTME Data Report Q3 2026)
- Our sister site, which has the same owner as this one, reads base pay from employers' own postings. Its US GTM Engineer figure holds fewer than ten published pay bands on this read; when it reaches ten, its median replaces this default. (GTM Engineering Pay Benchmark, our sister site (same owner))
- Employer payroll tax 7.65%, worked out from the base: 6.2% Social Security on wages up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500 plus 1.45% Medicare on all of them. A $157,500 base is under the cap, so the full rate applies; on a base above $184,500 the rate falls, and the calculator works the rate out again from any base you type, until you type a rate of your own. (IRS Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates)
- Benefits at 15% of base, a 20% contingency recruiting fee and $8,000 a year of tools follow Automation Jinn's itemisation; it puts a hire's first working play five to eight months in, and six is set. (Automation Jinn, Hire a GTM engineer)
- Build $10,500: the midpoint of the $6,000 to $15,000 Automation Jinn gives for a scoped build. (Automation Jinn, Hire a GTM engineer)
- Retainer $6,500 a month: the midpoint of GTMEPulse's $5,000 to $8,000 median monthly fee, from a survey of 228 practitioners of whom 67 run agencies. (GTMEPulse, GTM Engineering Agency Pricing Guide)
- Twelve months of retainer, so the hire and the outsourced side cover the same first year. Two agencies publish their own price and either can be put in instead: Sales.co at $5,500 a month, and RevPartners at $12,900 a month and up with a $25,000 Clay build. None of the defaults is our own price: ours comes back with a written scope. (GTM Agency Fee Index)
What does the calculator count?
Cash in the first year and nothing else. For a hire: base pay, the employer's payroll tax, benefits, the recruiter's fee and the tools the role needs. For outsourcing: a one-off build and a monthly retainer over the same twelve months. The months before a hire ships a working play are shown as the share of that cost paid before anything runs.
What does it leave out?
- Equity, a signing bonus and the employer's time spent on the search and the interviews.
- The cost of a hire who does not work out, and of the months the search takes before anyone starts.
- That a retainer buys a share of a team's time while a hire is one full-time person: the two are not the same unit.
Where do the defaults come from?
| Input | Default | From | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $157,500 | OneGTM, median advertised midpoint, 444 US roles, data as of 2 Nov 2026 | OneGTM, The GTME Data Report Q3 2026 |
| Employer payroll tax | 7.65% | IRS rates, worked out at the base; under the 2026 wage base of $184,500 | IRS Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates |
| Benefits, recruiting fee, tools, ramp | 15%, 20%, $8,000, 6 months | Automation Jinn's itemisation | Automation Jinn, Hire a GTM engineer |
| Build fee | $10,500 | Automation Jinn, midpoint of a $6,000 to $15,000 scoped build | Automation Jinn, Hire a GTM engineer |
| Retainer | $6,500 a month, 12 months | GTMEPulse, midpoint of a $5,000 to $8,000 median fee | GTMEPulse, GTM Engineering Agency Pricing Guide |
What do other published estimates say?
Automation Jinn puts a US hire's first year at roughly $190,000 in cash on a $127,500 base. Put that base into the calculator and it gives $189,879, within that estimate's own rounding; the default here is higher because OneGTM's advertised midpoint is higher.