Cost analysis · €5M annual spend
Total Cost of Ownership
The honest number. Software, labour, leakage and risk — for spreadsheets, an in-house build and ADmetric AI. Every line documented; every assumption visible.
Reference profile
€5M annual paid media · 4 platforms · 2 entities
Numbers are Year 2 steady state (in-house build cost is amortised over three years). Labour fully loaded at €120k/FTE. All currency in EUR.
| Cost line | Spreadsheets | In-house build | ADmetric AI |
|---|---|---|---|
Software license BI + scheduler + storage (in-house). ADmetric mid-tier plan. | €0 | €48,000 | €36,000 |
Engineering build (Yr 1, amortised over 3y) 3 engineers · 14 weeks · ~€620k loaded, amortised. ADmetric is bought. | €0 | €145,000 | €0 |
Engineering maintenance (Yr 2+) 1.0 FTE on platform integrations, pacing models, FX corridors. | €0 | €96,000 | €0 |
Finance ops labour 1.4 FTE → 0.7 FTE → 0.3 FTE on reconciliation, pacing review, period close. | €84,000 | €42,000 | €18,000 |
Pacing variance leakage MAPE 22% → 9% → 4% on €5M spend, conservatively priced at 50% recovery. | €124,000 | €64,000 | €22,000 |
FX corridor leakage Platform-native FX vs. consolidated treasury FX. | €36,000 | €24,000 | €6,000 |
Disputes & refunds left on table ADmetric tracks every credit through to recovery. | €18,000 | €12,000 | €2,000 |
Audit & SOC 2 readiness Continuous evidence included. | €22,000 | €18,000 | €0 |
Risk: undetected misallocation (expected loss) Probability × magnitude per 2026 benchmark. | €35,000 | €14,000 | €2,000 |
| Annual TCO | €319,000 | €463,000 | €86,000 |
Net saving vs. spreadsheets
€233,000
Year 2 — recurring annually.
Payback period
4.1 months
Median across the 2026 cohort (€5M spend).
Risk-adjusted ROI
312%
Forrester-style TEI methodology — see Economic Impact.
Build vs. buy
An in-house build costs more than spreadsheets in years one and two — and never reaches Stage 5 maturity.
Three engineers can ship a pacing dashboard. They cannot ship platform Net 30 negotiations, ring-fenced client funds, EU AI Act audit trails, or a 24/7 incident response. Those are products of compounding investment — and they are what you actually buy from us.