AI Automation ROI Calculator

Estimate released hours, capacity value, recurring cost, and payback with human review, coverage, and exceptions included.

Free · No account · No data upload · Method updated 2026-10-22

Use your measured inputs

Defaults are a hypothetical example, not measured customer results. Calculations run in your browser.

Items per month

All items in the process, including those still handled manually.

Manual minutes per item

Measure the full manual baseline.

Automation coverage (%)

Share of all items entering automation.

Review minutes per automated item

Apply review to every covered item, including exceptions.

Exceptions among covered items (%)

Additional repair is required for this share.

Extra repair minutes per exception

Additional to ordinary review, not a replacement for it.

Staff capacity value per hour

Use one consistent currency across every cost field.

Fixed platform cost per month

Subscriptions, hosting, and retrieval services.

Variable cost per automated item

Model/API usage, including average retry cost.

Maintenance hours per month

Monitoring, updates, and routine diagnosis.

One-time setup cost

Include paid implementation and valued internal setup time.

Net monthly capacity value

1,740

In your chosen currency. Released time creates capacity; it is not automatically cash saved.

Hours released / month: 62.7
Recurring cost / month: 140
First-year net value: 19,380
First-year modeled ROI: 609.4%
Capacity-value payback: 0.9 months

What changes if review takes longer?

Illustrative sensitivity, not probability forecasts. The first scenario adds 50% review time and 10 percentage points of exceptions; the third halves exceptions.

Sensitivity scenarios
Scenario	Net monthly value
More review / exceptions	940
Your inputs	1,740
Fewer exceptions	1,940

Method, assumptions, and limits

Let V be monthly items, C the covered share, M manual minutes, R review minutes per covered item, E the exception share, X extra repair minutes, H maintenance hours, and W hourly staff capacity value. Coverage and exception percentages are converted to fractions.

Baseline hours = V × M / 60

Remaining hours = [V × (1 − C) × M + V × C × R + V × C × E × X] / 60 + H

Released hours = Baseline hours − Remaining hours

Net monthly value = Released hours × W − platform cost − (V × C × variable cost)

First-year net value = 12 × Net monthly value − setup cost

Payback months = setup cost / Net monthly value (only when positive)

Worked example with the default inputs: 1,000 items, 8 manual minutes, 80% coverage, 2 review minutes, 10% exceptions needing 10 extra minutes, 4 maintenance hours, and hourly value of 30. Released capacity is 62.7 hours/month. With fixed cost 100, variable cost 0.05 per covered item, and setup cost 1,500, net monthly capacity value is 1740 and payback is 0.9 months. These are hypothetical assumptions, not customer outcomes.

All ordinary review time is charged even for exceptions; exception repair is extra. Uncovered items keep their manual baseline. Maintenance is valued as staff time. Negative released hours and negative value are allowed: an automation can cost more time than it releases. The model excludes taxes, financing, revenue lift, and risk losses. A realized cash-savings calculation requires evidence of spending actually removed.

Download the example and formula definitions (JSON)

Use this with a decision guide

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Method and tool published by GPTNavi · 2026-10-22