Spreadsheet Cost Calculator

Calculate the operating cost of spreadsheet-based workflows, including labor and recurring error costs.

Inputs

Weekly time spent updating, checking, importing, or reconciling spreadsheets.

Hourly cost for the people maintaining the spreadsheets.

Number of people who touch or depend on the spreadsheet process.

Optional monthly cost from broken formulas, bad imports, or wrong decisions.

How it works

  1. 1. Count spreadsheet work

    Estimate time spent maintaining spreadsheet workflows.

  2. 2. Add dependency cost

    Account for every person involved in the process.

  3. 3. Include errors

    Add recurring cost from mistakes, fixes, and broken handoffs.

Frequently asked questions

What spreadsheet work should be included?

Include updates, imports, exports, copy-paste work, formula fixes, reconciliation, reporting, and manual checks.

Why include error cost?

Spreadsheet workflows often fail through bad inputs, stale files, broken formulas, or manual version control. Those failures create real operating cost.

When should a spreadsheet be automated?

Automation is worth reviewing when the spreadsheet is recurring, business-critical, shared by multiple people, or used as a temporary system that became permanent.