What automation costs and how to calculate payback
"What does automation cost" has no single answer: a three-step chain costs about a day of work, automating a whole department costs a month. But payback is calculated the same way in every case — and you can calculate it before paying anything.
The formula
Monthly saving = operations per month × minutes per operation ÷ 60 × hourly cost
Example: a manager copies leads from email into the CRM. 300 leads a month, 4 minutes each, €12 per hour.
300 × 4 ÷ 60 × 12 = €240 per month. Automating that chain costs around €380 — paid back in under two months.
Price ranges by task
| Task | Price | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Simple chain: form → CRM → alert | from €380 | 2–4 days |
| CRM or telephony integration | from €450 | 3–7 days |
| Complex scenario, 20+ nodes | from €900 | 1–2 weeks |
| End-to-end process automation | from €1,200 | 2–6 weeks |
Plus monthly: server €5–20, support from €260, AI model usage €20–150 where applicable.
Three ways the maths goes wrong
Counting salary only
Time saved is the smallest part of the benefit. Recovered leads and after-hours enquiries usually matter more: count how many enquiries waited over an hour and apply your close rate.
Ignoring the cost of mistakes
Manual data entry carries a 1–3% error rate — wrong address, wrong price, lost contact. Multiply by what one mistake costs you; sometimes this line alone beats the time saving.
Comparing one-off cost to one month
Automation is an asset, not an expense — it still runs a year later. Compare the one-off cost against annual savings.
When it will not pay off
- Fewer than 20–30 repetitions a month.
- A process that changes every month — stabilise it first.
- Work where every case is unique and needs an expert.
FAQ
Can I estimate it myself?
Yes. Take the three most frequent manual actions and run the formula on each — usually one of them costs more than the other two combined.
What if the saving is smaller than the price?
Then do not automate that process. We say so during the audit — losing €290 beats losing thousands.
Let us run the numbers for your case.
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