SEL Total Cost of Ownership Calculator
This calculator demonstrates how up-front, incremental investments in quality capital equipment can reduce downtime and costly, unpredictable future operating expenses.
Before you buy your next computer, be sure to ask these questions so that you get a more accurate picture of what you’re really paying for.
Industrial design: Does the computer’s industrial design lend itself to heat mitigation and greater reliability?
Component quality: Does this computer use high-quality components? How long are they expected to last?
Manufacturer reputation: Will the computer manufacturer support its products beyond traditional warranty periods?
INSTRUCTIONS
This calculator helps determine and compare the TCO for two different computers. Complete the fields to view the results for your specific scenario.
Data Input
| Description | Third-Party Computer | SEL Computing Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Computer make/model | ||
| CPU | ||
| Memory | ||
| Storage | ||
| Number of expected breakdowns over 10-year period | ||
| Initial cost per unit | USD | USD |
| Standard warranty length | yrs | yrs |
| Extended warranty length | yrs | N/A |
| Extended warranty cost | USD | N/A |
| Estimated average cost of hardware replacement per incident (e.g., power supply, memory, mainboard, or SSD replacement). | USD | USD |
| Technical support contract costs outside of warranty (USD per year). | USD | USD |
| Average hours per job to troubleshoot, remove, replace, restore, drive to site (if applicable), etc. This is downtime. | hrs | hrs |
Common costs
| Description | Value |
|---|---|
| Recovery costs. These are the hard wage costs associated with getting your computer systems back online and recovering any lost data. Consider the total costs for all employees involved (in USD per hour). | USD |
| Lost productivity. When your computer systems are down, your employees cannot do productive work. Estimate how much each employee depends on your computer systems, and multiply that percentage by the employee’s hourly rate. Calculate the total costs for all employees (in USD per hour). | USD |
| Lost revenue and/or data. If a process is down, if data are missing, you may be losing money every minute. The costs may depend on how much downtime impacts your critical processes or business functions. | USD |
| Intangible costs. These include damage to your business's reputation and lost opportunities. Depending on your industry, there may also be legal or regulatory consequences. | USD |
| Unit multiplier. Including the total number of units in service helps you assess the true potential impact of a failure (obviously, not all units will experience the same number of failures—some more, some less). | units |
Cost breakdown
Scenario A
| Years | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Total | |
| Initial cost | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Extented warranty | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Breakdown occcurs | ||||||||||||
| Hardware replacement (outside of warranty) | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Support Contract | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Recovery costs | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Lost productivity | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Lost revenue and/or data (per incident) | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Intangible costs | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| TCO per unit | $0 | |||||||||||
| TCO for all devices | $0 | |||||||||||
Scenario B
| Years | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Total | |
| Initial cost | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Extented warranty | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||
| Breakdown occcurs | ||||||||||||
| Hardware replacement (outside of warranty) | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Support Contract | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Recovery costs | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Lost productivity | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Lost revenue and/or data (per incident) | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| Intangible costs | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | NaN | 0 | |
| TCO per unit | $0 | |||||||||||
| TCO for all devices | $0 | |||||||||||