Repetitive Task Cost Estimator
Manual work is rarely priced, and unpriced work looks free. This puts the number on the table.
- Fully loaded rate
- Annual figure
- Free, no sign-up
Estimates assume 5 work days/week, 4.33 weeks/month and 52 weeks/year. The savings figure assumes automation eliminates roughly 80% of the manual time — actual results vary by task and tooling.
Unpriced work looks free
A task someone has always done by hand carries a real annual cost in salary, errors and delay. But because nobody ever wrote the number down, automation gets compared against zero — and loses.
Put the task in and get the figure it should actually be compared against.
How to calculate it
Time per run × runs per week × 52 × fully loaded hourly cost. Nothing clever, which is the point — a figure anyone in the room can check beats a model nobody can argue with.
- The fully loaded rate is roughly 1.25 to 1.4 times salary once employment costs, tools and overheads are counted.
- Using bare salary understates the figure by about a third, which is usually enough to sink the business case on its own.
- Count everyone who touches the task, not just the person who complains about it.
- 125 minutes per runTimed, not remembered.
- 26 runs a weekAcross everyone who does it.
- 3x 52 weeks130 hours a year.
- 4x $42 fully loadedNot the $32 bare rate.
The costs people leave out
Three of them, and together they are usually larger than the salary line everyone does remember.
- Interruption. A five-minute task breaking focused work costs far more than five minutes.
- Rework. Manual processes generate errors, and the fixing is rarely counted as part of the task.
- Delay. Work that waits overnight for someone to arrive has a real price in some businesses — and none in others. Be honest about which you are.
Why the number matters more than the accuracy
It does not need to be exact. It needs to exist. An approximate figure defended out loud beats a precise one nobody calculated, because the alternative on the other side of the comparison is literally zero.
- Automation quotes get judged against the manual cost. If that is blank, the quote looks like pure expense.
- A figure also survives the follow-up question: how did you get that?
- Round down if you are unsure. A conservative number you can defend is worth more than an optimistic one you cannot.
Your figures stay in your browser
Salary and headcount are not numbers most people want to type into a random website. They are not sent anywhere here.
- The page makes no network call at all while you use it.
- Which means real rates can go in rather than rounded stand-ins, and the answer is the real one.
- No account, and nothing kept afterwards.
Four numbers worth keeping
Why Parix.ai gives this away
We build the automation these figures justify, which means we have watched good proposals lose to a blank cell. These tools are the same checks we run before quoting — which is why there is no paywall and no sign-up.
Price my taskWho uses it
Operations leads building a case, consultants writing a proposal, and anyone who knows a task is wasteful and needs a number to prove it.
Take it further
The Automation ROI Calculator turns this into a payback period, the Manual vs Automated comparison puts both paths side by side, and the Hours Saved Calculator expresses it as time rather than money.
When the case is made
Our workflow automation team builds the thing that removes the hours — and will say plainly when a task is not worth automating.