How to use this calculator
- Team and cost. Enter how many people do the work and their fully loaded hourly cost — salary plus benefits and overheads, not just pay.
- Hours per task. Estimate hours per person per week on each task. If you can, check a week of real calendars or timesheets first; estimates from memory tend to be off.
- Time saved. Choose how much faster AI will make those specific tasks. Start with Conservative or Moderate unless you have pilot data.
- Costs. Add a realistic setup cost, per-user licences and other running costs. A tool with no setup cost still needs time to roll out.
The results show the value of time freed, what it costs to get there, and when the project pays for itself. Use Copy link to share a scenario with a colleague or save it for later.
What the results mean
- Hours saved = hours on selected tasks × time saved % × share of the team using the tool.
- Value of time = hours saved × fully loaded hourly cost. This is a cost-based value: it shows what the time is worth to the business, not cash you automatically keep.
- Payback period = months until cumulative net savings cover the setup cost, with benefits counted at half during the ramp-up months.
- Year-1 ROI = (first-year value − first-year costs) ÷ first-year costs.
- 3-year net value = the cumulative net figure at the end of year three. Most automation pays off over years, not months, so a three-year view is fairer than year one alone.
The full formulas, assumptions and sources are on the methodology page.
Why the default time savings are moderate
It is easy to type "70%" into a calculator and produce an exciting number. The evidence argues for caution. In a study of 5,000 customer support agents, an AI assistant raised issues resolved per hour by about 14% on average. In a Harvard Business School and BCG experiment, consultants using GPT-4 finished tasks about 25% faster — but were less likely to get the right answer on tasks outside the AI's strengths. And a 2025 randomised trial found experienced software developers took 19% longer with AI tools, even though they believed they were faster.
Savings on narrow, repetitive, well-defined tasks — drafting routine emails, summarising documents, extracting data from forms — can be much higher than on complex judgement work. That is why the calculator asks about specific tasks rather than whole jobs. We summarise the main studies in what the research says about AI time savings.
Before you commit budget: run a two- to four-week pilot on one task with a few people, measure the real time saved, and put that number into the calculator. A measured 25% beats an assumed 50%.
Guides
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the ROI of AI automation?
Work out the hours the automation will save per year, multiply by the fully loaded hourly cost of the people doing the work, then subtract the running costs and one-off setup cost. ROI is that net gain divided by the total cost; payback is the number of months until cumulative savings cover the setup cost. The calculator above does this month by month, including a ramp-up period.
What is a realistic time saving from AI tools?
Controlled studies of specific tasks have found gains of roughly 14% to 25% in speed or output, with larger gains for less experienced staff — but at least one rigorous study found experienced developers were slower with AI. Across whole jobs, a 2024 US survey found generative AI users saved about 5.4% of their work hours. That is why the calculator asks for savings on targeted tasks only, and defaults to a moderate 35% on those tasks.
What does "fully loaded" hourly cost mean?
It is what an hour of an employee actually costs the business: salary plus employer contributions, benefits, equipment, software and office overheads. A common shortcut is base hourly pay multiplied by 1.25 to 1.4. Using bare salary understates the value of time saved.
Does saving time mean saving money?
Only if the freed-up time is used for something valuable — more customers served, faster turnaround, less overtime, or not having to hire. If saved hours simply disappear into the day, the financial return is smaller than the calculator shows. Decide in advance how the time will be redeployed.
What costs do people forget to include?
Integration with existing systems, staff training, prompt and workflow maintenance, usage-based API charges that grow with volume, data cleanup, and the management time to run a pilot. Our guide to hidden costs lists them with typical ways to estimate each.
Is this calculator free, and is my data stored?
Yes, it is free. All calculations run in your browser; nothing you type is sent to our servers. The "copy link" button puts your inputs in the page address so you can share or bookmark them.