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A failure in e-commerce is not just lost sales; it’s wasted ad spend, reputational damage, and customers walking straight to the competition. Use our calculator based on market data to estimate your risk and see whether your current server infrastructure is up to the task.
Ładujemy kalkulator...
When calculating losses from server downtime, most webshop owners only take into account the average basket value. This is a mistake. Your “downtime bill” is shaped by three critical elements:
🔸 Wasted advertising budgets: Google Ads and Meta Ads keep running when the server goes down. You pay for clicks that lead customers to a 503 error page.
🔸 Paralysed customer service: during a failure, instead of focusing on sales, the customer service team is flooded with calls and emails from concerned customers, generating real operational costs.
🔸 Loss of LTV (lifetime value): after encountering a non-functioning webshop customers rarely come back. You don’t just lose one order; you lose their entire future purchase history.
The costliest failures happen when your shop is at its most profitable. During events such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday, traffic can multiply in a matter of minutes. Standard hosting solutions (shared or single VPS) frequently become a bottleneck at precisely these moments.
According to market research, as many as 88% of online customers say they would not return to an online shop where they experienced technical issues during the purchasing process.
Our calculator applies special multipliers for seasonal peaks to show you the true extent of the risk when your infrastructure isn’t scalable.
The only effective way to minimise the risk of downtime is to eliminate so-called single points of failure (SPOF).
At Centuria, we recommend implementing a High Availability (HA) architecture, which provides:
✅ Redundancy: the failure of one machine does not bring the platform down, as traffic is taken over by a second server.
✅ Load balancing: intelligent distribution of user traffic to prevent overloads.
✅ Data security: database clusters that protect orders even in the event of hardware failure.
✅ Peace of mind: guaranteed operational continuity, even under peak-season pressure.
Don’t wait for the first major outage to realise the value of stability.
Head back to the calculator above and run the numbers: if a single hour of downtime costs more than a full month of professional HA cluster maintenance, your infrastructure is overdue for an upgrade.
Our long-standing cooperation with Centuria is based on high trust and partnership approach to projects, but also on the camaraderie within the project teams. Flexibility, good communication and our sense of security resulting from the support of a team of experts very familiar with Magento make us ready to recommend Centuria to others. We feel that we can always rely on them.
Strix
Centuria is a proactive business partner that doesn't wait for us to make a move, but independently looks for needed solutions or improvements that we can implement together. Together we have been working for years for the success of one of the largest Magento instances in Poland. Sincerity in cooperation and professional advice, which we are happy to use for years, are invaluable to us. With a clear conscience, we can recommend Centuria as an infrastructure expert.
Snowdog
We want to deliver high value to our customers. The key to ensuring the secure and smooth operation of Magento stores is the right server solutions. We needed a proactive partner in this area, one that looks for the best possible solutions itself and is very proactive. Centuria, with whom we have been working for about 2 years now, is such a partner for us. We really like how they streamline and organize every project they start working on. Centuria is a partner we trust and can recommend as an expert in server solutions for Magento.
Growcode sp. z o.o.
We have been working with Centuria for many years, valuing the team's extensive knowledge, experience and flexibility. The company stands out for its extremely professional approach to support and high responsiveness to the tickets we throw in. It is a great advisor on IT infrastructure management. A reliable business partner for the implementation of large e-commerce projects on Magento - definitely worth recommending.
Advox Studio
We highly value cooperation with Centuria for their proactive approach, expertise and commitment at every stage of the project. Centuria's team has helped us more than once in selecting server solutions for our clients, and thanks to their experience and professional support, we have received solutions tailored to specific business needs. We recommend Centuria to anyone who needs a reliable and competent partner in the area of IT infrastructure.
Spyrosoft Ecommerce S.A.
In our opinion, Centuria is distinguished above all by acting in the interests of the client's company. Working with them, you can count on a personalized and individual approach to even the most difficult cases. We feel that the proposed solutions are "tailor-made" to our needs, by involving our agency in the process of their creation, based on joint discussions of possible solutions.
Lizard Media
I value the cooperation with Centuria above all for its professionalism and expertise related to Magento. This is an invaluable asset in critical situations. The 24/7 support gives great peace of mind to both us and our clients. I strongly recommend Centuria to anyone who takes business seriously and counts on a professional, stable partner for the development of their business.
Panda Group
Together with Centuria, we are developing one of the largest e-commerce sales platforms based on Magento in Poland. Professionalism and high commitment directly translates into results. Centuria are specialists in administration and management of infrastructure with a very complex structure and a multitude of links between systems. The continuity and availability of the aforementioned system since the beginning of our cooperation is maintained in a way that meets our requirements, and orders are carried out with the utmost care.
Castorama Poland
The team never left us wondering if things were getting done. We instead had full confidence that this knowledgable team knew what to do and that they'd get it done. I write this review because changes within our organization moved us in a different direction and we now no longer work with Centuria. To show my appreciation for their attentiveness and effectiveness
mTab
Due to the specific nature of our e-commerce project gear.cdprojektred.com, we needed a reliable partner well-versed in modern technologies to quickly and efficiently implement the infrastructure for our application. Centuria handled the task in an exemplary manner and additionally ensured the stability of sales during the large promotional campaigns we were conducting.
CD PROJEKT RED STORE
What is the basis for the calculator's downtime cost estimates?
Our algorithm is based on an opportunity cost model.
Beyond simple arithmetic (annual revenue divided by minutes), we apply a so-called impact multiplier.
In e-commerce, a failure means more than just a temporary drop in sales. Wasted ad spend (such as Google Ads driving traffic to a non-functioning site), the operational burden on the customer service team, and the long-term erosion of customer trust all add to the real cost.
Why is the calculated cost higher than the lost sales margin alone?
Because technical failures produce hidden costs that are not always immediately visible.
For instance, if a shop goes down during a marketing campaign, clicks are still being paid for even though they lead nowhere. Research also shows that customers who encounter technical errors frequently lose faith in the brand and switch to competitors, diminishing the customer’s lifetime value (LTV).
What is High Availability (HA) and why do I need it?
High Availability is a server architecture designed to eliminate single points of failure.
In simple terms: rather than depending on one server, your shop is supported by a cluster of machines. Should one fail, another takes over immediately and the shop continues without interruption. For high-revenue platforms, HA is a baseline security standard.
My provider offers a high SLA (e.g. 99.9%). Does that guarantee zero downtime?
Not necessarily. Standard hosting SLAs typically cover only the availability of power and physical equipment, not the actual functioning of the webshop.
In practice, downtime duration is shaped by human factors no calculator can fully account for: how quickly the problem is spotted, how long diagnosis takes, and the tough calls your CTO or E-commerce Manager has to make under pressure.
It is often the time required to make a key call (such as restoring a backup) that drives the highest costs, and these fall outside the scope of a regular infrastructure SLA.
Is shared hosting safe for an online shop?
Shared hosting is a cost-effective option suited to micro-businesses, hobby projects or low-traffic test environments.
There is a real risk of the “noisy neighbour” effect: if another service on the same server comes under strain, the shop may slow down or become unavailable. In short, shared hosting is not a suitable foundation for a secure, scalable e-commerce business.
For shops generating meaningful revenue, a dedicated environment (VPS or dedicated server) is the appropriate choice.
