--- title: "IT estate management: what a slow PC costs you each year" description: "15 minutes lost a day is worth around €790 per person per year. How proactive management of your IT estate removes that cost. No-obligation proposal." language: en url: https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/hidden-cost-slow-it-estate/ source: https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/hidden-cost-slow-it-estate/ publisher: DataRoad IT (DataRoad - IT Services and Consulting), Portugal --- > 15 minutes lost a day is worth around €790 per person per year. How proactive management of your IT estate removes that cost. No-obligation proposal. # IT estate management: what a slow PC costs you each year At a glance For decision-makers short on time. - 01 15 minutes lost a day costs around €790 per person per year, in paid time alone. - 02 In a 30-person team, the waste reaches around €23,600 a year. - 03 Reliable equipment and fast support also weigh on talent retention. - 04 Monitoring, managed patching and planned renewal stop the problem before the user sees it. ### In this article Nobody approves overtime to wait for Outlook, yet that is what your company pays for when the estate is slow. In our model, a quarter of an hour wasted a day represents around €790 per employee per year; a team of 30 burns through close to €23,600. **IT estate management** by an MSP cuts that cost at source and, along the way, gives people tools that match the work you ask of them. ## Why does slowness never reach the board meeting? There is no alarm, no outage, no ticket. Slow equipment just subtracts minutes, silently, from each person. Because that paid, unproductive time has no invoice attached, it stays off the radar, and the amount accumulated over a year is often enough to renew the computers. ## How do you calculate the cost of a slow computer? Basis of calculation, using public data: | Step | Value | | --- | --- | | Average monthly pay (INE, 2025) | €1,694 gross | | Annualised (×12) | ≈ €20,330 | | With 23.75% employer social security | ≈ €25,160 | | Actual hours (220 days × 8 h) | 1,760 | | Cost per hour | ≈ €14.30 | | 15 min/day | €3.57/day → ≈ €786/year | Scaled by team size: | Team | 5 min/day | 15 min/day | 30 min/day | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 person | €262 | €786 | €1,572 | | 10 people | €2,620 | €7,860 | €15,720 | | 30 people | €7,860 | €23,580 | €47,160 | | 50 people | €13,100 | €39,300 | €78,600 | *Illustrative annual figures (INE 2025 average, 23.75% employer contribution, 1,760 h). They exclude lost revenue; with above-average pay, they rise.* Fifteen minutes sounds like an exaggeration? Count the sluggish start-up, the attachment that freezes email, the video call that stalls, the network folder that will not open and the 4pm reboot. The total adds itself up. ## How do you know your estate is already costing money? - **Log-ins taking several minutes** Before anyone can start work. - **Storage** A mechanical hard drive instead of an SSD, or an SSD bursting at the seams. - **Insufficient RAM** For real use: dozens of tabs, Teams, Outlook and ERP at the same time. - **Hardware incompatible with Windows 11** Windows 10 lost support on 14 October 2025. The ESU programme gives up to three years of paid patches per machine, with the price doubling each year; see [the alternatives to the end of Windows 10](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/windows-10-end-of-support-migration-plan/). - **Battery life** Laptops that die in the middle of a meeting. - **Patches not installed** For months and security alerts ignored. - **Zero standardisation** Every workstation different, every fault a puzzle. A structured survey starts with the [IT estate audit checklist](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/it-estate-audit-checklist-8-blocks/). ## What does talent retention have to do with IT? A great deal. On day one, a slow laptop with no software or credentials tells a new hire that nobody prepared for them. That is not the message HR wants to send. After that, daily irritation builds up. Equipment, chairs and office all weigh on the experience of work; talented people with alternatives notice. Fast computers and a helpdesk that answers are already part of the employee value proposition. And there is the risk side: when asking for help is not worth it, people improvise: USB sticks, personal Dropbox, email forwarded to their phone. The work gets done, but data exposure grows. ## What changes when an MSP manages the estate? You move from "fix it when someone complains" to "fix it before anyone notices": - **An agent on every machine**: alerts the engineer to a full disk, repeated errors or missing patches. See how our [NOC](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/noc-it-monitoring-portugal/) operates. - **Orchestrated patching**: out of hours, in phases, without interrupting work. - **Corporate image**: the same base, the same apps and the same policies on every workstation; a new device goes into production the same day. - **Planned life cycle**: a list of what gets replaced this year and next, with no emergency purchases. - **Helpdesk with immediate response**: remote, on-site and telephone, as in our [user support](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/managed-it-helpdesk-portugal/) included in [IT Unlimited Premium](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/it-unlimited-premium-on-site-support/), with unlimited on-site support. Slowness is the quiet version of the problem; the loud version is a total outage, which has also been costed: [the cost of one hour of downtime with 20 workstations](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/cost-of-it-downtime-calculation/). ## How do you manage a mixed Mac and Windows estate? Reltio by SAP (data software, headquartered in the USA, with an office in Lisbon) has an IT Unlimited contract with DataRoad. Environment: 40 MacBook Pros, 35 Dells, 125 structured network points and Cisco Meraki for firewall, switching and Wi-Fi. Two platforms mean twice the configurations and patch lists; without method, the cost doubles. With continuous maintenance and the office network under management, everything is followed proactively. DataRoad is an Apple Technical Partner and treats Mac and Windows with the same rigour, see [IT for businesses using Apple](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/apple-it-support-for-business/) and the [Reltio by SAP case study](https://www.dataroad-it.com/en/reltio-sap-lisbon-cisco-meraki-apple-dell/). ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does a slow computer cost per year? A slow computer costs around €790 per person per year if it wastes 15 minutes a day, in paid time alone. Measure it in your company: ask how long people wait at start-up and during the day. ### Is it better to repair or replace? On recent machines, an SSD and extra memory are usually enough. Without Windows 11 compatibility or after many years of heavy use, replacing is cheaper than continuing to lose time. ### Does preventive maintenance eliminate slowness? Largely, yes: patches up to date, disk space reclaimed, useless software removed and alerts before failure. The rest is solved with planned renewal. ### Does DataRoad support Mac? Yes. As an Apple Technical Partner, it manages Apple and mixed estates under IT Unlimited contracts. ## Next step: a performance assessment in 5 working days We audit every computer (age, storage, memory, Windows 11 compatibility, patches) and deliver a prioritised plan: what to optimise, what to replace, and when. Request a no-commitment proposal. **More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support.** Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt. **Call to a Portuguese landline.* ## Sources - [Government: real wages in 2025 (INE average of €1,694)](https://portugal.gov.pt/gc25/comunicacao/noticias/salarios-reais-cresceram-32-em-2025) - [INE: highlights on earnings](https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_destaques&xlang=pt) - [PwC, Tax Guide 2026: employer contribution](https://www.pwc.pt/pt/pwcinforfisco/guia-fiscal/2026/seguranca-social.html) - [Microsoft: Windows 10 ESU programme](https://learn.microsoft.com/pt-pt/windows/whats-new/extended-security-updates) - [Microsoft: Windows 11 hardware requirements](https://learn.microsoft.com/pt-pt/windows/whats-new/windows-11-requirements) Chosen by respected and international companies ★★★★★ 5,0 · 52 Google reviews ★★★★★ 5,0 · 52 Google reviews DataRoad ## Related articles [Managed IT and cybersecurityTeams on the move: securing laptops, phones and public Wi-FiThe real travel risk is an unencrypted lost laptop, not hotel Wi-Fi. 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