What the mess costs you, in your own numbers.
Two halves: how much time burns every week, and what the inquiries you never answered were worth. I put in no averages and no percentage I made up, and if your numbers come out small, the calculator will tell you it is not worth paying anyone.
Every number here is yours. I add no averages, no improvement percentages and no promises. The calculator does simple arithmetic on what you type, and shows you the arithmetic itself.
A rough estimate is fine. Just do not count the same hour twice.
Not your client rate. What you would pay someone to do it instead of you.
If you do not have these numbers, skip them. The first half stands on its own.
A whole number from 0 to 10. That is your close rate, and I am not guessing it.
Fill in a few fields and the arithmetic appears
You can fill in only part of it. Anything you leave empty simply stays out of the sum.
Why I built a calculator instead of another sales page
The question that comes back to me most often in a first conversation is not "how much does this cost". It is "but how much is it costing me right now, doing nothing". Most owners feel the leak. Very few have ever seen it as a number.
The trouble is that everyone able to answer that question is also selling the fix. So you get figures like "businesses save 30% of their time", and nobody tells you where the 30% came from. This calculator is built the other way round: it knows nothing about you and it does not guess. It takes the numbers you type, multiplies them, and shows you the multiplication.
What it measures, in two halves
The first half is time. Three lines: how many hours a week go on typing the same detail twice, how many on hunting for information that already exists, and how many on answering the same questions over and over. You know those hours, because you do them by hand. They are multiplied by an hourly value you set, and you get a monthly and a yearly figure.
The second half is revenue that never arrived. How many inquiries a month got no answer from you, how many out of ten inquiries you do handle become customers, and what a customer is worth. Note that I ask "how many out of ten" rather than "what is your close rate". A percentage invites a round, invented number. "Three out of ten" is something an owner actually knows.
Three things the calculator refuses to do
It does not add the two halves. One is money that already left your pocket, the other is money that might never have arrived. Adding two rough estimates gives you a bigger number, not a truer one. Where a plus sign would go, there is a sentence explaining why there isn't one.
It always rounds down. Never up. That means the figure you see is always slightly below the real arithmetic, not above it. A tool built to sell you something does not work that way.
It is willing to tell you to walk away. If the result is smaller than the smallest project I take on, it says so plainly, suggests three things to do yourself, and shows no contact button at all. A page that says "you do not need me" and then asks for your phone number is a lie with an asterisk.
How to use it properly
Estimate. Genuinely. Nobody measures these hours, and that is fine. Give the number that feels close, and if you are torn between two, give the lower one. On the two shakiest fields, the inquiries you never answered and what a customer is worth, you can enter a range and the result comes back as a range. That is the whole idea: a rough number that is true, instead of a precise one that was invented.
And if you want to move from estimating to actually measuring, there is the business tracker file, also free and with no form.
What to do with the number
Take it into every conversation, including ones that are not with me. The yearly figure is the bar: any fix you consider has to cost less than it, or it is not a fix, it is an expense. That works equally against me, against another agency, and against the option of doing nothing.
One last thing that matters to me: an hour freed is not a shekel earned. It becomes money only if you do something with it, work less or take on another customer. The tool measures the opportunity. It does not promise it.