Cost of Onboarding a New Employee in 2026

Forget the free coffee and branded pens; the true cost of welcoming a new employee in 2025 is a figure that will make your finance department queasy.

While SHRM reports the average cost to onboard a new employee to be around $4,700, for the IT world, this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

When you count in specialized software, high-end equipment, and intensive training, the price of getting a new guy truly settled and productive skyrockets. 

And to make things more complicated, you cannot cut costs here. A subpar onboarding experience hurts morale, and it hits your bottom line, hard. 

Read on as we dissect the hidden and not-so-hidden IT onboarding costs you need to budget for in 2025.

TL;DR:

• The cost to onboard a single new employee in 2025, at least for IT teams, is nearly $2000- $8,000.
• This is the cost of expensive hardware, software license fees, and IT labor hours.
• This total balloons when you consider variables like shipping equipment to remote workers and the thousands of dollars lost in productivity while a new hire waits for assets. 
• Automating account creation, standardizing equipment kits, and actively managing your software licenses will save money and get new employees contributing from day one.