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What’s the True Cost of Downtime for Small Businesses?

Downtime is expensive. Whether your business is online or offline, even an hour without internet access can hurt your business’s bottom line.

In 2016, small businesses with 50 million or less in annual revenue put the price tag of an hour-long outage at $8,600. Different businesses have different metrics, but it’s almost always going to be bigger than you think.

Why is Downtime So Expensive?

First, you face several direct losses in revenue. An hour without an online store is an hour without sales. A lot of outages are caused by too much traffic that your site and servers weren’t ready for. That means you’re not just losing an hour of regular business; you’re losing an hour of peak, jam packed business.

Not only is there lost revenue, but you incur expenses, too. Getting your website back online with the help of a traditional IT support technician, who has an hourly rate, will rack up quickly. The total cost will go up if you need new equipment, your network goes out, or you pay extra for a faster response time.

There are also several indirect costs. New leads have a low tolerance for 404 errors. If you attract a new visitor’s interest (which is harder and harder to do) but your site doesn’t work, they are unlikely to come back later. You lose sales, lead conversion, and potential return business.

All of these elements combined lead to that total price of $8,600 for even a single hour of downtime. Avoid outages in the first place with a managed IT support subscription that monitors your network for problems before they start.

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