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Document friction never sends an invoice, but you can put a number on what it costs your organisation.

Enter five figures from your own team, and the calculator estimates the yearly salary value of avoidable document work. It runs in your browser, so nothing you type is sent to a server.

Measure one process with us Enter your numbers

(01)Your numbers

Enter the figures you already know, and choose a recovery rate that you would be comfortable defending.

The defaults describe a mid-sized team, and you can change every value with the slider or by typing in the box beside it.

Obscura cost estimate

This early estimate comes from the calculator at obscr.id and uses the inputs shown below.

people

Include the teams that create, review, find, route, or file documents, and do not use total headcount.

Rp million

A rough average is enough, and this value never leaves the page.

documents

Include contracts, formal decisions, agreements, and official correspondence.

days

Count every pause between final review, routing, signers, and e-Meterai.

%

Choose a conservative target that reflects the complexity of your process, because some stages will always need a person to check and decide.

Estimated annual cost of document friction

This is the salary cost estimated with a 21.3% productivity baseline from a 2012 IDC study.

Annual value of time recovered

This is salary value based on your recovery rate, and it is not a forecast of cash savings.

Annual document-days above baseline

This counts every day beyond a one-day signing baseline, added across all documents for the year.

Where the estimate comes from

Illustrative split by stage

  1. 1Finding or recreating34%
  2. 2Managing versions and review22%
  3. 3Waiting for approval24%
  4. 4Signing and e-Meteraie-sign product12%
  5. 5Preparing audit evidence8%

Signing products may also support templates, approvals, and storage, so the split shows where effort occurs and you should validate it against your own process.

Use this estimate to frame a discussion, and base investment decisions on measured results from your own workflow.

(02)Method and sources

Every result comes from one short formula and from sources that you can check.

Annual cost
people × monthly salary × 12 × 21.3%
Value of time recovered
annual cost × your recovery rate
Document-days above baseline
documents per month × 12 × (turnaround days − 1), never below zero
Stage split
34% finding, 22% versions and review, 24% approval, 12% signing, 8% audit evidence

  • The 21.3% baseline comes from a 2012 IDC study of document-related productivity problems, and the model uses it as a starting point, not as a claim about your organisation.

  • McKinsey’s 19% figure gives context on the share of the workweek spent searching for and gathering information, and it is not part of the formula.

  • The one-day baseline reflects Docusign’s report that 76% of its eSignature transactions completed in under 24 hours in fiscal 2025.

  • The five-stage split and the recovery rate are assumptions, so adjust the sliders to match your operation. The result is an early estimate, not an audit or a savings guarantee.

(03)Measure one process

Measure one process with us, and replace the assumptions in this estimate with figures from your own work.

We time one real workflow from start to finish and compare the result with this estimate, so your investment decision rests on measured results.

Measure one process with us