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How many people work in your business?
Cost Calculator
Free Tool
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What Your Spreadsheets Actually Cost You
Most small businesses do not leave spreadsheets because a spreadsheet broke. They leave because the workarounds around the spreadsheet started costing more than the work itself. This tool puts a dollar figure on that: answer seven questions and it estimates what your team loses each year to manual entry, version conflicts, and the errors that follow.
It is built for owners who suspect they have outgrown their spreadsheets but cannot yet say what staying costs. Your results are free, and you can optionally have the full breakdown emailed to you.
How the cost of a spreadsheet adds up
A spreadsheet is cheap to start and expensive to keep. The cost is not the file, it is everything the file makes someone do by hand: re-keying the same order into a second sheet, reconciling two copies that both changed on Tuesday, rebuilding a report because a formula shifted a row. None of that shows up on an invoice, so it is easy to carry for years. This calculator turns those hours into an annual number using your own team size, hourly cost, and the specific problems you pick, then shows what the same work looks like when it runs in an application instead.
Spreadsheet cost FAQ
How much do spreadsheets really cost a small business?
The cost is the labour around the file, not the file. A team of four spending an hour a day each on re-keying, reconciling, and rebuilding reports is roughly 1,000 hours a year. At a $35 fully loaded hourly cost that is $35,000, before counting the orders and invoices that go out wrong. This calculator asks for your own numbers rather than assuming these.
When has a business outgrown its spreadsheets?
The usual signal is not size, it is the number of copies. Once the same data lives in more than one sheet, someone has to keep them agreeing, and that person becomes the system. Other common signs: a file only one person can safely edit, a monthly report that takes a day to assemble, and a process that breaks whenever a specific employee is on holiday.
Is it cheaper to fix the spreadsheet or replace it?
Fixing is cheaper until the fix needs its own maintenance. Macros, linked workbooks, and add-ins each buy a year or two and then become the thing nobody can change. Replacing is worth costing out once the annual manual-work figure approaches what an application costs to build and keep running, which for us is $250 to $500 a month.
Is this spreadsheet cost calculator free?
Yes. The calculator and your results are free. You can optionally enter your email to get the full breakdown and a copy emailed to you.
What replaces a spreadsheet?
A small custom application that holds the same data once, enforces the rules the spreadsheet only implied, and produces the reports by itself. You keep the spreadsheet for what it is genuinely good at, which is ad hoc analysis, and stop using it as a database.
Related reading: Signs Your Business Has Outgrown Spreadsheets · Spreadsheet automation, and what replaces it