The line stops at 9am.
By 9:05, someone has rung IT. By 9:30, the supervisor is asking how long. By 10am, people are sweeping floors and having an early break.
Nobody writes down what that morning cost. But somebody pays for it.
The Costs Everyone Sees
The most obvious cost is wages. People are still being paid while they wait.
Here’s a simple example. A manufacturer has 80 production staff, costing an average of £15 an hour each.
- 80 people × £15 = £1,200 for every hour they can’t work
- Half a day (4 hours) = £4,800 in wages alone
And that’s before you count the office staff.
£1,200 an hour
80 production staff × £15 an hour, standing idle. Half a day is £4,800 in wages alone.
The Costs Nobody Adds Up
- Lost production: orders that don’t get made
- Missed deliveries: and the phone calls that follow
- Overtime: to catch up, often at a higher rate
- Unhappy customers: and the risk they look elsewhere
- Management time: spent firefighting instead of running the business
Often these hidden costs are bigger than the wages.
Work Out Your Own Number
Every business is different, so we built a free downtime cost calculator. Put in your own staff numbers and costs, and see what an hour, a morning and a full day of downtime would cost you.
Most people are surprised by the answer.
What would an hour cost you? Put in your own numbers. It takes a minute.
Work out your costWhy the Number Matters
When you know what an hour of downtime costs, IT decisions get much easier.
A continuity solution that keeps the business running when a server fails can look expensive next to a basic backup. But compare it against the cost of a day without your systems, and the decision often looks very different.
We explain the difference in Why Backups Don’t Keep Your Business Running.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common cause of IT downtime?
It varies: hardware failures, failed updates, internet outages and cyber attacks are all common. The cost is similar whatever the cause, which is why planning for recovery matters.
How can we reduce downtime?
Know how long you can afford to be down, test recovery regularly and remove single points of failure, like a lone server or a single internet connection.
Need Help?
At Affirm IT, we start with simple questions:
- What would an hour of downtime cost you?
- Which systems would stop production?
- How quickly could you be working again?
Ready to see your number? Take our free 2-minute IT scorecard, or work out what downtime costs you with our downtime cost calculator.
Or get in touch with us. At Affirm IT, we provide IT support for manufacturers and managed IT support in Derbyshire and across the East Midlands.
