Why this one is built the way it is
It rounds down Hours to the nearest five, dollars to the nearest hundred, and a year is 48 working weeks. A calculator that produces an implausible number costs more credibility than having no calculator, so where there is a choice this one takes the lower figure.
It never claims the whole cost Automation removes part of a process. Somebody still handles the exceptions, so the saving comes back as a range and the result says what is left behind.
It will tell you not to bother Under about 25 hours a year, it says the process is too small to carry a project instead of quoting you a figure. That is usually the honest answer, and the better candidate is a different process.
It does not ask for your salaries You pick a role band and we cost an hour of that person’s time at the low end of it. The result is on the screen either way: the email is for the written version, which exists to be forwarded.
Ready when you are
Six questions: the process, how many people do it, how often, how long it takes, whose time it is, and which systems it touches.
Who would build it
Our own development team, which is why we can offer this at all. The number this tool gives you is the start of that conversation: tell us the process and we will tell you whether it is worth automating, including when the answer is no.
Questions people ask us
- How does the calculator work out the cost?
- People multiplied by how often the process happens, multiplied by how long it takes, costed at an hourly rate for the role band you pick. A year is 48 working weeks rather than 52, so leave and public holidays don’t inflate it, and every figure is rounded down. The page lists the assumptions under your result.
- Why does it ask for a role band instead of a salary?
- Because nobody should have to hand over salary figures to use a free tool, and most people would guess anyway. The bands are deliberately at the low end of what an hour of that person’s time costs a firm, so the result is one you can defend rather than one that flatters the case for automating.
- Why is the saving a range rather than one number?
- Automation takes out part of a process, never all of it. Somebody still handles the exceptions, the odd case the rules don’t cover, and the week the supplier changes their format. The range is 40 to 70 per cent of the hours where the systems connect cleanly, and less where they don’t.
- Is this a quote?
- No. It’s an estimate from six answers, and it’s built to be conservative. A real quote comes from looking at the process, and we’d rather tell you a project isn’t worth doing than quote it thin.
- What makes a process easy or hard to automate?
- Mostly whether the systems involved can be connected. Microsoft 365, Xero, a CRM and online forms all have interfaces we can build against. Paper, scans and PDFs somebody reads are harder, because the first job is getting the information into a system at all. Something built in-house depends on what it will let us connect to.
- What if the number comes back small?
- Then the tool says so instead of quoting you. A process under about 25 hours a year is real but too small to carry a project, and the honest answer is usually that a different process is the better candidate.
- Do you need our data to use this?
- No. Nothing is hidden behind an email form, the result appears on the screen, and the calculator runs in your browser.
Have the number checked
Tell us the process and roughly how many hours a week it takes. We’ll tell you whether it’s worth automating, and what an automated version would actually involve.
