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What Does True 24/7 SRE Coverage Actually Cost?

Run the numbers for your team. Most companies underestimate by 3x.

The 24/7 Reality: Why You Need 10 Engineers

24/7 coverage requires far more staff than most teams expect.

168
Hours in a week
40
Avg. work week
x2
Engineers per shift (redundancy)
+15%
PTO, holidays, sick, training
10
FTEs required
1

Internal Staffing Costs

Annual compensation
$
15%

% of base salary

0%100%
30%

% of base salary

0%100%

Editing these fields will auto-update the Burden % above.

$
$
9%

% of base + bonus

0%100%
4%

% of base salary

0%100%
$
2

Cost Breakdown

$253,750 per engineer
3

Your Internal 24/7 Cost

FTEs required
10
for true 24/7 coverage
Annual cost
$2,537,500
fully loaded
Monthly cost
$211,458
per month

This calculator is conservative. These costs are NOT included:

Real-world 24/7 operations carry additional costs that are hard to quantify but very real.

  • Recruiting costs ($30K to $50K per hire)
  • Ramp time (3 to 6 months to productivity)
  • Attrition and backfill risk
  • Management overhead
  • On-call burnout and lost productivity
  • Slower incident response during gaps
  • Tooling and observability platform costs
  • Knowledge loss from turnover
  • Turnover replacement time
  • Coverage during company holidays
  • Training time

There's a better way to run 24/7 operations.

OpsWerks delivers full coverage with built-in redundancy. No hiring. No burnout. Predictable cost.

Schedule a Discovery Call