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Automation ROI calculator
Automation ROI is the labour cost recovered each year, less what the automation costs to build and run. Change the assumptions below and the numbers move as you type. The result is on screen before anything is asked of you, and every figure is reconstructable from the arithmetic shown further down.
Your process
What it is worth
- Hours recovered a year
- 1,587
- Labour value recovered
- $71,407
- Year one, net
- $17,407
- Payback
- 8.7 months
- Three-year net
- $142,220
If the estimate is wrong
Every input above is knowable except one. Nobody knows in advance how much of the work automation truly removes — so here is the same process at four different answers.
| Time removed | Recovered | Payback | 3-year net |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40% | $40,804 | 17.0 mo | $50,412 |
| 55% | $56,105 | 11.5 mo | $96,316 |
| 70% | $71,407 | 8.7 mo | $142,220 |
| 85% | $86,708 | 6.9 mo | $188,124 |
The arithmetic
Every number, and where it comes from
A figure you cannot reconstruct is a figure you cannot defend in a budget meeting. So here is all of it.
How it is calculated
- Base hours = people × hours each per week × 46 working weeks. Currently 2,208 hours.
- Rework hours = base hours × share needing rework × minutes to fix. Currently 59 hours.
- Hours recovered = (base + rework) × share removed. Currently 1,587.
- Value recovered = hours recovered × fully-loaded hourly cost.
- Payback = build cost ÷ monthly surplus, where the surplus is annual value recovered less annual run cost, divided by twelve.
The two assumptions baked in
46 working weeks, not 52. Statutory leave, public holidays and sickness are real, and a calculator that bills 52 weeks overstates every result by about 12%.
Fully-loaded cost, not gross salary. Employer contributions, benefits, equipment and space are part of what an hour costs. Using the gross wage understates the recovery, typically by a quarter to a third.
The currency selector changes the symbol only. It does not convert — enter figures in the currency you picked.
Read this before you quote the number
What this calculator does not capture
It models one process in isolation. Four things it cannot see, each of which has sunk automation programmes that looked fine on a spreadsheet.
Recovered hours are not recovered cost
Unless headcount changes or the time is redeployed to something that earns, the saving stays theoretical. Finance will ask this first. Have an answer.
Exceptions are where automation dies
The 70% that automates is the easy 70%. What remains is every edge case, and it needs a person who still understands the process well enough to handle it.
Automation is a system you now own
It breaks when a source changes, an API version retires, or a rule moves. The run cost above should include somebody keeping it alive, not only licences.
Automating a broken process keeps it broken
If the process is wrong, this makes it wrong faster and at lower cost per error. Fix the process, then automate what is left.
If the number holds up
Bring the process, not the spreadsheet
Ninety minutes with the engineer who would build it. We go through the process as it runs today, where the exceptions actually are, and whether the share you assumed is the share you will get. If it does not pay back, we will tell you that.