Teams & projects
Revenue per employee calculator
Enter annual revenue and your headcount of full-time employees to get revenue per employee, with profit per employee if you add a profit figure.
Count full-time-equivalents, not headcount: two half-time staff are one FTE. Use the same period for revenue and the headcount it produced.
How revenue per employee is calculated
Revenue per employee = annual revenue ÷ number of full-time-equivalent employees. It is a productivity ratio: how much top-line revenue each person, on average, is associated with generating. Profit per employee uses the same divisor on your bottom line: annual profit ÷ FTEs. Both are averages across the whole workforce, not a measure of any one person.
A firm with $5,000,000 in annual revenue and 25 FTEs has revenue per employee of 5,000,000 ÷ 25 = $200,000. If it also made $750,000 in profit, profit per employee is 750,000 ÷ 25 = $30,000. Use full-time-equivalents so part-timers are counted fairly: two people each working half-time add up to one FTE, not two.
| Annual revenue | FTEs | Revenue per employee |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000,000 | 10 | $100,000 |
| $5,000,000 | 25 | $200,000 |
| $20,000,000 | 50 | $400,000 |
What the number does and does not tell you
Revenue per employee is most useful watched over time and compared within an industry, never across unrelated ones. Capital-light, high-margin businesses such as software routinely post figures many times those of labour-intensive sectors like hospitality or staffing, where revenue often passes straight through as wages — so a low number is not automatically a problem, nor a high one automatically healthy. The ratio also shifts with how work is structured: outsourcing or heavy use of contractors can lift revenue per employee simply because those people are not in the headcount, which flatters the figure without any real gain in efficiency. Pair it with profit per employee for a fuller picture, since revenue alone says nothing about whether that activity makes money. Treat it as one gauge of leverage among several, not a scorecard of individual performance.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good revenue per employee figure?
It depends entirely on the industry. Software and other high-margin businesses often exceed several hundred thousand dollars per employee, while labour-heavy sectors run far lower. Compare only within your own field.
Should I use headcount or full-time-equivalents?
Use full-time-equivalents. Converting part-timers to FTEs — two half-time staff counting as one — keeps the ratio fair and comparable across periods where staffing mix changes.
Why look at profit per employee too?
Revenue per employee ignores costs, so a firm can look productive while losing money. Profit per employee divides the bottom line by the same headcount and shows whether that activity actually pays.