Blog · · 4 min read

Is it worth automating? Find the payback week first

Before automating a job, work out the week it pays for itself: the loaded cost of an hour, the build and running costs, and one simple formula.

Most automation pitches start with what's possible. The more useful question is narrower: if you automate this one job, in which week does it start paying for itself? You can answer that before you speak to anyone, with four numbers and a calculator.

1. How many hours the job really takes

Pick one repeated job and time a normal week of it. Count the whole job, not just the typing: finding the information, checking it, fixing the mistakes, chasing the replies. People usually underestimate this, because the work is spread across the week in ten-minute pieces.

Multiply the weekly hours by 4.33 to get a month. Seven hours a week is about 30 hours a month.

2. What an hour of that person's time costs

Use the loaded cost, not the salary alone. Divide the yearly salary by 2,080 working hours, then add about 30% for payroll tax, benefits and overhead.

A coordinator on $70,000 a year works out at about $34 an hour before overhead, and close to $44 once it's added.

Multiply the hourly cost by the monthly hours and you have what the job costs you each month. At 30 hours and $45 an hour, that's roughly $1,360 a month.

3. What it costs to build, and to run

There are two numbers here, and the second one gets forgotten.

  • The build is a one-time cost: designing it, wiring it into the tools you already use, and testing it on your own data.
  • Running it is monthly: someone watching it and fixing it when a vendor changes something, plus the software and usage it runs on, such as AI usage, phone minutes or extra seats.

Ask for both, and ask who pays the usage costs. A build that looks cheap can come with a monthly bill that eats most of the saving.

4. Work out the payback week

With those numbers, the maths is three lines:

monthly saving = hours a week × 4.33 × hourly cost
monthly net    = monthly saving − running cost per month
payback week   = build cost ÷ monthly net × 4.33

Round the last number up. If the monthly net is zero or negative, it never pays back, however cheap the build.

A job that pays back

Take an inbound lead qualifier: something that replies to every new inquiry within seconds, asks the qualifying questions and books the good ones in. Say it takes someone 7 hours a week today, at $45 an hour.

  • Monthly saving: 7 × 4.33 × $45 ≈ $1,364
  • Build: $1,099, the midpoint of our indicative range for a job this size
  • Running cost: $199 a month
  • Monthly net: $1,364 − $199 = $1,165
  • Payback: $1,099 ÷ $1,165 × 4.33 ≈ 4.1, so week 5

Over the first year that leaves about $12,880 after the build and twelve months of running costs. That's before any software and usage costs; if yours are billed separately, add them to the running cost first.

A job that doesn't

Now take drafting replies to online reviews, at 1 hour a week and $28 an hour.

  • Monthly saving: 1 × 4.33 × $28 ≈ $121
  • Build: $449, the midpoint for a small job
  • Running cost: $99 a month
  • Monthly net: $121 − $99 = $22
  • Payback: $449 ÷ $22 × 4.33 ≈ 87 weeks

That's well over a year, and the first year ends about $180 down. The honest answer is: don't automate it yet. Wait until there's more of it, or build it later alongside a bigger job.

Four rules of thumb

  • About eight hours a week of the same repeated job is the rough line. Below that, the build usually takes too long to clear.
  • Past six months, stage it. If several jobs together pay back slowly, build the fastest-paying one first and let its savings fund the next.
  • Don't automate a broken process. If the job is messy because nobody agrees how it should work, automation just makes the mess faster. Fix the process first.
  • Count the relief, but decide on the money. Fewer interruptions and no Sunday-evening backlog are real benefits. If the numbers don't work, though, the relief alone rarely justifies the cost.

Try it on your own jobs

The time audit on our home page does this maths for seventeen common jobs. Tick the ones your team still does by hand, adjust the hours and the hourly cost, and it shows the payback week, or tells you plainly when there isn't one.

If you'd rather talk it through, book a 15-minute call. We'll work out the numbers for your messiest job, and tell you if the answer is "don't bother yet".

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