See exactly what hiring does to your runway.
Add a hire and Parallel shows you the fully loaded cost, the hit to your burn, and the month your cash runs out — on a live forecast built from your accounting data.
15-day free trial. No credit card required.
Used by Startups Funded by
Hiring is the largest cash commitment a startup makes. Yet founders often make the decision with little more than a salary figure, a rough sense of burn, and an outdated spreadsheet they no longer trust.
So they either hire too soon and put the company at risk, or wait too long and leave growth on the table.
Neither is a strategy. Both are guesses startups can’t afford to make.
How It Works
Get an answer in less than 5 min
01
Connect accounting
Link QuickBooks or Puzzle and Parallel will automatically generate a model based on your data.
02
Add current & future hires
Add your team and answer some questions on how your company works to refine your forecast.
03
See the impact
Runway, burn, and cash balance update instantly. Model two versions side by side and compare before you commit.
The hiring questions you're actually asking.
"Can I afford this hire right now?"
See the fully loaded cost against your live cash position, and the exact month runway ends with the hire versus without it.
"Two juniors or one senior?"
Build both plans side by side. Compare cost, runway, and output timing instead of arguing about it in a doc.
"Do I hire before the raise, or after?"
Model the round — size, close date, hire plan — and see which sequence leaves you with more runway and a better story for the raise.
"What has to be true for this AE to pay for themselves?"
Cash balance is the final impact of a position, including their impact to both expenses and revenue. You’ll see right when an AE has made a positive impact vs a negative one, and then change churn assumptions, cash collections, etc to see how that changes that date.
Everything you need to plan headcount
Powerful enough to model your business, simple enough to get answers fast and get back to building.
Headcount planning
Model every role with its fully loaded cost, start date, and all connecting impacts. Some positions will kick off benefit expenses, others might expand software costs, while sales roles will automatically drive revenue.
Integrations
QuickBooks Online and Puzzle connects in minutes — automatically keeping your forecast up-to-date and accurate.
Live dashboards
Runway, burn, cash balance, and other key metrics all adjust the moment your plan or actuals change.
Scenarios
See your conservative, base, aggressive plans side-by-side. Weigh the trade-offs of each hiring plan across all your metrics.
Customer Stories & Testimonials
Rishi Ahuja
Founder @ Benny API
Brice Douglas
CEO @ Zaymo
Rob Craig
Founder @ Enzy
A spreadsheet
Every scenario means duplicating a tab, every month means manual updates, and the model quietly goes stale right when you need it. The founders we talk to all say the same thing: "I have a spreadsheet, but I don't trust it."
A fractional CFO
Real expertise with a cost of roughly $5K/month minimum. Great once you're bigger but an expensive solution that often slows down decisions due to the model living in their head and their files.
Parallel
More than a tenth the cost of a fractional CFO, connected to your books, and you own the model. Built directly for seed to Series A founders — which means no finance background is required.
Priced for startups, built for founders
Launch
Founders getting their model off the ground.
$100
/mo billed annually
$130 /mo if billed monthly
Auto-synced Accounting Data
Headcount, Revenue & Expense Forecasting
Scenario Modeling
Monthly Report & SaaS Metrics
Unlimited Users
Up to 5 Employees
Grow
Funded teams scaling toward a raise.
$300
/mo billed annually
$500 /mo if billed monthly
LAUNCH PLUS
MCP Connection (Open AI & Claude)
Hiring Rules & Triggers
Customer Contract Forecasting
Growth Metrics & Targets
Team Access & Permissions
Up to 20 Employees
Scale
Companies raising or reporting to a board.
$750
/mo billed annually
$1,000 /mo if billed monthly
GROW PLUS
Data Room Export
Plan Locking & BVA Reporting
Board & Investor Sharing
21+ Employees
15 days of full Scale access. No credit card.
How does Parallel calculate the cost of a hire?
Parallel drives expenses off of positions. In addition to the position's base salary, Parallel calculates benefits, payroll taxes, software, equipment, meals, and more. That total cost typically lands at 1.25–1.4x base. For revenue roles it also models ramp time, commission structure, and the pipeline or marketing spend the role depends on, so you're seeing the real cash impact rather than the salary line.
Do I need a finance background?
No. Parallel was built for founders who don't have a financial background. You have the ability to easily change decisions and see the financial impact, without ever having to write a formula or understand the complexity of calculating AR or DR.
How long does setup take?
Setup takes just a few minutes. Connect your accounting system, answer a few questions about your company, and upload your headcount. You'll then be ready to test different hiring scenarios, refine your expenses forecast and test adjustments to your revenue plan.
Why not just use a spreadsheet?
Spreadsheets work early, then get fragile and out of date if your entire job isn't finance.. Manual entry introduces errors, every scenario means a duplicated tab, and the model goes stale between updates. Parallel keeps your model current from your accounting data, so the number you're looking at when you decide is the real one.
What happens when the free trial ends?
Your account goes read-only. No auto-charge, no credit card required to start. You get full access to every Scale-tier feature for the 15 days.
Make hiring decisions without the guesswork
Connect your accounting, add the role, and see the runway impact today.
Start free
15-day free trial. No credit card required.