Prepared with Quantonique Cloud Value, implementing the Misra & Mondal (2011) suitability and return-on-investment method. All figures supplied by the preparer and not independently verified.
Four questions about your business, then your costs. You will get one figure, one recommended action, and an honest statement of how far to trust it.
Worth four questions before any maths. If cloud is a poor structural fit, no spreadsheet rescues it — and you have saved yourself an afternoon.
Smaller setups usually gain most. Very large ones can often match cloud pricing by running their own.
Paying only for what you use is worth most when usage actually moves. Flat demand is the weakest case for cloud.
Sensitive data does not rule out cloud, but it adds real cost. That is priced in at the next step.
Critical systems need stronger guarantees, and those cost extra on every platform — cloud or not.
Three settings that shape everything after this.
Any symbol. The maths does not care.
Three years suits most smaller firms.
Changes what we compare against.
Enter what you know and leave the rest blank. Blanks are counted, not hidden — the app tells you how much they weaken the answer. Enter running costs as a yearly total.
Your existing setup, kept running
Server replacements or upgrades already on the horizon.
Power, cooling, rent for the space, licences, maintenance, IT wages, backups, audits.
Wiping and disposing of old kit safely. Almost always forgotten.
The provider's quote, plus getting there
Migration work, consultants, training, running both systems side by side for a while.
Subscriptions and usage charges. Include the support plan — the free tier rarely suffices in practice.
Getting your data back out. Routinely underestimated, and it is what makes providers hard to leave.
Regulated data and residency rules genuinely cost more in the cloud — restricted regions, audits, extra controls. True everywhere; only the rule's name changes by country.
Cost savings alone undersell the case. But enter only gains you would defend to your bank manager — everything here should survive being challenged.
New customers, longer opening hours, quicker launches. Be mean with this.
Hours saved × what an hour costs you. Only count it if those hours go somewhere useful.
Downtime, lost data, failed audits — cost if it happens, times how likely it is in a year.
Extra sales are not all profit. Leave at 100 if the figure above is already profit.
A lot of cloud value resists measurement: changing direction quickly, staff learning new skills, better resilience, looking credible to bigger customers. We do not put numbers on those. Inventing figures for things you cannot measure is how business cases turn into fiction, and it is the easiest way to make any proposal look good.
Weigh them yourself alongside the number this produces. Just do not let anyone slip them into the total.