Opportunity cost calculator

What does the decision you don't make cost you? (see video example city budget)

Every investment means doing without.
Every project that is started blocks capital.
Every choice creates unchosen alternatives.

Opportunity costs are the invisible costs of your decision.

Our opportunity cost calculator makes them visible.

The strategic problem

In companies, Municipalities and investment portfolios, projects compete for:

• Budget
• Personnel
• Political attention
• regulatory leeway
• time

Typically, projects are evaluated individually - with ROI, IRR, NPV or scoring models.

Which is almost never calculated:

What value do I lose if I choose project A instead of project B?

And more importantly:

What is the lost value creation, if I do not choose the optimal project combination?

What our opportunity cost calculator calculates

The calculator analyses:

• Total budget
• Project costs
• Expected benefit (ROI, Impact, strategic score)
• Restrictions (legal, operational, political)

He compares:

1. Your current project selection
2. Alternative project combinations
3. The mathematically best combination

And shows you precise:

• Difference in Euro
• Difference in ROI
• Difference in strategic impact
• Relative efficiency losses

Why classical planning underestimates opportunity costs

In practice, three typical distortions arise:

1. Sequential decision logic

Projects are released sequentially, not optimised simultaneously.

2. Budget residual logic

"What is left is distributed."

3. Local optimisation

Individual projects are maximised - not the overall portfolio.

The result: Hidden losses in value in the double-digit percentage range.

Example

A city has a budget of 81 million euros. EUR budget.
50 projects are competing.
220 million EUR investment requirement.

Three major projects are launched.
EUR 1 million remains unutilised.

The opportunity cost calculator shows:

• Alternative combination with higher overall benefit possible
• 60 % more impact

The problem was not the individual project.
The problem was the combination.

Who is the opportunity cost calculator suitable for?

Companies

• CapEx planning
• M&A-portfolios
• Innovation budgets
• F&E-prioritisation

Municipalities

• Investment programmes
• Special funds
• Budget planning
• Infrastructure decisions

Investors

• Asset-Allocation
• Fund structure
• Project financing

Methodological basis

The calculator is based on:

• combinatorial portfolio analysis
• discrete decision space (2^N possibilities)
• Restriction modelling
• Simultaneous optimisation instead of sequence evaluation

It doesn't just evaluate projects.
He evaluates decision alternatives.

Result: Transparency

You see:

• Where you lose value
• How big this loss is
• Which combination would be more efficient
• How sensitive your portfolio is to restrictions

Opportunity costs are thus transformed from a theoretical concept into a quantifiable key figure.

Why this is strategically crucial

Opportunity costs are:

• Invisible
• Politically not discussed
• Not recognisable in Excel
• Not transparent in classic decision-making processes

They determine the real economic success.

Those who do not measure opportunity costs are only apparently optimising.

Calculate now:

• How high your real opportunity costs are
• How much value remains hidden in the current portfolio
• Whether your project choice is actually optimal

Start the opportunity cost calculator.

Don't just make the right decisions.
Make them optimally.