Estimate the annual labor cost you’d recover by automating a workflow. Plug in hours, rate, headcount, and the running cost of the system.
Last verified 2026-05-06 · runs entirely client-side
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Salary + benefits + overhead, divided by ~2,000 hrs/yr.
Build, host, maintain, model spend. All-in.
After subtracting the system’s annual running cost.
Net annual × horizon. No discounting applied.
Formula. annual savings = hours × rate × people × weeks. Net annual subtracts your all-in system cost. Payback is system cost divided by gross annual savings, expressed in months.
Fully-loaded hourly cost. Use total compensation (salary + benefits + payroll tax + share of overhead), divided by roughly 2,000 hours per year. For US knowledge workers, the loaded multiplier is typically 1.25–1.4× base salary. Reference: BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation.
No discounting. Multi-year totals are simple sums. If you want NPV, apply your own discount rate (commonly 8–15% for internal projects).
Doesn’t model. Quality gains, error-rate reduction, opportunity cost of slow workflows, or revenue lift from faster execution. These often dwarf labor savings; treat the number here as a conservative floor.
Last verified 2026-05-06.