# What manual account research really costs, and how to calculate it

> A simple formula for sales teams, a worked example, and which part of the work you can hand to tools.

Source: https://signal.granek.agency/en/blog/cost-of-manual-account-research
Published: 2026-09-21

Account research feels free: the rep is on salary anyway. But an hour spent looking for people and news is an hour they are not calling. The cost is easy to work out, and the number usually surprises.

## The formula

Research time per month:

> companies per month × (minutes per company + decision makers per company × minutes per decision maker) ÷ 60

Cost: research time × the rep's hourly cost.

![The research-time formula with the example's numbers](/blog/figures/cost-formula-en.jpg)

## A worked example

Take a calm pace: 50 new companies a month, 30 minutes to understand each company, 4 decision makers in each and 20 minutes to find and check one person.

| What we count | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Time per company | 30 min per company + 4 decision makers × 20 min | 110 min |
| Time per month | 50 companies × 110 min ÷ 60 | ≈ 92 h |
| Share of working time | 92 h of ≈ 164 working hours a month | ≈ 56% of one rep |

Ninety-two hours is more than half of one rep's working month. Multiply it by your rep's hourly cost and you get what you pay for research instead of selling.

## Where most of the time goes

1. **Finding people beyond the CEO.** Heads of procurement, IT and operations are not on the home page; you piece them together from news, talks and job postings.
2. **Checking the data is current.** You need to confirm the person still holds the role.
3. **Finding the reason to call.** Finding the event that makes a call timely often takes longer than finding the contact.

![The three places where most of the time goes](/blog/figures/cost-sinks-en.jpg)

## What you can hand to tools

Collecting public data, cross-checking titles across sources and watching for events can be automated. Deciding whom to call and what to say stays with the rep, and they finally have time for it.

If you want to run the numbers for your team, take the quiz on the home page: it asks for your figures and shows the math step by step.