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Spam calculator

This calculator will help you figure out how much spam costs your enterprise each year - and can be used to develop a call for action to get the resources you need to fight the problem. Plug in your enterprise's numbers and assumptions below and the calculator will tell you the damage. The algorithms are based on work by Mark Gibbs - follow the links below or on the results page for advice from him on just what to do with the numbers that result.

NOTE: Don't use commas when inputting large numbers.

The basics
Number of employees           
Avg. fully loaded salary per employee $           
Avg. number of working days per person per year days
Productivity costs
Average number of received messages per user per day           
Average percentage of those messages that are spam %      
Average time to handle a spam secs
Connectivity costs
Cost of office Internet connectivity per month $           
Cost of remote connectivity per month $           
Bandwidth used by e-mail %      
Storage costs
Average message size kb     
Storage cost per month per GB inc. management $           
Support costs
Average cost of user support per user per year $          
Percentage of support time re spam %    

Additional resources

What spam really costs, part 1
Mark Gibbs introduces the spam calculator (from this article, you can also download an Excel spreadsheet that lets you play even more with the numbers).

What spam really costs, part 2
After you've calculated your spam costs, what next? Gibbs offers some tips on building a case for action for your CEO.

Spam research center
The latest spam news, analysis and links.