Automate Basics

Automation ROI calculator

How many hours a year an automation saves, what they are worth, and how long it takes to pay for itself. Change the numbers to match your task; every result shows its sum.

A year is counted as 48 working weeks.

Hours saved a year

192

15 min × 20/week × 1 people × 48 weeks × 80%

What that time is worth

$7,680

192 hours × $40/hour

Net saving in the first year

$7,280

$7,680 − $240 tool − $160 setup

Pays for itself in

< 1 month

Setup cost ÷ (monthly value saved − monthly tool cost)

The sum leaves out what is hard to price: fewer errors, faster replies, and the time it takes to keep an automation running when an app changes. Treat the result as a ceiling, and check the task is worth automating at all before you build it.

How the numbers work

How do you calculate the ROI of an automation?

Multiply the minutes a task takes by how often it is done, how many people do it and the working weeks in a year, to get hours spent by hand. Multiply that by the share of the work the automation takes over to get hours saved, and by the cost of an hour of those people's time to get the value. Subtract the tool's yearly cost and the setup time to get the first-year net saving.

How long should an automation take to pay back?

Divide the setup cost by the monthly value saved minus the monthly tool cost. If the result is a few months, the automation is usually worth building; if the monthly saving does not cover the tool at all, it never pays back and is not worth it at those numbers.

What does an ROI calculation leave out?

The things that are hard to price: fewer errors, faster responses to customers, and the ongoing time it takes to keep an automation running when one of the connected apps changes.

Ready to build one? Start with the workflow automation tools or the operations guides.