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AI Automation ROI Calculator

Q: How is the ROI calculated?

The calculator multiplies the weekly hours your team spends on a manual process by the loaded hourly cost to get the annual cost of manual work, applies an automation coverage rate (how much of the work AI can realistically take over, typically 60-85%), and compares the savings against a typical project cost band derived from SpiderHunts' published benchmarks across 1,000+ projects.

Q: Are the benchmark numbers real?

Yes. Defaults are drawn from SpiderHunts Technologies' published AI Automation ROI Benchmarks report (2026), covering 1,000+ delivered projects: typical first-year ROI around 38%, payback in 3-6 months, and roughly 40 hours per week of manual work eliminated per automation programme.

Q: Is this calculator really free?

Yes — no signup, no email required. It runs entirely in your browser; nothing you enter is sent to any server. If you want a precise scoped quote instead of an estimate, book a free 30-minute call.

See what automating your manual workflows would actually save — payback period, yearly savings, and 3-year return. Defaults are grounded in our published benchmark data from 1,000+ projects, not vendor fantasy numbers. Everything runs in your browser; nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere.

Your manual workload

Hours of manual work per week 40

Total across everyone involved — data entry, copy-pasting between systems, drafting routine emails, processing documents, answering repeat questions. Our benchmark average is ~40 hrs/week per automation programme.

Loaded hourly cost $35

Salary + taxes + benefits + overhead (typically 1.25–1.4× the raw wage).

Automation coverage 75%

How much of that work AI can realistically take over. Document-heavy, rule-based workflows: 80–95%. Judgement-heavy work with human approval gates: 50–70%.

Project scope

Typical fixed-price bands from our delivered projects. Running costs (AI API usage + monitoring) are included in the maths at 15% of build cost per year.

Payback period

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Benchmark range across 1,000+ projects: 3–6 months.

Annual cost of manual work

—

What the status quo silently costs every year.

Yearly savings after automation

—

Net of estimated AI running costs.

First-year ROI

—

Savings vs. build + running cost, year one.

3-year net savings

—

After all build and running costs.

Get a Real Quote — Free 30-min Call See the Benchmark Data

How this calculator works (and why you can trust it)

Most vendor ROI calculators are marketing theatre: they assume 100% automation coverage, ignore running costs, and quietly use unloaded salaries. This one does the opposite. It multiplies your team's weekly manual hours by a loaded hourly cost to get the true annual cost of the status quo, applies a realistic automation coverage rate (capped at 95% — full automation is a myth in workflows that matter), subtracts ongoing AI running costs estimated at 15% of build cost per year, and compares the result against fixed-price build bands taken from our published benchmarks across 1,000+ delivered projects since 2015.

If your result shows payback under 6 months, you are in the territory where the median SpiderHunts automation project lands. If it shows payback over 18 months, automation may genuinely not be worth it for that workflow yet — and if you book a call, we will tell you exactly that. An honest "no" costs us a project and earns us a referral; we have run on that trade since 2015.

Useful next reads: the complete guide to AI automation, 10 tasks to automate right now, and our full AI automation pillar guide.

FAQ

How is the ROI calculated?

Annual manual cost = weekly hours × loaded hourly cost × 52. Savings = annual manual cost × automation coverage − running costs (15% of build per year). Payback = build cost ÷ monthly savings. First-year ROI = (savings − build − running) ÷ (build + running). No compounding tricks, no inflated assumptions.

Are the benchmark numbers real?

Yes — defaults come from our published AI Automation ROI Benchmarks report (2026) covering 1,000+ delivered projects: typical first-year ROI ~38%, payback in 3–6 months, ~40 hours/week of manual work eliminated per programme.

Is this calculator really free?

Yes — no signup, no email gate. It runs entirely in your browser; nothing you enter is stored or sent to any server.

What counts as a loaded hourly cost?

Salary plus employer taxes, benefits, equipment and overhead — typically 1.25–1.4× the raw hourly wage. Using loaded cost gives a truthful picture of what manual work actually costs.