See The ROI Of Automating This

Automation ROI measures how much value a business process automation returns compared to what it costs to build and run. Instead of guessing whether an automation is "worth it," you compare the annual labor hours it frees up (converted to dollars) against the one-time build cost and any ongoing maintenance.

The result is expressed three ways:

• Net Year 1 savings — money saved in the first year after subtracting the automation cost
• ROI multiple — how many times over the automation pays for itself annually
• Payback period — how many months until the automation has paid for itself

The calculator behind this tool runs a simple, transparent formula:

1. Multiply weekly hours spent on the task by the hourly wage to get the weekly labor cost.
2. Apply your automation coverage — the % of that work an automation can realistically take over.
3. Multiply by 52 weeks to annualize the labor savings.
4. Subtract the automation's build cost and annual maintenance to get net savings, ROI, and payback period.

Say two employees spend 6 hours a week combined manually creating and sending invoices, at an average wage of $20/hour. That's $120/week, or roughly $6,235/year in labor cost.

An automation that generates and sends invoices automatically from your CRM or accounting software can typically eliminate 70-80% of that manual work. At 70% coverage, that's about $4,365/year in labor savings. Against a typical starter automation package of $1,200 plus $40/month maintenance ($1,680/year total), that's a net Year 1 savings of roughly $2,685 — a 2.6x return, with the automation paying for itself in about 4.6 months.