> An API for what an employee costs: employer NI, Employment Allowance, the auto-enrolment pension minimum, Class 1A NI and the Apprenticeship Levy.

Web version: https://checktakehomepay.co.uk/employer-cost-api · Last updated: 2026-10-09

[API](https://checktakehomepay.co.uk/api) / Employer cost

# Employer cost of employment API

Short answer

What a hire really costs over a year: pay, employer National Insurance less any Employment Allowance, Class 1A NI on benefits, the employer pension (the auto-enrolment minimum on qualifying earnings, or your own scheme) and the Apprenticeship Levy.

-   The auto-enrolment minimum is 3% of qualifying earnings for the pay period, not of the whole salary: the detail most calculators get wrong.
-   The employee’s take-home comes back in the same response.

## Endpoints

-   `POST /v1/employer-cost`Total cost of employment

## Try a request

Money is pounds and pence. Every response carries the tax year, the engine and HMRC test data that produced it, the assumptions and the gov.uk sources.

```
curl https://api.checktakehomepay.co.uk/v1/employer-cost \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CHECKTAKEHOMEPAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "gross": {
    "amount": 40000,
    "per": "year"
  },
  "region": "england",
  "employer_pension": "auto_enrolment_minimum"
}'
```

## Questions

### When does the Apprenticeship Levy apply?

To employers whose pay bill is over £3 million: 0.5% of each employee’s NI-able pay. Set apprenticeship\_levy to include it.

## Put it in your software

Every endpoint on every plan, from the free one up.

[Get an API key](https://checktakehomepay.co.uk/login)[Read the quickstart](https://checktakehomepay.co.uk/docs/quickstart)