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Free downtime cost calculator and production downtime calculator. Compute hourly revenue loss, idle workforce cost, and incident total. Pair with the software ROI calculator to justify monitoring and DR spend.
Last updated: May 24, 2026
Estimating customer churn after an outage? Churn impact calculator
Average hourly revenue during business hours
Total workforce size
Average employee cost per hour
Expected downtime per incident
Percentage of employees unable to work
$6,400/hour
Total hourly impact
Daily Cost
$25,600
Annual Impact
$6,400,000
Revenue Loss: $5,000/hour
Productivity Loss: 40 employees × $35/hour = $1,400/hour
Total Hourly Impact: $6,400/hour
Incident Cost (4 hours): $25,600
Weekly Impact (5×): $128,000
Monthly Impact (20×): $512,000
Annualized (250 days): $6,400,000
Prevention Investment Recommendation
$480,000 - $640,000/year
5-10% of annual downtime cost
Moderate risk — develop documented incident response procedures
80% of workforce affected — consider cross-training and backup roles
Extended downtime periods justify investment in high-availability infrastructure
Annualized downtime cost of $6400k justifies significant prevention investment
Recommended: Invest 5–10% of annual downtime cost in prevention measures
Document all incidents and track MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery) metrics
Answers: cost per hour of an outage, total cost for one incident, and how much to budget for prevention.
$5,000/hr revenue + $1,400/hr productivity (40 staff) = $6,400/hr.
$6,400/hr × 4 hr = $25,600 direct loss per incident.
Annualized $6,400,000 → invest $320,000–$640,000/year in redundancy and DR.
Default: $5,000/hr revenue · 50 employees · $35/hr wage · 4 hr outage · 80% affected
Hourly cost
$6,400
Incident (4 hr)
$25,600
Productivity/hr
$1,400
Severity
Moderate
Annualized (250× incident): $6,400,000 · prevention $320,000–$640,000.
| Metric | Formula | Default example |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue loss/hr | Revenue per hour (during outage) | $5,000/hour |
| Productivity loss/hr | Employees × Affected % × Wage | 50 × 80% × $35 = $1,400/hr |
| Total hourly cost | Revenue loss + Productivity loss | $5,000 + $1,400 = $6,400/hr |
| Incident cost | Total hourly × Downtime hours | $6,400 × 4 hr = $25,600 |
| Annualized impact | Incident cost × 250 business days | $25,600 × 250 = $6.4M |
| Prevention budget | 5–10% of annualized cost | $320K – $640K/year |
| Band | Hourly cost | Typical action |
|---|---|---|
| Low | Under $1,000 | Backups + basic monitoring |
| Moderate | $1,000 – $10,000 | Default $6,400/hr — incident response runbooks |
| High | $10,001 – $50,000 | E-commerce $17,520/hr — DR testing quarterly |
| Critical | Over $50,000 | Failover + 24/7 on-call immediately |
| Industry | Typical hourly range | Calculator example |
|---|---|---|
| Small business / SMB | $500 – $5,000 | Default $6,400/hr · Moderate |
| E-commerce (peak) | $10,000 – $50,000 | $15K rev + $2,520 prod = $17,520/hr |
| Manufacturing line | $20,000 – $50,000 | $9K output + $6K labor/hr × 8 hr |
| SaaS / API outage | $5,000 – $30,000 | $25K rev + $1,050 prod · 2 hr |
| Enterprise IT (cited) | $100,000+ | Use your actual revenue/hour input |
Hourly cost = Revenue/hr + (Employees × Affected % × Wage)Incident cost = Hourly cost × Downtime hoursAnnualized = Incident cost × 250 business daysHourly cost
$6,400
Incident total
$25,600
Productivity/hr
$1,400
Severity
Moderate
$6,400/hr · $25,600 incident · $6.4M annualized · Moderate · invest $320K–$640K.
Hourly cost
$17,520
Incident total
$52,560
Productivity/hr
$2,520
Severity
High
$17,520/hr · $52,560 incident · High severity · ~$100K+ with churn.
Hourly cost
$15,000
Incident total
$120,000
Productivity/hr
$6,000
Severity
High
$15,000/hr · $120,000 incident · High severity.
Hourly cost
$26,050
Incident total
$52,100
Productivity/hr
$1,050
Severity
High
$26,050/hr · $52,100 incident · High · SLA credits extra.
Hourly cost
$925
Incident total
$1,850
Productivity/hr
$125
Severity
Low
$925/hr · $1,850 incident · Low severity.
Hourly cost
$55,800
Incident total
$334,800
Productivity/hr
$10,800
Severity
Critical
$55,800/hr · $334,800 incident · Critical severity.
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