Free tool · Workflow automation
Automation ROI Calculator
Somewhere in your week there's a task a person does by hand that a system should be doing. This calculator puts a dollar figure on it: what the manual work costs per year, what automating it is worth, and how fast a fixed-price build pays for itself.
Per person — the honest number, including the fixing and re-checking.
Wages plus taxes, benefits, and overhead — usually 1.25–1.4× the wage.
Most repetitive admin work lands between 60% and 85%. Judgment calls stay human.
What you'd pay to build it. Our fixed-price sprints start at $1,250.
Verdict
Solid candidate
Payback inside roughly a year is a sound investment for a process you'll still run in three years.
Value of automation, per year
$13,978
70% of the $19,968 this work costs you annually.
Payback period
8 months
On a $7,500 build, after $1,125/yr upkeep.
Hours reclaimed per year
437
Time your team gets back for customers instead of copying data.
Three-year net return
$31,058
Value over three years, minus the build and three years of upkeep.
How the math works
Conservative math you can check by hand.
Annual cost of the manual work = hours per week × people × fully loaded hourly cost × 52. The value of automating is that cost times the share of the task automation can absorb — we default to 70%, because the judgment calls stay human.
From there we subtract upkeep of 15% of the build cost per year (monitoring, small fixes, the occasional API change) before computing payback. Payback period = build cost ÷ net monthly value. The three-year figure is three years of value minus the build and three years of upkeep. No compounding, no "productivity multiplier" — if the number looks good here, it survives contact with reality.
What to do with the number
A calculator doesn't automate anything. Here's what does.
Payback under a year?
Map the process before building anything. The 48-Hour Workflow Map turns this estimate into a ranked plan with a fixed implementation quote.
Get the Workflow MapIs the task lead follow-up?
That's the highest-stakes manual task we see. The Lead Rescue Sprint installs automated acknowledgment, routing, and response tracking in five business days for a fixed $1,250.
Lead Rescue SprintNot sure which task to measure?
Start with the work that repeats daily and touches revenue: follow-up, reminders, invoicing, re-keying data between systems. We wrote a field guide to choosing.
What to automate firstFrequently asked questions
Asked before the calculator, usually.
How accurate is this calculator?
It is deliberately conservative directional math, not a quote. It multiplies the hours you enter by your fully loaded labor cost, applies the share of the task automation can realistically absorb, and subtracts an assumed 15% of the build cost per year for upkeep. Real projects get a fixed price only after we map the workflow.
What counts as the fully loaded hourly cost?
Wages plus payroll taxes, benefits, and overhead — typically 1.25 to 1.4 times the raw hourly wage. If someone earns $25/hour, their fully loaded cost is usually $31–35/hour. Using raw wages understates what manual work really costs.
Why can't automation absorb 100% of a task?
Some part of most workflows is judgment: approving an odd invoice, answering an unusual customer question, handling the exception. Good automation removes the repetitive 60–85% and routes the exceptions to a person — automating the judgment calls is how automation projects fail.
The payback looks strong. What should I actually do next?
Don't buy software yet. Map the process first: our fixed-price 48-Hour Workflow Map documents one workflow end to end and ranks the three highest-value automations with a fixed implementation quote, so you decide with real numbers instead of calculator estimates.
Go deeper: what business process automation really costs, automation vs hiring another employee, our workflow automation services, and all free tools.
Want the real number instead of an estimate?
Describe the task in a sentence. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth automating — and quote a fixed price to do it.