Startup’s Costs, Expenses and Headcount Plans

1. Assumptions

  • Purpose: Centralize all unit‐cost, salary‐growth, hiring‐plan, commission‐rate, inflation and FX assumptions.

  • Key fields:

    • Currency, fiscal year start

    • Headcount ramp (per function)

    • Base salary by role + annual growth %

    • Commission rates by sales role

    • Customer‐ or usage‐based cost drivers (e.g. hosting $/GB, support $/ticket)

    • Inflation escalators for fixed costs

2. COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)

  • Purpose: Model all direct, variable costs that scale with revenue.

  • Sub-sections:

    • Hosting & Infrastructure: $/GB, $/hour, total hours

    • Customer Support: $/ticket or $/seat

    • Payment Fees: % of transaction volume

  • Logic: Link each line item to the drivers in the Revenue Drivers tab (e.g. GB = users × GB/user).

3. Fixed & Variable Operating Costs

Split into two areas for clarity:

Fixed CostsVariable CostsOffice rentMarketing spend (% of revenue)Software licenses (yearly)Sales commissions (per sale)InsuranceTransaction feesDepreciation (from CAPEX)Customer success bonuses

  • Purpose: Capture overheads that don’t move with revenue (fixed) vs. those that do (variable).

  • Linkages: Use drivers from Assumptions and Revenue Drivers to auto-scale variable lines.

4. SG&A & R&D

  • SG&A: Administrative salaries (HR, Finance), legal, travel, office OPEX.

  • R&D: Engineering salaries, contractors, prototyping, lab consumables.

  • Structure:

    • Line‐item budget by month/quarter

    • Tied back to headcount plan (see Tab 7)

5. CAPEX (Capital Expenditures)

  • Purpose: Budget outlays on long-lived assets.

  • Categories:

    • Infrastructure (servers, data-center build-out)

    • Equipment (desks, computers)

    • Software licenses (multi-year ERP, CAD tools)

  • Fields:

    • Purchase date, Cost, Useful life, Depreciation method → feeds into Fixed Costs tab

6. Hiring Plan & Payroll

  • Purpose: Model headcount growth, salary expense and hiring timing by function.

  • Columns:

    • Role (e.g. SDR, AE, Dev)

    • Hire month

    • Annual salary + benefits %

    • Salary ramp (prorated first month)

  • Outputs:

    • FTE count per month

    • Total payroll expense by function → feeds SG&A & R&D tabs

7. Depreciation & Amortization

  • Purpose: Convert your CAPEX schedule into periodic expense.

  • Fields:

    • Asset, cost, life (yrs), monthly depreciation

    • Total D&A per period → rolled into Fixed Costs

Costs, ExpensesFrancesca Tabor