Calculators tool
Downtime Cost Calculator
Calculate what an hour of IT downtime costs your business.
Staff who cannot work during the outage.
Include salary, benefits, and overhead — typically 1.25–1.4× base wage.
Your average hourly revenue. Use 0 if revenue isn't directly time-dependent.
How long before operations are restored.
Estimated downtime cost
This is a planning estimate of direct costs only. It assumes every affected employee is fully idle for the entire outage and that revenue is lost at a constant hourly rate. It excludes regulatory penalties, customer churn, reputational damage, and breach-response costs — add those for the full picture.
Frequently asked questions
What's a realistic average hourly downtime cost for a mid-market firm?
Gartner research pegged average IT downtime cost at roughly $5,600 per minute for large enterprises — scaling down, mid-market firms in regulated sectors (legal, healthcare, financial) typically run $10,000–$50,000 per hour when factoring in staff idle time, missed revenue, and SLA penalties.
Does this calculator include reputational or regulatory costs?
This calculator models the direct, quantifiable costs: lost staff productivity and lost revenue during the outage window. Reputational damage, regulatory fines, and breach notification costs are covered by the Data Breach Cost Estimator tool.
Want this handled for you?
Elevate manages IT & security for regulated Los Angeles firms.
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