How Much Is Your Gmail Account Worth? Hint: A Lot More Than You Think

Posted by Alcyone _Featured_, Technology Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

July 25, 2012

(Wired.com/Cloudline)While the really big bucks may be built into your big data, your trusty Gmail account just got a price tag slapped on it — and it may be worth more than you thought.

The cloud backup guys over at Backupify put together a calculator to help folks estimate the value of their cloud-based Google Gmail web mail accounts. So what’s the average account’s worth? $3,588.85, Backupify’s Jay Garmon writes in a blog post.

That’s the value of the time invested in the average Gmail account, given how many emails the average Gmail user has written (5,768), how long it takes to write the average email (one minute, 43 seconds), and the most recent U.S. Depart of Labor statistics on average annual salary ($45,230). In other words, if the average Gmail user were paid to recreate all the Gmail messages he or she’s ever written, it would cost $3,588.85.

Some highlights, per Backupify:

Your Gmail is worth $3,588.85, and increases by about $1,196 per year

You “spend” as much in Gmail every year as you do on your car

Your Gmail is worth five times as much as your laptop

Your Gmail represents over four weeks of wages

You store one old-school floppy disk (1.44 MB) of Gmail data every day

And the full-monty, in infographic form: