AI/D — Free Tool
What is manual work costing you?
Three numbers. Instant answer. See what repetitive manual work costs your business per year — and how much of it is typically automatable. No signup, no email.
Email, data entry, scheduling, follow-ups, reports, copy-paste work…
Include yourself.
Wage or what your own hour is worth. US small-business admin averages ~$25/hr.
Annual cost of manual work
That’s $1,083 every month.
≈ a part-time hire’s annual wages
Typically automatable (40–60%)
Hours recoverable per week
Estimates based on typical results across 100+ automation builds. The 40–60% automatable range reflects common admin, follow-up, and data workflows — your mix varies. This is a planning estimate, not a guarantee.
Now find out which hours to reclaim first
The calculator shows the size of the leak. The free AI Automation Score shows where it is — 10 questions, 2 minutes, instant findings from 100+ real automation builds.
Get My Free Automation Score →How this calculator works
The math is deliberately simple and fully visible: hours per week × people × hourly cost × 52 weeks = your annual cost of manual work. The automatable range (40–60%) comes from patterns across 100+ automation builds — most businesses can automate roughly half of their repetitive admin, follow-up, and data-moving work with tools like Make.com, Zapier, and AI assistants, while keeping humans on judgment calls, relationships, and anything sensitive.
What usually automates well: lead follow-up, appointment scheduling, data entry between systems, report generation, FAQ-style customer questions, and repetitive email. What shouldn’t be automated: closing conversations, sensitive communications, and any process that’s currently broken — automating a broken process just breaks things faster.
FAQ
Is this AI ROI calculator really free?
Yes — no signup, no email, no catch. It runs entirely in your browser. If you want specifics on what to automate, the free AI Automation Score quiz goes deeper.
How accurate is the 40–60% automatable estimate?
It’s a planning range drawn from real client builds, not a promise. Businesses heavy on admin, follow-up, and data entry often land at the top of the range; businesses whose manual work is mostly judgment and relationships land lower.
What does it actually cost to automate?
DIY with tools like Make.com or Zapier can start under $50/month plus your build time. Done-for-you builds vary with complexity — the point of this calculator is to compare any of that against what doing nothing already costs you.
More free tools: AI with Damon — Tools · Built by Damon Scaife
An automation ROI calculator, not a guess
Used as a labor cost calculator this answers a blunt question: what is a repeated manual task costing you over a year in wages alone? Used as a time savings calculator it answers the other half — how many hours come back if the task runs itself. An automation ROI calculator is only as honest as its inputs, so use real hourly cost and real frequency. If the payback still looks poor, that is a genuinely useful answer: not everything is worth automating.
Free · 2 minutes · No call required
What should your business automate first?
Answer 10 quick questions and get your AI Automation Score: how you compare to similar businesses, roughly what manual work is costing you each week, and the specific systems worth building first — drawn from 100+ real automation builds.
Rather talk it through with a human? Get in touch.