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Cost calculator: what does an hour of customer service cost?

A monthly salary says little about what an hour of customer service really costs. Holidays, public holidays, sickness, breaks, training and idle time all reduce the hours your agents are actually available to customers. Enter your figures – every field is pre-filled with an average value for Germany.

Staff cost per full-time equivalent (FTE)
Median for German "Kaufmann/-frau für Dialogmarketing": €2,922 (Federal Employment Agency)
e.g. holiday or Christmas bonus
Germany 2026: approx. 21 %
Example: one team lead for 15 agents
Working time
excluding statutory (unpaid) breaks
Absence per year
statutory minimum 20, average around 28
9–14 depending on the federal state
German health insurers 2025: 18.5–26.6 calendar days ≈ 13–19 working days
Time without customer contact per working day
Occupancy
Share of talk and after-call work; industry target 80–85 %

Result per FTE per year

Your own teamCCG
Paid hours
Logged-in hours
Productive hours
Shrinkage (loss against paid hours)
Your own teamCCG
Cost per FTE per month
Cost per paid hour
Cost per logged-in hour
Cost per productive hour
Cost per year for all FTE

Potential saving per year for the same logged-in time:

CCG: €3,500 per FTE per month. One FTE works 45 hours a week: 40 hours logged in with customers and 5 hours of internal meetings and training. We assume 14 days of holiday (statutory minimum in Türkiye), 15.5 Turkish public holidays and the same sick days as your team; absences are not replaced. The actual proposal depends on language, service hours and channels.

Discuss the result with us

How we calculate

  • Paid hours = working days per week × 52 × hours per day.
  • Logged-in hours = paid hours − holidays, public holidays and sickness − breaks, training and meetings.
  • Productive hours = logged-in hours × occupancy (time in calls and after-call work).
  • Cost per year = (gross salary × 12 + extra payments) × (1 + employer share) + team lead, IT and other × 12.
  • CCG: 45 paid hours per week; logged in = days present × 8 hours (the other 5 weekly hours are internal meetings and training).

Sources of the default values

Non-binding example calculation. Defaults are based on publicly available averages; your actual costs may differ.

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