Cost Calculator

What does your current workflow really cost?

Data collection is only part of the cost. Enter the approximate time and fully loaded hourly cost for the people involved in turning your data into usable evidence—from data entry and cleaning through analysis, reporting, publication, and updates.

Staff time

Include scientists, technicians, analysts, GIS specialists, managers, consultants, or anyone else whose time is required.

Activity
Hours / year
Hourly cost
Data entry & preparation Entering data from PDFs, forms, emails, spreadsheets, etc.
Cleaning & validation Checking errors, standardizing, reconciling, organizing and QA/QC.
Querying & analysis Queries, coding, statistics, modelling and interpretation.
Maps, figures & tables Creating, checking and updating visual outputs.
Reporting & writing Reports, papers, presentations, revisions and final outputs.
Updating & repeating work Adding new data, rerunning analyses and updating outputs.

Publication costs

Include direct costs that are easy to overlook when calculating the cost of getting your work into the world.

Open-access publication fees Enter your approximate annual total.
Other publication costs Editing, graphics, publication services, etc.

Your estimated annual cost

$0
Estimated annual cost of your current data-to-publication workflow
0
hours / year
0.0
full-time equivalent capacity*
$0
estimated cost over 5 years

*Based on 1,800 working hours per full-time equivalent per year. This calculator is an illustrative estimate. It does not account for fieldwork, equipment, software licences, infrastructure, management overhead, or the opportunity cost of work that could otherwise be done with this staff time.