Benchmarks
What research firms say downtime actually costs.
Before you build your own model, it helps to know the reference points the industry already uses — independently surveyed, not vendor-marketing numbers.
Scroll for the benchmarks
$5,600
Per-minute average, Gartner (2014 baseline, still widely cited)
97%
Of large enterprises: one hour costs over $100K (ITIC, 2024)
Cited research
The numbers everyone quotes, with their actual source.
These figures get repeated constantly without attribution. Here's where each one actually comes from.
$5,600 / minute
Gartner's widely cited 2014 baseline average cost of downtime — roughly $336,000 per hour, across all company sizes and industries. It's the single most-quoted downtime statistic in the industry, and it's over a decade old.
$2,300–$9,000 / minute
The range reported the same year by Avaya, reflecting how much company size and industry vertical move the average in either direction — a reminder that any single-number average hides very wide variation.
~$9,000 / minute
Ponemon Institute's 2016 update to the same style of average, suggesting downtime costs had risen materially in the two years after Gartner's figure.
97% over $100K / hour
ITIC's 2024 survey of over 1,000 firms found 97% of large enterprises (1,000+ employees) report that a single hour of downtime costs their company more than $100,000.
41% over $1M / hour
The same ITIC survey found 41% of enterprises report hourly downtime costs between $1 million and over $5 million — the tail end of the distribution that a single average obscures entirely.
By industry
External benchmarks are a starting point, not your number.
Because published surveys report broad averages, this site's industry calculators use their own illustrative starting defaults instead — calibrated to the qualitative risk profile of each sector, not a specific survey. Use them as a sharper starting point than a single global average, then replace every input with your own data.
FAQ
Downtime benchmarks, answered.
Questions that come up when citing an industry statistic instead of a company-specific number.
Why is the most-cited statistic over a decade old?
Gartner's 2014 figure was widely republished and became the de facto industry reference, even though more recent surveys like ITIC's now report materially higher costs — always check the publication date behind any downtime statistic you cite.
Should I use a benchmark instead of building my own model?
Use a benchmark to sanity-check your own number, not to replace it — a global average can't reflect your specific revenue-per-hour, incident frequency, or SLA exposure the way a few minutes with the calculator can.
Why do estimates vary so much between sources?
Different surveys sample different company sizes and industries, and "cost of downtime" itself gets defined inconsistently — some include only direct revenue loss, others fold in productivity, compliance, and reputational cost.
Where do real incident cost figures come from?
See the case studies section for sourced, company-specific cost figures from seven real outages, as an alternative to survey averages.
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