The use of digital concepts, such as the digital twin, increases the competitiveness of industrial companies. Various possible applications of a digital twin are described in the literature. However, in order to drive their implementation, it is necessary to quantify the resulting benefits for companies. Therefore, an approach is presented in this publication that allows the estimation of the economic and ecological benefits of using a digital twin for a company. First, possible applications are identified based on the product life cycle and then their use potentials for the company are analyzed. The use potentials are categorized according to direct, indirect, and strategic benefits. After the categorization, models are set up to quantify the direct and indirect benefits. Thus, the presented approach enables an evaluation of the benefit of using a digital twin for a company. Through a use case in additive manufacturing the function of the method was validated.