Cost per ticket calculator
What does one support ticket cost you? Enter your team, what it costs and how many tickets come in. You get the cost per ticket, your monthly support cost and what each point answered by your help center saves, with the formulas filled in.
What support costs
€9.25Cost per ticketpeople and tools together
€9,250Support per month€9,000 people, €250 tools
Each point answered by the help center saves
€112.50a month, €1,350 a year
One percentage point of your 1,250 questions is 12.5 tickets your team doesn’t get.
Counting only handle time: €52.08 a month, €625 a year.
The numbers behind it
- People cost per month
- €9,000
- Tools per month
- €250
- People cost per ticket
- €9.00
- Tools per ticket
- €0.25
- All questions, help center included
- 1,250
- Answered by the help center
- 250
- Support cost per question
- €7.40
- Cost of one hour of one person
- €25.00
- Handle time per month
- 167 hours
- Share of paid support time spent handling
- 46%
The formulas, with your numbers
- People cost = 3 × €4,000 × 75% = €9,000
- Support cost = €9,000 + €250 tools = €9,250
- Cost per ticket = €9,250 ÷ 1,000 tickets = €9.25
- All questions = 1,000 ÷ (1 − 20%) = 1,250
- One point = 1% × 1,250 = 12.5 tickets × €9.00 = €112.50 a month
- Handle time only = 12.5 × 10 min ÷ 60 × (€4,000 ÷ 160 h) = €52.08 a month
The savings assume your support time shrinks with the number of tickets. Tools stay out of them, because a subscription doesn’t get cheaper with fewer tickets.
€9.25 per ticket, €9,250 a month. Each point answered by the help center saves €112.50 a month.
How the calculator counts
Cost per ticket is what you spend on support in a month, divided by the tickets in that month. The calculator counts two kinds of cost, people and tools, and the examples below use the made-up numbers the calculator starts with.
Step by step
- People cost is people on support × cost per person × the share of their time that goes to support. Three people at €4,000 a month who spend 75% of their time on support cost €9,000.
- Support cost is people cost plus tools. With €250 in tools, that’s €9,250 a month.
- Cost per ticket is support cost ÷ tickets. 1,000 tickets make €9.25 per ticket.
- If the help center answers 20% of all questions before they become a ticket, the 1,000 tickets are the other 80%. So there were 1,000 ÷ 0.8 = 1,250 questions.
- One percentage point of 1,250 questions is 12.5 tickets that don’t reach your team. At €9 of people cost per ticket, that saves €112.50 a month.
Two ways to count the savings
The main figure assumes your support time shrinks with the number of tickets: fewer paid hours, or hours that go to other work. It includes the time between tickets, meetings and training, because that time comes with the tickets too.
With a handle time, the calculator also shows a smaller figure: only the minutes someone would have spent on the tickets that no longer arrive, at the cost of one hour (cost per person ÷ paid hours). Which one fits depends on what happens to the time that frees up. Tools stay out of both, because a subscription per seat or per month doesn’t shrink when tickets do.
What cost per ticket doesn’t tell you
A lower cost per ticket isn’t always better. When the help center takes the simple questions, the tickets that are left are harder and take longer, so cost per ticket can rise while total cost falls. Follow total support cost over time, with cost per ticket next to it.
If handling takes a small share of the paid support time, look at how the hours are planned. The staffing calculator shows how many people your busiest hour needs.
Where Flagbell fits
In Flagbell every brand gets a help center on its own subdomain, and the chat widget shows matching articles before a chat starts. The email and chats that still come in land in one inbox for all your brands. Flagbell hasn’t announced its pricing yet; people on the waitlist hear it first.
Questions about cost per ticket
How do you calculate cost per ticket?
Add up what support costs in a month, people and tools, and divide it by the tickets in that month. For people, count only the share of their time that goes to support.
What goes into the cost per person?
The salary plus everything an employer pays on top: taxes, pension, equipment and office costs, as one monthly number. Your payroll or accountant has the figure.
Why is my cost per ticket higher than the handle time suggests?
Because nobody handles tickets every paid minute. Waiting for the next ticket, meetings, training and breaks are part of the cost too. Enter a handle time and the calculator shows both figures.
Does a help center lower the cost per ticket?
It lowers the number of tickets. Total cost only goes down when the time that frees up turns into fewer hours or other work. Cost per ticket can even go up, because the simple questions are the first to go.
What does Flagbell cost?
Flagbell hasn’t announced its pricing yet. It will be announced before new people are let in, and everyone on the waitlist hears it first.
In Flagbell
Help center
A fast, static help center for every brand on its own subdomain, managed centrally in Flagbell. The chat widget shows matching articles before the chat.
About the help center →Inbox
All support email from all your brands in one calm inbox, with a brand filter, saved replies in two languages, a calendar and GDPR deadlines.
About the inbox →Live chat
A fast, light chat widget for your site, without trackers or cookies. Outside office hours, Flagbell emails your customer back in the same conversation.
About live chat →Read next
Guide
Writing saved replies
How to write saved replies that don’t sound canned: which questions first, structure, placeholders, tone, two languages and four templates to copy.
Read the guide →Free tool
Staffing calculator
Free Erlang C calculator for chat and email support. Work out agents on the floor and rostered, with chat concurrency, shrinkage and service level.
Open the tool →Free tool
SLA calculator
Free SLA calculator: see when a reply is due in business hours, or how many business hours passed, with time zones, holidays and daylight saving time.
Open the tool →The cheapest ticket is the one you don’t get.
Flagbell is a helpdesk with live chat, a shared inbox and a help center for every brand. It’s in development: join the waitlist to hear when you can use it.