How much does it cost to produce a single BI report? Just like typical answers to most other typical questions, the only real answer is “it depends”. But let’s build a few scenarios:

Scenario 1: Services only. Bottom up, ABC approach.

Assumptions.

• Medium complexity report. Two data sources. 4 way join. 3 facts by 5 dimensions. Prompting, filtering, sorting ranking on most of the columns. Some conditional formatting. No data model changes.
• Specifications and design – 2 person days. Development and testing - 1 person day. UAT – 1 person day.
• Loaded salary for an FTE $120,000/yr or about ~$460/day.
• Outside contractor $800/day.

Cost of 1 BI report: $1,840 if done by 2 FTEs or $2,520if done by 1 FTE (end user) and 1 outside contractor (developer). Sounds inexpensive? Wait.

Scenario 2. Top down. BI software and services:

Assumptions:

• Average BI software deal per department (as per the latest BI Wave numbers) - $150,000
• 50% of the software cost is attributable to canned reports, the rest is allocated to ad-hoc queries, and other forms of ad-hoc analysis and exploration.
• Average cost of effort and services - $5 per every $1 spent on software (anecdotal evidence)
• Average number of reports per small department - 100 (anecdotal evidence)