Cost vs. benefit calculator for your configurator

Let's go! With each filled-in field on the left side, you will immediately see the effects on the right part of the calculator. In the white boxes, you see an overview of the numbers with and without the configurator. In the dark blue box, you will find your personal added value. The last line (increase in contribution margin) shows you whether a configurator is profitable for your business or product.

Tip: 

• You can simply omit any criteria that are irrelevant to you.
• Are you struggling to specify exact values? No problem! Estimate and change the numbers to experiment with the result.

We'll start in the "Business" section at the very top left. Please enter here the average value of your product and the number of products sold per month.

When asked about the expected increase in revenue through the configurator, you have the choice of either using the slider or simply entering a number directly in the display field.

How does the increase in sales come about? Through the configurator itself, because customers spend more time on your website as they engage intensively with your product. The higher the customer interaction, the higher the customer loyalty, and therefore the higher the sales.

Typical revenue increases are 5–15% in B2B and 10–30% in B2C, but this very much depends on your business and can vary greatly. Also keep in mind that customers often find out about the product online and then order it from the in-store sales department  or in B2B. This also means increased sales.

IMPORTANT: If you have few or no website visitors, as is often the case with startups, the configurator may generate few or no leads, but this says nothing about the success of the configurator.

If you are conducting consultation meetings, then the use of a configurator can save you time. Here's why: a) Customers can learn about the product themselves beforehand. b) The configurator supports sales staff by enabling error-free quotation generation with just a few clicks.

To determine the benefits of the configurator, we need information about the average time your sales staff needs for a consultation, the internally calculated costs per hour, as well as the number of inquiries per month. Please note that the number of inquiries is usually higher than the number of products sold per month, as not every inquiry leads to a successful sale.

The percentage that you can set with the slider refers to the time that can be saved by the configurator because the customers have most of the information in advance. Let's look at an example: If the average consultation takes 60 minutes, it can be shortened by 60%, resulting in a new average consultation time of 24 minutes.

Please enter here how much setup time you need to manually prepare orders as well as the internal costs per hour. Manual preparation refers to all data and files that must be manually created after the customer order in order to process the order in production. Examples of this may include creating the bills of materials.

Using the slider, you can specify by how much the manual order preparation is reduced when using a configurator. A saving of 100%  on creating automated  parts lists, for example, is possible with the help of a configurator.

If customers have difficulty understanding the information on your website, erroneous orders may occur. Please enter the average cost and number of these wrong orders per month.

Experience with customers has shown that the use of a configurator helps to significantly reduce the number of wrong orders. Customers can use the configurator to order exactly what they really need, thus avoiding erroneous orders. 

In online marketing , a lot of time and resources are invested in traffic generation, with the aim of bringing as many visitors as possible to the website. However, customers often leave the site quickly and do not send an inquiry.

With a configurator, customers can engage with your product, stay on the site longer, and build brand loyalty. In addition, they are more likely to add the product to their shopping cart or submit an inquiry to sales.

The marketing budget does not enter into the calculation in our calculator. The idea behind it is to make people aware of the difference between budget for traffic generation and budget for lead generation. We recommend shifting part of the marketing budget used for traffic generation to lead generation by investing in a configurator.

Each field that you fill in on the left side shows immediate effects on the right.

In the white boxes you will see the current figures without configurator and with configurator as a result. Here, the values of revenue, costs, and contribution margin reduction are highlighted in more detail.

Here is an example: If you have a turnover of 10,000 euros per month and spend 500 euros on consulting sessions, this results in a contribution margin reduction of 5%. However, if you reduce the consulting sessions by 80%, the costs are reduced from 500 to 100 euros. Use of the configurator cuts the contribution margin from 5% to 1%.

In the "personal added value" section, you can see whether a configurator is worthwhile for your product. You can even enter your contribution margin on the product as a percentage.

• Sales increase: The sales increase that you have set on the left side as a percentage is displayed here in euros.
• Contribution margin: Enter here your product contribution margin as a percentage.
• Contribution margin from revenue increase: Here you can see the value of the revenue increase in euros. For example, 10,000 euros minus the contribution margin of 60% equals 6,000 euros.
• Contribution margin from savings in costs: Here you can see the cost reduction. If your costs per month are 10,000 euros without the configurator and only 2,000 euros with the configurator, then you save 8,000 euros. This saving has a direct 1:1 effect on the contribution margin.
• Contribution margin increase: Finally, you see your contribution margin increase. This is the sum of the sales increase and the cost reduction. This is the amount of additional contribution margin that you directly generate per month or per year - provided that the data entered is correct in practice.

It should be noted that this calculator cannot make absolute predictions and should not be used for forecasting. However, you can use it to simulate various scenarios and to determine whether the investment in a configurator is worthwhile. For many users, it will quickly become apparent that a configurator is worthwhile, especially if cost savings can be achieved. Other users will find that the investment may not be worth it if the quantities or product prices are too low. Some users will struggle to make a clear case despite the calculator, as predicting sales increases and shifting marketing budgets can be difficult to impossible. If you need more support here, just contact us.