Calculator Inputs
Example Data Table
| Scenario | Employees | Period (Months) | Investment / Employee | Estimated Benefits / Employee | Adjusted ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness refresh | 100 | 12 | 290.00 | 560.00 | 93.10% |
| Secure coding bootcamp | 40 | 18 | 1,450.00 | 2,600.00 | 52.41% |
| Phishing resilience program | 250 | 6 | 110.00 | 240.00 | 85.00% |
Formula Used
- Total Investment = Direct Costs + Time Costs + Overhead.
- Direct Costs = Employees × (Training + Materials + Travel) + Vendor Fees.
- Time Costs = Employees × Training Hours × Loaded Hourly Cost.
- Overhead = (Direct Costs + Time Costs) × Overhead %.
- Incidents Avoided = Baseline Incidents × Reduction % × (Months ÷ 12).
- Benefits = Incident Savings + Downtime Savings + Compliance Savings + Productivity Savings + ALE Reduction.
- ROI (Base) = ((Benefits − Investment) ÷ Investment) × 100.
- ROI (Adjusted) applies Benefit Confidence: Adjusted Benefits = Benefits × Confidence %.
- Payback (Months) = Investment ÷ (Benefits ÷ Months).
- Per-Employee values divide totals by Employees.
How to Use This Calculator
- Set Employees and the evaluation period in months.
- Enter direct costs per employee and any one-time vendor fees.
- Estimate time spent training and use a loaded hourly cost.
- Choose which benefit types you can measure reliably.
- Enter baseline incidents and a realistic reduction percentage.
- Add downtime, compliance, productivity, and expected loss reduction if tracked.
- Set Benefit Confidence to get a conservative ROI view.
- Click Calculate, then download CSV or PDF for reporting.
Why per-employee ROI matters
Security training budgets compete with tooling, staffing, and remediation work. A per-employee view normalizes program value across teams and makes results comparable between cohorts. When you express both investment and benefits per person, leaders can spot whether spend is concentrated in high-impact roles, and whether marginal training hours still produce measurable outcomes over the chosen evaluation period. Including per-employee net benefit also supports compensation planning and demonstrates security enablement across business units.
Cost model that withstands scrutiny
This calculator separates direct costs, time costs, and overhead. Direct costs include course fees, labs, travel, and vendor program charges. Time costs convert training hours into money using a loaded hourly rate that reflects wages plus benefits. Overhead applies a percentage to capture coordination, reporting, and learning management. Include refresh training, simulations, and coaching time when relevant, because blended programs often shift costs from vendors to staff internally. The result is a transparent total investment that finance teams can audit.
Benefit levers tied to security outcomes
Benefits are built from measurable levers: reduced incident count, avoided downtime, compliance savings, productivity gains, and expected loss reduction. Incidents avoided scale from baseline incidents and an estimated reduction rate, adjusted to the selected months. Downtime savings multiply avoided incidents by hours per incident and a cost per hour. Productivity savings convert minutes saved into hours and apply the same loaded rate for consistency.
Confidence adjustment for realistic planning
Not every projected benefit is fully realized. The confidence factor applies a conservative haircut to total benefits, producing an adjusted ROI and adjusted benefit-cost ratio. Use higher confidence when you have strong evidence, such as controlled pilot results or long trend lines. Use lower confidence when estimates rely on expert judgment, early-stage metrics, or uncertain adoption.
Reporting and governance best practices
Use the CSV and PDF exports to document assumptions, share results, and build repeatable quarterly reviews. Avoid double-counting by deciding whether incident cost already includes downtime or labor rework. Track leading indicators like phishing click rates, patch latency, policy violations, and secure code defect rates to refine the reduction percentage. Over time, compare cohorts to learn which training formats deliver the best payback.
FAQs
1. What should I use for baseline incidents per year?
Use incidents that the trained group can influence, such as phishing clicks, credential misuse, misconfigurations, or policy violations. Prefer a 12-month baseline. If data is noisy, use an average of multiple periods and document the source.
2. How do I avoid double-counting downtime and incident costs?
If your average incident cost already includes downtime, keep downtime inputs at zero. If incident cost excludes downtime, enter realistic downtime hours and cost per hour. Stay consistent across cohorts so comparisons remain valid.
3. What is the benefit confidence percentage?
It scales total benefits to reflect uncertainty in realization. Set it higher when you have measured outcomes from pilots or strong historical trends. Set it lower when estimates rely on assumptions, early adoption, or limited tracking.
4. Can I use this for role-based training like secure coding?
Yes. Keep the employee count limited to the trained role group, use role-specific hourly costs, and select benefits aligned to outcomes, such as reduced vulnerabilities, fewer rework cycles, and lower defect remediation time.
5. How should I estimate productivity minutes saved per month?
Start with small, defensible savings from reduced rework, faster secure reviews, or fewer policy exceptions. Validate with time studies, ticket cycle-time changes, or sampled activity logs. Update the number after each quarter of measurement.
6. What does payback period in months mean here?
It estimates how many months of benefits are needed to recover the total investment, assuming benefits accrue evenly across the evaluation period. If benefits are seasonal or delayed, interpret payback as an approximate planning metric.
Notes
- Use group-level incident counts for the trained population, not the entire company.
- Conservatively estimate reduction percentages when evidence is limited.
- Consider tracking outcomes (click-rate, patch latency, policy violations) to improve benefit estimates.