Workforce Planning helps you answer one of the first questions in any hiring decision: what will these hires actually cost? Whether you're sizing up a single hire or planning a set of roles across different locations, you can model them and see the total cost before committing to a plan.
A plan is built from the positions you're considering, and Plane estimates their cost month by month across your planning window. You can create and compare different plans for review, and once one is approved, you're ready to move ahead with hiring and onboarding.
Who can use Workforce Planning
Workforce Planning is available to admins. Turn it on under Features and find it under People → Planning.
How it's organized
A workforce plan is the whole thing you build, review, and approve. Each plan is made up of:
A planning window and reporting currency — the period you're forecasting over and the currency totals are shown in.
A set of positions — the roles you're considering, each with a location, worker type (employee or contractor), start date, and compensation.
A forecast — the cost estimate Plane calculates automatically from those positions, month by month.
Cost drivers — the breakdown of what makes up the total, such as base pay, employer taxes, and statutory benefits.
You create a plan, add positions, and Plane keeps the forecast and cost drivers up to date as you go.
Creating a plan
From the Planning page, select New plan and provide:
Plan name, for example "2026 Hiring Plan"
Planning window, the start and end dates the forecast should cover
Reporting currency, the currency you want plan-level totals shown in
Your new plan starts as a draft with no positions yet. You can return to it any time to add or change positions while it's in draft.
Adding positions
Open a draft plan and select Add position. Positions are added in two short steps.
Step 1 — Position
Position name, for example "Korea engineer"
Country (and state or region where applicable)
Worker type, either Employee or Contractor
Step 2 — Compensation
Start date, and an optional end date if the role is time-limited
Annual compensation, entered in the selected country's local currency
Compensation basis, either Regular earnings (use the amount as regular base pay, with statutory benefits added on top where they apply) or Gross earnings (use the amount as a total gross figure that already includes them).
Statutory benefits are mandatory payments required in some countries. A common example is 13th and 14th month salary, which applies in places like Brazil and Italy.
When you save, the position is added to the plan and the forecast recalculates automatically. You can add as many positions as you need.
Understanding your forecast
Open a plan to see its forecast. For an employee hired internationally through an Employer of Record, the estimate is fully loaded: it includes base compensation, employer taxes and contributions (such as mandatory employer-side taxes and social security), and statutory benefits where they apply. Contractors are estimated at their compensation.
The plan summary shows:
Planned positions, how many roles are in the plan
Average headcount, the average number of people across the planning window
Total forecast cost, the fully-loaded cost across the window
Average monthly cost
Worker type mix, the split between employees and contractors
Monthly forecast, cost month by month across the window
Cost drivers, what's making up the total, broken down by component
Costs are shown in your plan's reporting currency, and each position's local-currency compensation is converted for you. A position only contributes to the months it is active within the planning window, so a role that starts partway through the window is counted only from its start date.
The monthly forecast shows how headcount and cost ramp across the window as roles start:
And cost drivers break the total down by component — base pay plus each employer tax and statutory benefit:
Viewing a position's cost breakdown
Select any position to see its own detail page, including base pay, employer costs, the individual cost components, and a month-by-month forecast for that role. This is useful when you want to understand exactly what's driving the cost of a single hire.
Approving a plan
When a plan is ready, select Approve plan. Approving saves the forecast as a final snapshot and locks the plan, so its positions can no longer be added, removed, or edited. Use approval when you've settled on a plan and want a stable set of numbers to refer back to.
What's not available yet
Because Workforce Planning is still in beta, a few things aren't available yet:
Editing or revising a plan after it has been approved. If you need to make changes, build a new plan.
Exporting or downloading a plan.
These are on the roadmap. We'd love your feedback. Tell us what worked and what you wish it did.