Cost per ticket calculator
Work out what each support ticket really costs your team, see the cost of email, chat and phone separately, and estimate what changes when AI answers part of the questions. Free, no sign-up, nothing leaves your browser.
Made by Anatolii Ulitovskyi 
Fact-checked by RH Fardin Updated Fewer tickets for your team
Let an AI agent answer the repeat questions on your website at any hour, and pass the rest to your team with the whole conversation attached.
CRMsoftware.pro puts an AI agent on your website that answers questions in chat and voice from your own help content, hands over to a person when it cannot help, and saves every conversation for your team.
- Answers at night and on weekends
- Hands over to a person with the full chat
- Every conversation saved for your team
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The method
How to calculate cost per ticket
Everything support costs in a month, divided by the tickets it handled.
Add up what the support team costs in a month: agent salaries, the overhead that comes with them, software, and everything else the team needs, such as team leads, quality checks and training. Divide by the number of tickets handled in the same month. Use the same rule every month, either tickets created or tickets resolved, so the trend means something.
The calculator also shows tickets per agent and how many minutes of paid agent time each ticket gets. If that number is far above your real handle time, agents spend a lot of time on other work, or the team has room for more tickets.
$48,800
$32,000 + $9,600 + $1,200 + $6,000
8 agents at $48,000 a year, 30% overhead, $1,200 of software and $6,000 of other costs.
$16.27
$48,800 ÷ 3,000 = $16.27
About $585,600 a year for 36,000 tickets.
375 tickets
3,000 ÷ 8 = 375
About 26 minutes of paid time per ticket at 160 hours a month.
Costs
What to include in support costs
Payroll alone makes the number look cheaper than it is.
MetricNet's definition, used across the help desk industry, counts the total monthly operating expense of support: salaries and benefits of agents and of the people around them (team leads, supervisors, schedulers, quality and training staff, managers), plus technology, telephony, facilities, training and office costs. Most of it is people. In the example above, salaries alone are only about two thirds of the real monthly cost, so a cost per ticket based on payroll would look a third lower than it is.
| Cost | Include |
|---|---|
| Agent salaries | Gross pay of everyone who answers tickets, in full-time equivalents |
| Overhead | Payroll taxes, benefits, office space, equipment |
| Software | Help desk, live chat, phone system, knowledge base, AI tools |
| Other | Team leads and managers, quality checks, training, outsourced support |
Channels
Cost per ticket by channel
Time per ticket drives the cost of each channel.
The budget method gives one average. To see email, chat and phone separately, the By channel tab uses agent time: cost per ticket = minutes per ticket ÷ 60 × cost per agent hour ÷ share of time spent on tickets. Dividing by that share spreads breaks, meetings and training over the tickets, so the channel costs add up to a realistic total.
Live chat often costs less per ticket than phone because one agent can handle several chats at once; enter the effective minutes per chat. Phone usually costs the most per ticket because the call and the notes after it take the agent's full attention. In a 2019 poll of customer service leaders, Gartner found that live channels (phone, live chat and email) cost an average of $8.01 per contact, against about $0.10 for self-service on a company's own website or app.
Automation
What AI and self-service change
A ticket that never reaches an agent costs a fraction of one that does.
$13,950 a month
3,000 tickets at $16, with 30% answered by AI at $0.50 each: the monthly cost drops from $48,000 to $34,050.
150 hours
900 tickets × 10 minutes of agent time no longer needed each month, close to one full-time agent.
Capacity, not cash
Freed hours become savings only when you hire fewer people or move them to other work. The tickets left for agents are often the harder ones.
Spreadsheets
Cost per ticket formulas for Excel and Google Sheets
Tickets in B2, agents in C2, salary per year in D2, overhead in E2, software in F2, other costs in G2.
Cost per ticket
Cost per ticket for one channel
Minutes per ticket in H2, cost per agent hour in I2, share of time spent on tickets in J2 (for example 70%).
Monthly savings with AI answers
Share answered by AI in K2, cost per ticket today in L2, AI cost per answered ticket in M2.
FAQ
Cost per ticket questions
How do you calculate cost per ticket?
Divide the total monthly cost of your support team by the number of tickets it handled that month. $48,800 of monthly costs and 3,000 tickets give $16.27 per ticket.
What costs should be included?
Agent salaries plus overhead (taxes, benefits, office, equipment), software, and the people and services around the agents: team leads, managers, quality checks, training and any outsourcing.
What is a good cost per ticket?
There is no single good number, because it depends on how complex your product is, the channels you offer and where your team works. Track your own number every month and compare channels with each other. As a reference point, Gartner reported $8.01 per contact on live channels and about $0.10 for self-service.
Should I count created or resolved tickets?
Either works if you use the same rule every month. Resolved tickets show the cost of work actually finished; created tickets are easier to count. Merge duplicates first, or the cost per ticket looks lower than it is.
What is the difference between cost per ticket and cost per contact?
One ticket can include several contacts, for example an email, a reply and a follow-up call. Cost per contact divides by every interaction, so it is lower than cost per ticket for the same team.
Do AI savings mean lower costs right away?
Not by themselves. Fewer tickets for agents free up time; the money is saved only when you hire fewer people, avoid overtime or outsourcing, or move agents to other work.
Does the calculator store my data?
No. Everything runs in your browser. The share link keeps your numbers in the address after the # sign, which is not sent to our server.
References
Sources
- What cost per ticket includes: Jeff Rumburg, MetricNet, "Metric of the Month: Cost per Ticket", HDI
- Cost per contact on live and self-service channels: Gartner, "Gartner Says Only 9% of Customers Report Solving Their Issues Completely via Self-Service", September 25, 2019
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