Ops cost calculator
What does your desk cost to run?
Four things you already know, and the arithmetic nobody does. Every rate below is published and sourced — nothing here is generated, so you can check all of it.
Your desk
Desk time Docket takes over, every month
SGD 24,699
SGD 296,388 a year, against a Docket fee of $2,100 USD a month
- Loaded desk cost
- SGD 39,480/mo
- Hours the desk spends on this work
- 1,101 h/mo
- Hours Docket takes over
- 770 h/mo
- What that time costs you
- SGD 24,699/mo
- Docket at this volume
- $2,100 USD/mo
Those inputs describe a desk that cannot exist: the volume needs more hours than the headcount has. Either the team is bigger than stated, or the desk is already running on overtime and the CHA. Adjust one of them and the figures become real.
Your payroll is in SGD; Docket is priced in USD. We are not going to net one against the other at a rate we have not sourced — take the two figures to your own rate on the day.
What that buys you
The same 7 people could carry about595 shipmentsa month instead of 350 —1.7× the throughput, same payroll.
Or two or three of them move onto buying and selling, the work that actually makes money, while the machine runs the rest.
Method. 2.2 hours of desk work per container, drawn from an operational baseline. 1.43 containers per billable shipment. 70% blended automation — supplier chasing 85%, doc-pack drafting 65%, tracking 85%. Singapore loading is employer CPF at 17% up to the S$8,000/month Ordinary Wage ceiling, plus one month of AWS spread across the year — customary rather than statutory. Demurrage and fraud savings are excluded. Money and hours are rounded down, never in our favour.
Straight answers
How this is calculated
Where do these numbers come from?
The desk-time figure is 2.2 hours per container, an operational baseline for a desk of this shape. The automation rate is 70% blended across all desk work — supplier chasing 85%, doc-pack drafting 65%, tracking 85%. Every figure is sourced in the site's facts file.
What employer loading does it add for the UAE?
Three statutory costs, and nothing else. End-of-service gratuity at 5.83% of basic salary — that is the monthly contribution rate MOHRE publishes for the Alternative End-of-Service Benefits Savings Scheme for staff under five years' service, and gratuity accrues on basic only, never on allowances. Mandatory health insurance, which the employer must buy and which has been required across all emirates since 1 January 2025, at the AED 320 a year Basic package. And the work permit, AED 250 for a two-year permit, which is the floor of an AED 250 to AED 3,450 range set by your company's MOHRE classification. There is no employer pension for expatriate staff, so no pension line is added.
Why does the UAE ask for basic salary and allowances separately?
Because gratuity accrues on basic and not on housing, transport or utility allowances, and there is no statutory minimum basic share in the UAE to derive the split from. Asking for one figure would mean assuming the split, which would put a guess at the centre of a number you can check. Two fields means no assumption: allowances count as cash out in the desk cost, and no loading is charged on them.
Why is India not available?
One unresolved question, not missing research. Indian employers quote CTC, which already includes employer PF, gratuity and insurance — so asking for "salary" and adding loading on top would double-count and overstate your desk cost, which would overstate our own savings. The EPF, ESI and gratuity rules are sourced and waiting in the site's assumptions file; India turns on once the CTC-versus-gross question is settled.
Does this assume I cut staff?
No. The output is capacity: the same team carrying more shipments, or people moving onto buying and selling. Nothing here is costed as a redundancy, and the saving is desk time, not payroll removed.
Does it include demurrage and fraud?
Deliberately not. Both are real and both are episodic, which makes them easy to argue away. This is only desk time — the number you can check against your own payroll.
Want the same arithmetic run against your real numbers, with demurrage and fraud added back in? Send them over and we will do it on a call.
Who you will be dealing with
Give me 15 minutes and I'll show you what we've taken off a real importer's desk
I'm Balkrishna, and I built this after more than twenty years working on and managing an export–import trade desk — I have chased the packing lists, checked the packs and paid the demurrage this site describes. Docket runs a real import SOP end to end today — the six jobs on this page are working software, not a roadmap. We are taking on two or three import desks to build the next part around.
Write in and you get me, not a sales team. That is deliberate rather than an apology for our size: the fastest way to make Docket good at your desk is to talk to the person building it.
Bring us your real numbers
Tell us your volumes and we will run the arithmetic on a call — with demurrage and fraud added back in, which the published figures leave out.
WhatsApp, email or phone — you get the founder, not a sales team.