Estimate the financial impact of a data breach on your business. Free calculator covering GDPR fines, downtime, forensics, legal costs, and reputational damage.
What would a data breach actually cost your business? Most Irish SME owners underestimate the true cost by 5-10x. It is not just the fine — it is the downtime, the forensics, the legal fees, the lost customers, and the months of recovery.
This free estimator uses methodology from the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024 and Irish regulatory data to calculate a realistic estimate for your specific business. Takes less than 3 minutes.
What You Will Learn
- Total estimated breach cost (direct + indirect)
- Breakdown: downtime, forensics, legal, notification, reputation
- Potential GDPR fine range based on your data types
- How insurance and IR planning reduce the total
What the Estimator Asks
The calculator builds its estimate from six inputs about your business:
- Number of employees
- Sector — healthcare/pharma, financial services, professional services, technology/SaaS, manufacturing, retail/e-commerce, education, public sector, or other
- Types of data you hold — personal data (names, addresses, DOB), financial data (bank details, card numbers), health records, login credentials, business confidential data (contracts, IP), and employee HR records (PPS numbers, salaries)
- Approximate number of individual records held
- Whether you have cyber insurance
- Whether you have a tested incident response plan
How the Cost Is Calculated
The estimate combines direct and indirect cost components, adjusted for your sector, then applies reductions for a tested incident response plan and cyber insurance. The potential GDPR fine is shown separately from direct costs.
Data breach costs (per-record)
Based on IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024 methodology, using the types of data you hold and your record count, adjusted by sector.
Business downtime
Productivity loss, revenue impact, and overtime costs over an estimated downtime period that scales with company size.
Forensics and investigation
Digital forensics, root cause analysis, and evidence preservation.
Legal and regulatory response
Legal counsel, DPC engagement, and compliance remediation.
Breach notification costs
GDPR-mandated notification to affected individuals, scaling with record count.
Reputational damage
Customer churn, lost deals, and brand recovery.
Potential GDPR fine
Based on record count, data types, and DPC enforcement patterns. Special category data such as health and financial records increases the estimate, capped at €10 million.
Cyber insurance offset
If you have cyber insurance, an estimated 40% of direct costs is offset.
How to Reduce This Cost
- Incident response plan: reduces total cost by ~15% (IBM CODB 2024)
- Cyber insurance: offsets ~40% of direct costs on average
- Employee training: reduces breach likelihood by up to 70%
- MFA on all accounts: prevents 99.9% of credential-based attacks
- Tested backups: reduces downtime from weeks to days
Important Note
This estimate is based on industry averages and published research. Actual breach costs vary significantly based on the specific circumstances of the incident, the speed of response, and the regulatory environment. GDPR fines are at the discretion of the Data Protection Commission and can be higher or lower than estimated. This tool is for educational purposes and should not be used as financial advice.
Sources: IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, Ponemon Institute, DPC Annual Reports.
We help Irish SMEs build practical defences that reduce both the likelihood and the cost of a breach. CISA, CISSP, and CISM certified. Results include a downloadable PDF report and the option to book a free risk review call.