If your systems went down for an hour tomorrow… what would it actually cost you?

Most business owners pause on that question and then guess a number that’s almost always too low.

Not because they don’t understand their business, but because downtime costs don’t show up neatly anywhere. They don’t sit in a report or hit your inbox as an invoice. Instead, they scatter quietly across lost revenue, stalled work and missed opportunities.

And unless you take the time to map it out, it’s easy to underestimate just how expensive it really is.

Let’s break it down in a simple way.

A quick way to estimate your downtime cost

You don’t need spreadsheets or complex modelling.

This is something you can work out in a few minutes and it’ll give you a much clearer picture of what’s actually at risk.

1. Lost revenue

Start with a simple question:
How much revenue do you generate per hour?

Take your annual revenue and divide it by roughly 2,000 working hours.

For example:

• $2 million per year = around $1,000 per hour

If your systems are down and you can’t:

• Process orders
• Respond to enquiries
• Deliver services

…that revenue doesn’t get delayed, it often disappears altogether.

2. Idle employees

Now think about your team.

How many people can’t do their jobs properly when systems go down?

Multiply:

• Number of impacted staff
• By their average hourly cost (wages + overheads)

It adds up quickly.

For example:

• 10 staff × $30/hour = $300 per hour of lost productivity

That’s money being spent… without any output.

3. The part most businesses miss: recovery time

Here’s where things get underestimated.

When your systems come back online, everything doesn’t just go back to normal.

Instead, you get:

• Catch-up work
• Re-entering lost data
• Chasing clients
• Fixing mistakes caused by the outage

A one-hour outage rarely costs just one hour.

A simple rule of thumb: 👉 Add 50% extra time for recovery

So that “1 hour” outage?
Realistically, it’s closer to 1.5 hours of disruption.

4. Customer impact

This is the hardest one to measure — and often the most expensive.

What happens when a customer needs you and:

• Your phones aren’t working
• Your systems aren’t accessible
• Your team can’t respond

They don’t sit around and wait.

They move on.

And the real question becomes:

What is one lost customer worth to your business?
$5,000?
$25,000?
More?

That cost might not show up immediately but it compounds over time.

What does this look like in the real world?

Let’s say you run a 20-person business generating $3 million annually.

• Lost revenue: ~$1,500/hour
• Idle team: ~$6,750/hour
• Subtotal: ~$8,250/hour
• With recovery time: ~$12,000+ per hour

And that’s before factoring in lost customers or reputational damage.

Why most businesses underestimate this

Because you never see a line item that says:

“Here’s what you lost while your systems were down.”

Instead:

• Opportunities disappear quietly
• Customers go elsewhere
• Productivity drops without a clear cause

By the time you notice the impact, the moment has already passed.

The question most business owners don’t ask

Now that you’ve got a rough number, there’s a more important question:

How many hours of downtime would it take to cost you more than preventing it in the first place?

For most businesses we work with across the Illawarra, Southern Highlands and the South Coast…

The answer is: 👉 Not many.

What to do next

Most businesses never actually run this calculation.

But once you see the number, it changes how you think about IT.

It’s no longer just about fixing problems when they happen, it’s about understanding the cost of letting them happen in the first place.

If you’re not completely confident in your answer, that’s where we can help.

We’ll walk through:

• What your real downtime exposure looks like
• Where the biggest risks are hiding
• What practical steps reduce that risk

No jargon. No overcomplication. Just clarity.

👉 Book a quick 10-minute conversation with our team and we’ll go through it with you.