What does coordination cost your business each year?
Coordination costs the hours your people spend on leads, proposals and projects, times their hourly cost, times twelve. Enter your own counts to see your hours and yearly cost. Federal wage data for the middle half of a close job category puts a coordinator hire at an estimated $68,000 to $107,000 a year with benefits and payroll taxes.
What coordination costs you now
Coordination takes 99 hours a month, which costs $53,460 a year, less than hiring a coordinator.
- HOURS A MONTH
- 99
- COST A YEAR
- $53,460
A coordinator hired to take this work on costs an estimated $68,000 to $107,000 a year, fully loaded. That is US Bureau of Labor Statistics base pay for the middle half of a close job category, plus what employers add for taxes and benefits.
| Leads × minutes on each | 45 × 20 minutes = 15 hours |
|---|---|
| Proposals × hours on each | 8 × 3 hours = 24 hours |
| Projects × coordination hours on each | 15 × 4 hours = 60 hours |
| Hours a month | 99 hours |
| Hours × hourly cost = cost a month | 99 × $45 = $4,455 |
| Cost a month × twelve = cost a year | $4,455 × twelve = $53,460 |
Bring these numbers to a free consultation, and I'll go through them with you line by line to find the hours a system could take on.
How this is calculated
- Leads a month times the minutes spent on each lead, divided by sixty, gives the hours leads take.
- Proposals a month times the hours each proposal takes gives the hours proposals take.
- Active projects times the coordination hours each one needs a month gives the hours projects take.
- Those three added together are your coordination hours a month.
- Hours a month times the hourly cost of the people doing the work gives the cost a month, and that times twelve gives the year.
Assumptions and limits
- The inputs are yours, and the starting values are an example. The result means something once you replace them with your own counts.
- There is no industry benchmark in the math. The only outside figure is the coordinator range, and its sources are listed below.
- It counts people's time only. Leads that slip and mistakes that need fixing cost money too, and they are left out.
- The comparison is one coordinator hire at an estimated $68,000 to $107,000 a year, fully loaded, from federal pay for the middle half of a close job category. Fully loaded means base pay plus the taxes and benefits an employer pays on top.
- Loaded cost is the fair comparison, because the hourly cost you enter for your own people should include their taxes and benefits too. Set against base pay alone, a hire would look cheaper than it is.
Questions
Shouldn't I just hire an ops person?
Sometimes that's the right call. A hire makes sense when what's missing is judgment, ownership or the relationship with clients. A system makes sense when the same information moves through the same steps every week. I'd put the repeated work into a system first, then hire into a cleaner operation if you still need someone.
What counts as coordination?
Any time someone moves information between people or tools instead of doing the work itself. Logging a lead, chasing a reply, copying details into a proposal, updating a client on status and reminding someone a task is due all count. The tool asks about the three places it piles up: leads, proposals and active projects.
What hourly cost should I enter?
Use what an hour of the people doing this work costs you, with their taxes and benefits included. If you or a senior person does most of it, use that rate, because those hours come out of selling or delivering.
Why compare it with a coordinator hire?
When this work outgrows the people doing it, the usual answer is to hire a coordinator. So the hire is the cost to hold your number against. I use federal wage data for the middle half of a close job category, $68,000 to $107,000 a year fully loaded, because base pay leaves out what an employer pays on top.
Does this show what I would save?
It shows what coordination costs you now. How much of that a system could take over depends on the work itself, and that is what I go through with you on a free consultation.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey, May 2025, production, planning and expediting clerks in the United States (a close federal job category to an operations coordinator): $47,820 a year in base pay at the 25th percentileREAD
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey, May 2025, production, planning and expediting clerks in the United States (a close federal job category to an operations coordinator): $75,000 a year in base pay at the 75th percentileREAD
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries were 70% of what private employers spent on pay and benefits. Fully loaded estimate used here: $68,000 to $107,000 a year, the $47,820 to $75,000 base pay above divided by 70%READ
Related
- Should I hire an operations coordinator or install a system?What an operations coordinator costs a year, set against installing a system: where each one fails, and which to pick first when your agency is growing.
- What do slow replies to leads cost you?Multiply your leads, the value of a won client, your close rate and your own estimate of leads lost to slow replies to see the revenue at risk.
- Where do your leads leak?Twelve yes or no checks across the four places a lead dies: never recorded, answered, followed up or closed out. See your worst leak and what closes it.