About Justworks
Justworks is a leading PEO and HR platform serving 1,000–5,000 employees and 3,000+ SMBs worldwide. Our mission—“to take the busyness out of running your business”—combines payroll, benefits, compliance, and 24/7 support into one user‑friendly platform. As we accelerate our international expansion, we need tools that make global hiring as seamless as domestic.
The EOR Cost Calculator Project
To empower both our internal teams and our clients, we set out to build a Cost Calculator that:
Estimates total employment cost by country (and state/province), gross salary, and benefits plan
Serves two audiences:
Sales reps, who need fast, accurate quotes to close deals
Clients/prospects, who benefit from self‑service cost clarity
the challenges
Before the web tool existed, sales reps spent up to 1 hour per report in Excel—manually hunting down tax rates, wrestling with formulas, and battling version errors. This led to:
Slow sales cycles and frustrated clients
Inconsistent outputs, undermining trust
Missed opportunities when prospects moved on
Next up
How I walked in their shoes to turn this 1hr slog into a 5‑second, self‑service experience.
the problem
Our sales reps spent up to an hour manually assembling country‑specific cost reports in Excel—plagued by version errors, outdated rates, and slow turnaround. Clients and finance teams waited, deals stalled, and our growth potential slowed.
Examples below
Empathy & research
Because we needed true empathy, I ran the raw spreadsheets myself—tracking tax brackets, benefits calculations, and error messages. Then I interviewed multiple stakeholders (sales, finance, prospects) and mapped their workflows
Then side‑by‑side with stickies and emotions during the process
Ideation & Prioritization
Because we had clear pain‑points, I ran a small workshop (designers + PM) followed by a cross‑functional session (Eng, Sales, Finance), scattering color stickies on an Impact × Effort board.
From here, We agreed our MVP must include: Country & State selector, Benefits plan dropdown, Gross salary input (annual/monthly toggle), Generate Report button, Color‑coded employer vs. employee breakdown, etc.
Exploration & Wireframes
Because early communication on the design solution ideation matters, I quickly sketched full‑width, hand‑drawn wireframes—with scribbled annotations for form placement, collapsible sections, and key CTAs—to communicate with PM and Engineers, and test hierarchy before investing in fidelity.
Design & Prototype
Because every detail counts, I translated the winning sketch into two mid‑fi Figma mocks (grayscale with blue accents), then polished final hi‑fi screens matching the Justworks design system: Responsive web & mobile layout
Launch & Impact
Results:
Report time: 1 hr → 5 sec (≈ 700 hrs saved/mo)
Support emails: 5/day → 2/week (–92%)
PEO→ EOR conversions: +15%
Key Learnings
Empathy by Doing: Running the tool myself surfaced critical insights.
Cross‑functional Workshops: Shared buy‑in drove focused scope.
Rapid Iteration: Early sketches and mid‑fi mocks caught usability gaps before launch.