Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

The lowest price
is almost always the highest cost.

01

You paid less. But over the years you have lost hours, changed suppliers, and lost the odd client who saw the office and thought “hmm”.

02

The true cost of a desk isn't the price tag — it's everything it generates (or fails to generate) over time: productivity, image, wellbeing, durability.

03

There's a calculation that serious professionals run before any major purchase. It takes two minutes.

Analyze your project's TCO →
+3%
PRODUCTIVITY PER EMPLOYEE

A well-designed workplace cuts distractions and signals respect for the people who work there. We assume +3% productivity: on an average labour cost of £44,000 (ONS 2024), around £1,300 a year per employee.

-7%
DAYS LOST TO ABSENCE

Ergonomic, quality workstations reduce fatigue and minor injuries. In Great Britain 7.1 million working days were lost to musculoskeletal disorders in 2024/25 (HSE). We assume −7% on absence.

33%
PERCEIVED EMPLOYER BRAND

Well-kept spaces communicate company values. We estimate +33% in perceived employer brand: for Gensler (2025), 90% of people in a great workplace are proud of their company.

Compare two products

Choose a reference product and one to evaluate: we calculate the difference — how much more it costs and how much more it returns.

Select the brand, then the product on each side to compare them.

FAQ

What is total cost of ownership, and what does this tool actually answer?
Whole-life cost is the sum of what a piece costs you after the invoice: how long it lasts, how often it is replaced, what it does to the people using it. The tool does not try to price your project. It answers one question, narrowly: between two products, what does the difference cost and what does the difference return over the years you intend to keep them.
Which categories does the calculation actually use?
Six, and they are shown separately in the result so you can disagree with any of them: productivity, wellbeing, prestige, certifications, customisation and absenteeism. Splitting them is deliberate. A procurement team that discounts prestige entirely can still read the other five, which is more useful than one aggregate figure nobody trusts.
Where do the percentages come from?
From published research, listed with links at the foot of the page, and from the calibration of our own model. The figures on the three cards are stated as estimates because that is what they are: the studies behind them are multi-country and measure workplaces, not this desk against that desk. We would rather show the source and the word estimate than a decimal that looks certain.
What is the Market Benchmark option in the product list?
It is not a real product. It is an entry-level market reference in the same family, built to represent the piece bought on price alone: shorter service life, weaker certification, fewer technical documents behind it. Comparing against it is how you see what is not in the low price, which is the whole point of the exercise.
How should I read the break-even and the return on the premium?
The premium is the extra you would pay for the better product. Break-even is how many months the estimated benefits take to cover it, and the return is what happens after that. Read them together with the horizon: a premium that returns in eight months is an easy decision, one that returns in nine years is only a decision if the building is yours.

How to use the whole-life cost calculator

Five fields decide the answer: the baseline, the alternative, the size of the project, the sector and the horizon.

Choose the reference product
Start with category and brand, then the item you are treating as the baseline: usually the one already quoted or already specified.
Choose the product under evaluation
On the other side, the piece you are weighing. Market Benchmark sits in the same list when you want the comparison against a low-cost reference rather than a named product.
Enter units, people and years
Units per product, the number of employees affected, and the horizon. The horizon is the field people underestimate: it decides how many replacement cycles enter the calculation.
Select the sector
Benefits are calculated on labour cost, which differs by industry. The average is there for the cases where the mix is genuinely broad.
Read the difference between the two
Additional cost, benefits by category, break-even in months and the net position at the end of the horizon. Print the categories you agree with and ignore the rest: the tool is meant to inform a decision, not to replace it.

Guides & Insights

Sources: ONS — Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2024 · HSE — Working days lost in Great Britain, 2024/25 · Journal of Safety Research — Effectiveness of ergonomics interventions, 2008 · Gensler — Global Workplace Survey 2025 · Human Spaces — Interface, 2015. Percentages are prudent estimates, for indicative purposes only.