Automation ROI Calculator: How Many Hours Will Automation Give Back?
Enter the processes you are thinking of automating, how often they happen and how long each one takes by hand. The calculator returns hours a month, FTE capacity and, if you want it, the value of that time, counted the conservative way.
The return on back-office automation is time, measured per item. Every automation ROI calculation comes down to three inputs per process: how many items it handles a month, how many minutes one item takes by hand, and what share of items the automation actually completes. Hours returned follow from those, and capacity follows from hours. Everything else, including any dollar figure, is a view of the same number.
Automation ROI calculator
Add up to five processes. For each one, enter how many items it handles a month, how long one item takes by hand, and the share of items the automation completes. The three rows below are illustrative; replace them with your own.
- Process 1
13.5 hours returned a month
- Process 2
60.0 hours returned a month
- Process 3
40.5 hours returned a month
How the calculator counts
The arithmetic is simple. The rules around it decide whether the number survives the question "how did you count that?".
| Output | Formula | Read it as |
|---|---|---|
| Hours returned | Items a month × % automated × minutes per item ÷ 60 | Team time given back each month |
| Capacity created | Hours a month ÷ 4.33 weeks ÷ 40 hours | A weekly rate, not a running total |
| Annual hours | Hours a month × 12 | What accumulates over a year |
| Value of the time | Annual hours × loaded cost per hour | What the time is worth, not money saved |
- Count only completed items. Failed and cancelled runs do not count, and an item counts once its work is finished. That is what the "% automated" input is for: set it to the share of items that will actually complete without a person.
- Minutes are estimates until you replace them. Use your own handling times as soon as you have them.
- Capacity is a rate. Adding up weekly FTE figures across a year inflates the story. Hours are what accumulate.
- Conservative beats inflated. A modest number that holds up does more for an AI program than a big one that does not.
How to estimate minutes per item honestly
The minutes input moves the result more than any other, and it is the one most often guessed. To get it right:
- Time ten real occurrences. Start the clock when the item arrives and stop it when it is filed, entered or sent. Use the median, not the fastest.
- Include the switching. Looking up the client in the CRM, finding the folder in the document system, re-keying into the portal and fixing the occasional mistake are all part of the item.
- Ask the person who does it. Managers see the work; the person doing it sees the steps.
- Keep it per process. A five-minute form review and a 45-minute folder setup should never share an average.
Usage is not ROI
Seat counts, active users and prompts tell you an AI tool is being used. They do not tell you what it delivered. An automation ROI number has to be built from work completed, in the units your teams already track: forms reviewed, statements filed, folders set up, hours returned. Our guide to AI usage tracking covers the five delivery measures leadership asks for, and proving AI ROI in a law firm turns capacity into a business case a committee will sign.
Where the inputs come from
The calculator is only as good as its inputs, and most firms do not know their item counts or handling times off the top of their head.
- Caddi Discover measures how often each repetitive task happens and how long it takes from the activity in the tools you connect, read only, and ranks the work by hours a month with the evidence behind each finding. Treat it as a way to rank, not a forecast.
- Caddi Govern then reports what actually happened: items completed by process, documents by type, hours returned per item and capacity as a weekly rate, with failed and cancelled runs excluded. It covers every Caddi run and the work Caddi hands to Claude and Microsoft Copilot.
The estimate on this page and the record Govern keeps are calculated the same way, so the number you start with can be checked against the number you end with.
Caddi
See how Caddi AI Agents can find your most repetitive back-office work and automate it across every tool you use
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate automation ROI?
Start with time. For each process, multiply the items it handles a month by the share of items the automation completes and by the manual minutes one item takes, then divide by 60 for hours a month. Divide hours a week by 40 for full-time-equivalent capacity. If you want a dollar figure, multiply annual hours by a loaded hourly cost, and compare that against what the automation costs to run.
What should an AI ROI calculator include?
Inputs per process: items a month, manual minutes per item and the share automated. Outputs: hours returned a month, capacity as a weekly FTE rate, annual hours and, optionally, the value of that time. It should also state its counting rules, because the same inputs can produce very different numbers depending on whether failed work, partial work and usage are counted.
How do I estimate minutes per item accurately?
Time ten real occurrences of the task from start to finish, including looking things up, switching systems and fixing mistakes, and use the median. Ask the people who do the work, not their managers. Replace any estimate with measured handling times as soon as you have them, and keep the estimate per process rather than one average for everything.
Is time saved the same as money saved?
No. Hours returned are capacity: time a team gets back for other work. Whether that becomes money depends on what the firm does with it, such as absorbing growth without hiring, moving people to client work, or reducing overtime. Report hours and capacity as the result, and treat any dollar figure as a value of the time, not a saving.
Where do the inputs come from with Caddi?
Caddi Discover measures how often each repetitive task happens and how long it takes from the activity in the tools you connect, read only, and ranks the work by hours a month. Once a process runs, Caddi Govern reports the items actually completed and the hours returned, excluding failed and cancelled runs, so the estimate is replaced by the record.