AI ROI calculator: your hidden burn rate.
An AI ROI calculator with three inputs: what your team spends on manual work AI could handle, and what recovering it is worth.
Your numbers
How this is calculated
- Weekly burn = team size x hours per week on automatable tasks x blended hourly cost.
- Annual burn = weekly burn x 52.
- Monthly recovery assumes you recover 30% of that time in the first year. That is a conservative floor, not a promise. Most teams we work with find more once the first workflow ships.
Runs in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How this AI ROI calculator works
Three inputs. Team size, average hourly cost, and the hours per week your team spends on manual work AI could handle: reporting, data entry, first drafts, routing, summarizing. You get back your annual hidden burn, what a conservative first-year recovery is worth, and what every month of waiting costs you. Call it an automation ROI calculator if you like; the math is the same.
Why we assume 30% recovery, not 80%
Vendor ROI calculators assume best-case automation rates because heroic numbers sell software. We assume 30% first-year recovery. That's the conservative end of what we see when adoption is run properly, and it's still more than most teams capture when it isn't. Here's the test that matters: if the conservative number clears your budget bar, the project is real.
What the number is and is not
It's a sizing tool. Is the prize big enough to bother? That's the question it answers, and the only one. It's not a proposal, not a guarantee, and no substitute for looking at your actual workflows. Two companies can type in identical numbers and have wildly different recoverable hours, depending on process maturity. That difference is exactly what the AI readiness assessment measures next.
FAQ
What is an AI ROI calculator?
A tool that estimates what you'd get back from using AI on manual work, based on team size, labor cost, and hours spent. Ours runs a conservative 30% first-year recovery assumption, on purpose.
What counts as "work AI could handle"?
The repetitive, rules-light stuff: reporting, data entry, first drafts, routing, summarizing, status chasing. Not judgment calls, not relationships, not novel problems.
Is my data saved?
No. The math runs in your browser. Nothing's stored, nothing's sent anywhere.
Why is the result lower than other calculators?
Because we assume 30% recovery instead of vendor-demo rates. You want a number you can defend in a budget meeting, not one that impresses on a landing page.
What do I do with the result?
If the annual number clears your budget bar, take the AI readiness assessment next. Bring both to a Shadow Day and we'll turn them into a ranked plan.