What are your manual tasks
costing you each year?
Data entry. Manual follow-ups. Copy-paste reporting. Most businesses don't know how much they pay for work that could run automatically. This does the maths.
Data entry, copy-paste, follow-up emails, manual reporting, scheduling
Include yourself if you do this work too
Salary ÷ 2000 hrs/yr, plus ~25% for overheads. Typical SME employee: $20–$45/hr
How we calculate this
The calculator multiplies your manual hours by headcount and weeks in the year to find your total annual time investment in repetitive tasks.
The 70% rule: In practice, most SME manual workflows are 60–80% automatable. Some tasks need human judgment — approval decisions, exception handling, relationship calls. We use 70% as a conservative mid-point.
Fully-loaded cost includes salary plus approximately 25% for employer costs, benefits, and overhead. A $50k/yr employee typically costs around $30/hr fully loaded.
Note: This is an estimation tool. Actual automatable percentage varies by workflow type. A scoping call will give you a more accurate picture for your specific tasks.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the cost of manual tasks in my business?+
Multiply hours per week spent on repetitive tasks by the number of people doing them, then by 52 weeks, then by your fully-loaded hourly rate. Fully-loaded rate = (annual salary × 1.25) ÷ 2,000 working hours.
What percentage of manual tasks can be automated?+
Research shows 60–80% of repetitive business workflows are automatable with existing tools. We use 70% as a conservative estimate. Tasks that genuinely require human judgment — exceptions, relationships, creative decisions — account for the remaining 30%.
What does fully-loaded hourly cost mean?+
Fully-loaded cost includes an employee's salary plus employer-side costs: payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, and workspace overhead. As a rule of thumb, add 25% to base salary, then divide by 2,000 hours per year. A $50,000/yr employee costs approximately $31/hr fully loaded.
What types of tasks are most commonly automated for SMEs?+
The highest-impact categories are: data entry and cross-system transfer, lead follow-up and appointment reminders, automated reporting from multiple data sources, and inbox triage and routing. These four categories account for the majority of automatable time in most service businesses.
Next step
Is automation actually worth the investment?
Once you know your annual waste, check whether automation pays for itself — and how quickly.
Calculate your automation ROI →