Downtime Cost Calculator
Estimate direct IT outage cost per hour from affected staff, loaded labor, productivity lost and revenue affected. Labor and revenue losses can overlap; adjust inputs to avoid double-counting.
Result
| Productivity cost/hour | $2,062.50 |
|---|---|
| Revenue cost/hour | $1,201.92 |
| Direct cost/hour | $3,264.42 |
| Estimated outage cost | $3,264.42 |
Note: This is a transparent direct-cost estimate: affected staff x loaded hourly cost x productivity loss, plus annual revenue / revenue operating hours x revenue impact. It excludes recovery labor, SLA penalties, churn, reputation, regulatory costs, and downstream losses.
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How it works
The calculator adds two direct costs for each hour of outage:
- Lost productivity = affected staff x loaded hourly cost x share of work lost. Loaded cost is salary plus benefits and taxes, often 1.25 to 1.4 times base pay.
- Lost revenue = annual revenue / hours the business earns revenue x share of revenue that stops.
Multiply the hourly total by the outage length for the cost of one incident. Staff who can keep working offline, or sales that just happen later, should lower the percentages.
Worked example
The default is 50 staff at $55 an hour losing 75% of their work, and a $5,000,000 business earning revenue over 2,080 hours a year with half of it stopped:
- Productivity: 50 x $55 x 0.75 = $2,062.50 per hour
- Revenue: $5,000,000 / 2,080 x 0.50 = $1,201.92 per hour
- Total: $3,264.42 per hour
A 4-hour outage costs about $13,057.69 in direct costs. That figure is handy when pricing a redundant internet line, a spare server or a faster support contract.
What are "revenue operating hours"?
The hours in a year when the business actually earns revenue. 2,080 is 40 hours x 52 weeks, a normal office year. A 24/7 online store would use 8,760.
What does this leave out?
Recovery overtime, SLA credits or penalties, lost customers, data re-entry, regulatory fines and damage to reputation. Those can be larger than the direct cost, so treat the result as a floor.
Should revenue affected be 100%?
Only if every sale stops. Many outages hit one system, and customers often come back later, so 10% to 50% is common for partial outages.
Maintained by the RACKCRUNCH team. Last reviewed September 29, 2026. How we calculate | Report a problem