What Is Doing Nothing Already Costing You?
Most ROI math asks what the fix would save. This asks the opposite: what is the manual process costing today, what will it cost in 3 years, and how much of that bleeds away each quarter you wait.
Takes 60 seconds. No login required.
Your manual workflow today
Plug in the shape of the work. Numbers update live — no need to submit anything yet.
How long one instance takes, end to end
How often each team member runs the task
Wage + benefits + overhead per hour
Share of tasks that need rework or correction
How much longer fixing an error takes than doing it right
Process volume typically rises faster than headcount
Advanced: working weeks, attrition cost
One-time cost to recruit + ramp a replacement. Zero it out if you think attrition isn't a factor here.
Conservative default — people quit jobs that are 80% manual data entry
How it works
The Four Layers of Carrying Cost
Most spreadsheets stop at labor. The other three are where the number really lives.
Labor
Tasks per week × minutes per task × people × working weeks × fully-loaded hourly rate. The piece most spreadsheets cover.
Rework
Labor cost × error rate × (rework multiplier − 1). A 5% error rate at 3× rework time adds 10% on top of labor cost.
Attrition risk
Replacement cost × probability × team size. People quit jobs that are 80% manual data entry; the cost shows up as recruiting + ramp time.
3-year compounding
Year 1 cost × (1 + growth)² applied to Year 2 and Year 3. Volume usually grows faster than headcount, which is exactly when manual work breaks.
Examples
What Inaction Costs in Practice
Four real-shape situations we see almost every week. Plug similar numbers in above to see your equivalent.
AR follow-up at a 25-person services firm
8 min/invoice × 80 invoices/week × 2 people × $55/hr × 50 weeks → ~$35K labor + ~$5K rework (8% error × 3×) + ~$6K attrition → ~$46K Year 1, ~$160K over 3 years at 15% growth.
Customer onboarding at an e-commerce SaaS
20 min/onboarding × 60/week × 3 CS reps × $65/hr × 50 weeks → ~$98K labor + ~$10K rework + ~$9K attrition → ~$117K Year 1, ~$405K over 3 years at 15% growth.
Weekly client reporting at an agency
45 min/report × 25/week × 4 AMs × $80/hr × 50 weeks → ~$300K labor + ~$24K rework + ~$12K attrition → ~$336K Year 1, ~$1.16M over 3 years at 15% growth.
Order-data reconciliation at a mid-market distributor
10 min/order × 200 orders/week × 2 ops people × $50/hr × 50 weeks → ~$167K labor + ~$25K rework (10% error × 4×) + ~$6K attrition → ~$198K Year 1, ~$686K over 3 years at 15% growth.
Honest limits
When This Number Overstates Reality
Four situations where we'd tell you the carrying cost is smaller than the calculator shows.
- →Volume is genuinely tiny (under 30 minutes/week total across the team) — the carrying cost rounds to noise.
- →The work disappears within 12 months for a different reason (product change, M&A, sunsetting the client). Don't pay $12K to retire something the business is already retiring.
- →The bottleneck is decision-making, not execution. A human still has to think; automation doesn't save the thinking time, only the typing.
- →You're confident attrition is unrelated. Zero out the attrition inputs in the Advanced panel — the number gets honest fast.
The gain-side math
Process Automation ROI Calculator
Same workflow, different framing — annual hours saved, payback period, 3-year net savings against a project cost.
The fix
Process Automation
Engagements start at $12K. We scope the workflow, build the automation, and hand it off as code your team owns.
Number Too Big to Keep Ignoring?
Schedule a 30-minute discovery call. We'll review the workflow + send a written scoping recommendation within a week — whether you hire us or not.