The numbers don’t lie.
This is where print meets profit. From recruiting to retention, every percentage point saved helps fuel your brand’s next mile.
Run the numbers below. See how fast one simple shift in turnover or cost-per-hire yields exponential savings for your company. Then imagine your own brand, logo, and FAST-Finder cover driving those results — every single day, across every mile.
Driver Retention & Recruiting ROI Calculator
One solution. Two major cost savings.
Calculate your return on investment.
Mouse over to the right for the arrows
or enter your own numbers directly.
Recruiting savings is based on industry-standard assumptions*.
About This Calculator
This calculator helps you understand the potential return on investment from improving driver retention and optimizing your recruiting strategy.
How It Works:
Retention Impact: See how even small improvements in retention (3%, 5%, or 10%) can save you thousands by reducing costly turnover.
Recruiting Impact: Calculate savings from shifting more hires to referral-based recruiting, which typically costs less than traditional methods.
Note: The bottom-line calculation uses a conservative 3% retention improvement to give you a realistic baseline ROI.
*Recruiting Industry Standard Assumptions
We were suspicious of the incredible return on investment too. So after we finished with the assumptions and the calculator and worked the numbers about a billion times, we asked for AI’s take on this revolutionary approach to retention and recruiting challenges. Here is the most conservative of the AI (LLMs) platform’s (Google/Gemini) take on the issue—and this is verbatim:
Analysis of the conservative result
Even with significantly lower assumptions, the ROI is still over 3000%, which is an extremely strong return for a minimal initial investment.
The program remains highly beneficial because the cost to replace a driver is exceptionally high compared to the program's cost. This means that preventing even a few instances of turnover or enabling a few more referrals generates substantial savings.
The project has a low barrier to profitability, breaking even very quickly. If you only hire a single driver through the program, the return far outweighs the total program cost.
The large initial ROI percentage is heavily influenced by the very small program cost relative to the potential savings. A larger, more costly program with the same effectiveness would have a lower percentage, but might provide similar net profit.
In summary, your initial analysis pointing out the ROI's "too good to be true" nature is correct in that the projections were highly optimistic. However, the core logic of the program appears sound, and even more realistic, conservative assumptions show that it could be a very profitable and worthwhile investment for your company.
| Factor | Driver Referral | Traditional Recruitment (Digital) |
|---|---|---|
| Initial recruitment cost | $500–$2,000+ bonus to current driver | $6,000–$12,000+ per hire; some studies $13K–$34K with turnover |
| Time to hire | 4–8 weeks (faster, pre-vetted) | 36–42 days avg; longer for hard-to-fill roles |
| Hiring process | Simple—referral passes contact, recruiter closes | Complex—ads, screening, interviews |
| Onboarding efficiency | Quicker; referred drivers already oriented | Up to 12 weeks to full productivity |
| Driver retention | Much higher; better cultural fit | Lower; turnover remains high |
Once you have your net savings, simply subtract out the nominal cost of additional guides ($8.99 ea.) for your drivers to use as recruiting tools. Given the savings and increased profit, they might as well be free.