Incident cost and reliability

Estimate directly observed incident-response labor and, only if you supply it, hourly revenue exposure.

The decision

What is the known annual response burden, and what remains unmeasured?

Assumptions and limits

This is not total business loss. It excludes churn, reputation, recovery projects, and overlapping incidents unless you measure them separately.

Describe your situation

Average incidents per month

Use incidents that required engineering response; enter 0 if none.

Average minutes to restore service

Use incident records where possible. Fractional averages are supported.

Average responding engineers

Count concurrent responders, not every person notified. A fractional average is valid.

Loaded cost per engineer-hour (USD)

Enter your own internal cost assumption, not a vendor billing rate.

Revenue exposure per incident hour (USD), optional

Leave blank unless you have an internally validated figure. This is not inferred from ARR.

How this tool works

Annual incident hours = incidents per month × 12 × minutes to restore / 60. Response labor = annual incident hours × responding engineers × loaded hourly cost.

If you enter hourly revenue exposure, multiply it by annual incident hours. This is exposure, not proven lost revenue, and it may overlap with other loss estimates.

Model assumptions

  • This is not total business loss. It excludes churn, reputation, recovery projects, and overlapping incidents unless you measure them separately.
  • Monthly incident frequency and average incident duration are held constant for 12 months. Labor is counted for each responding engineer.

Hypothetical worked example

These illustrative inputs are not your result, a customer case, or a benchmark. Change the inputs above to review your own situation.

Average incidents per month
2
Average minutes to restore service
60
Average responding engineers
3
Loaded cost per engineer-hour (USD)
100
Revenue exposure per incident hour (USD), optional
Not supplied

A measured starting point for reliability work

This is a simple annualized scenario from the incident frequency, duration, staffing, and hourly cost you entered. It does not infer customer churn or reputation loss.

Annual incident hours
24 hours
Response labor
$7,200.00
  • Revenue exposure is not included because no hourly figure was supplied. Missing evidence is not zero exposure.

Checks for this example

  • Use incident records to verify frequency, time to restore, and response staffing.
  • Prioritize one recurring failure mode and estimate the cost of a specific mitigation.