Pillar calculator
The cost of downtime, calculated in real time.
This is the base downtime cost calculator behind every per-hour, per-minute, and per-day figure on this site. Enter fleet size, revenue impact, MTTR, incident frequency, and SLA target to get a single, defensible annual number.
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How it works
Four inputs. One number finance can use.
This calculator does not need a monitoring integration or a data export. It needs the numbers you already know: how much infrastructure is affected, what it is worth per hour, how long incidents take to resolve, and how often they happen.
Direct loss
Servers affected multiplied by revenue impact per server hour, multiplied by annual outage hours.
Annual outage hours
MTTR multiplied by incident frequency — how long each incident lasts times how often they occur.
Hidden outage tax
A risk-weighted add-on for remediation labor, SLA credits, churn pressure, and compliance review, scaled by how far you run over your SLA budget.
SLA budget
Annual hours multiplied by the unavailability percentage your SLA target allows, so you can see the overrun, not just the total.
FAQ
Cost of downtime calculator, answered.
What people ask before trusting a number enough to put it in a budget deck.
What is a downtime cost calculator?
A tool that converts operational inputs — affected infrastructure, revenue impact, incident duration, and frequency — into a dollar figure for lost revenue and related costs from IT outages.
How accurate is this calculator?
It is a directional estimator, not an audited figure. It is most useful for comparing scenarios and building a defensible order-of-magnitude number; calibrate the inputs with your own finance and SRE data before citing it externally.
What inputs does it need?
Five numbers: servers or systems affected, revenue impact per server hour, mean time to repair (MTTR), incident frequency per year, and your SLA availability target.
Is downtime cost the same as revenue loss?
No. Direct revenue loss is the visible piece. The hidden outage tax — remediation labor, SLA credits, customer churn pressure, and compliance review — often adds 20 to 70 percent on top.
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