ROI calculator

Three inputs — hours of manual work per week, what an hour costs you, and how many people are affected — produce an estimate of what that work costs today and what automating it is worth. If you’ve completed the AI opportunity audit, use the hours-per-week figures from your shortlist; they’re better inputs than a gut estimate.

How to read the results

The calculator is deliberately simple, and every assumption is visible:

• Monthly cost of manual work = hours per week × hourly cost × employees affected × 4.33 (the average number of weeks in a month).
• Projected monthly savings assumes automation displaces 70% of that cost — not 100%, because well-designed systems keep humans on review gates, exceptions, and judgment calls. See How we work for why.
• Annual ROI is twelve months of projected savings.
• Payback period divides a representative all-in investment of $15,000 CAD by your projected monthly savings. Your actual investment depends on tier and scope — see pricing for the real ranges.

These are estimates based on industry averages, not a quote and not a guarantee. Actual results vary by engagement.

Getting honest inputs

• Hourly cost should be loaded cost — salary plus benefits, tools, and overhead — not base wage. Using base wage understates what manual work actually costs you.
• Count everyone who touches the workflow. The hidden hours are usually in handoffs: the person who checks the work, the manager who chases the stragglers.
• If you’re unsure, run it twice — once with conservative numbers, once with realistic ones. If even the conservative case pays back quickly, the decision is easy.

From estimate to measured ROI

This calculator models the question “is this worth a conversation?” An engagement answers it properly: we capture a baseline before anything is built, every deployed system logs its own runs, and your FDE reports measured hours displaced against that baseline monthly. The ROI methodology documents the formula, and the 2x ROI guarantee is measured over 90 days using it.

The calculator also leaves value out: it doesn’t model reduced error cost or revenue impact (faster follow-up, more leads contacted). We only count those in measured ROI when they’re directly attributable — so treat the number above as a floor, not a ceiling.

Next steps

• AI opportunity audit — find the workflows worth running through this calculator
• How we measure ROI — the measured version of this estimate
• Measuring ROI — what to track once systems are live