Annual net gain (steady state)
€0
Time saved plus recovered profit, each year after Year 1, net of retainer.
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AI Agent ROI Calculator.
Two sources of value, one honest number: the hours your team gets back, and the customers you stop losing to missed calls and late replies. See how many months each package takes to pay for itself. Our prices are public, so the math is real.
How is AI agent ROI calculated?
AI agent ROI compares the annual labor cost of the work an agent absorbs against the total cost of building and running that agent. theagency47's calculator uses a fully-loaded hourly cost (annual salary ÷ 2,080 working hours × 1.30 overhead factor), multiplies it by the hours an agent removes from human workload, adds the gross profit from enquiries the agent recovers (missed enquiries × 80% recovered × conversion rate × customer value × margin), and subtracts the one-time build fee plus twelve monthly retainer fees. The output is annual net gain (€), payback period (months) for each package, 3-year ROI (%), and hours saved as full-time-equivalent (FTE). Methodology is disclosed below the tool, no black box.
theagency47 · Updated October 2026 Step 1 of 2 · 60 seconds
Tell us about the work.
All math runs locally in your browser. We never see these numbers until you ask us to send the PDF.
Step 2 · Your numbers
Here is the math.
A defensible floor: team time saved plus gross profit (not revenue) from the enquiries you stop missing. Error reduction and faster cycle times are not priced in, so the real number is usually higher.
Payback period
months
Months for net savings to cover the one-time build fee.
3-year ROI
0%
Cumulative return on the full 3-year investment (build + retainers).
Hours saved · FTE
0 h
0.00 full-time-equivalent employees freed.
Payback by package, with your numbers
Same inputs and retainer for every package. Wider packages cover more work, so your real numbers would grow with the scope; this shows the floor.
| Package | Build fee | Payback | 3-year ROI |
|---|
Year-by-year breakdown
| Year | Time saved | Recovered profit | Agent cost | Net result | Cumulative |
|---|
Step 3 · Optional
Get the detailed PDF report.
We will email you a one-page PDF with your numbers, our calculation methodology, error-reduction add-ons, and the three highest-ROI tasks in your industry. One email. No nurture spam.
Methodology
Exactly how this calculator works.
No black box. The math is below in plain prose so you can audit the result against your own spreadsheet, or send it to your CFO.
Inputs
- Employees (E): Number of people currently doing the task. Fractional values accepted.
- Salary (S): Average gross annual salary per employee in EUR.
- Hours per week (H): Hours each employee spends on the task that an agent could handle.
- Automation rate (A): Share of that task time the agent absorbs. 70% is the default for well-scoped agents (assumption — adjust to your numbers).
- Build fee (B): One-time implementation cost, picked from our four tiers.
- Missed enquiries (M), conversion (C), customer value (V), margin (G): Optional. Enquiries per month that go unanswered or late, the share that normally become customers, the value of a new customer, and your gross margin on it.
- Retainer (R): Monthly maintenance fee, picked from four retainer plans or zero.
Derived values
- Loaded hourly cost = S × 1.30 ÷ 2,080. We assume 40 working hours × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours/year and a 1.30 overhead multiplier for taxes, benefits and tooling.
- Hours saved per year = E × H × 52 × (A ÷ 100).
- Labor savings per year = hours saved × loaded hourly cost.
- FTE equivalent = hours saved ÷ 2,080.
- Recovered profit per year = M × 12 × 0.80 × (C ÷ 100) × V × (G ÷ 100). We assume the agent recovers 80% of missed enquiries by answering every call and message within seconds, 24/7, and count gross profit only, never revenue.
- Total benefit per year = labor savings + recovered profit.
Output formulas
- Annual net gain (steady state) = total benefit − (R × 12). Applies to Year 2 onward.
- Year-1 net result = total benefit − B − (R × 12).
- Payback period (months) = B ÷ ((total benefit − R × 12) ÷ 12), calculated for Spark, Workforce Starter, Workforce Pro and Scale package side by side. Returns ">36 months" when it takes longer than three years.
- 3-year ROI (%) = ((3 × total benefit) − B − (36 × R)) ÷ (B + 36 × R) × 100.
What the calculator does not include
Direct labor savings is the most defensible line item, so we expose only that. Real engagements often capture two to four additional value streams:
- Error reduction. Fewer manual mistakes mean less rework, fewer chargebacks, fewer escalations.
- Cycle-time compression. Hours of work delivered in minutes can unlock revenue (faster quoting, faster onboarding, faster support).
- 24/7 coverage. Agents do not have weekends. For inbound-driven workloads this is significant.
- Scaling without hiring. Variable-cost growth instead of step-function headcount.
The PDF report quantifies these for your industry and adds them to the floor estimate above.
Honest read
When the ROI math does not work, and we will tell you.
AI agents are not a fit for every workflow. If your calculator output shows a payback over 18 months, one of three things is usually true:
- The task is too narrow. Two hours a week is rarely worth building a custom agent for. Pool related tasks or use an off-the-shelf SaaS.
- The task needs human judgment more than 50% of the time. The right answer is human-in-the-loop tooling, not full agent replacement.
- You picked the wrong tier. A €15K Workforce Pro for a €25K labor base will never pay back fast. Spark is the right scope for small wins.
On our free 30-minute discovery call we tell you which of these applies to your situation, including the case where the honest answer is "do not build an agent yet." Prefer to start in writing? Describe your agent and we'll send back the same honest read in a structured brief.
FAQ
Questions about the math.
What is a realistic automation rate for an AI agent?
It depends on the task. Well-scoped single-purpose agents (email triage, tier-1 customer support, document classification, lead enrichment) absorb more of the work than multi-step agents that touch unstructured human judgment, and we measure the real rate on your own cases during the 14-day eval cycle. We do not promise 100%; the remainder is human-in-the-loop review and edge cases, by design. Use 70% as a sensible default (assumption — adjust to your numbers).
What is a good payback period for an AI agent?
Typical theagency47 engagements pay back the one-time build fee in 3 to 9 months in steady operation (typical estimate). Spark builds (€2,500) frequently recover in 1 to 3 months (typical estimate) because the scope is tight. Workforce Pro builds (€15,000) take longer but the absolute savings are larger. If the calculator returns a payback over 18 months, the agent is probably scoped too narrowly, book a discovery call and we will say so honestly.
Why do you load salaries by 1.30 in the calculation?
Raw salary understates the true cost of an employee on a task. The 1.30 multiplier (fully-burdened cost) accounts for employer-side taxes, statutory contributions, benefits, paid leave, equipment, software seats and management overhead. Greek private sector is closer to 1.25; senior US tech roles can exceed 1.40. 1.30 is a defensible middle. Adjust your reading by ~5% if your loading is materially different.
Does the calculator include error reduction and quality gains?
No. The calculator quantifies only direct labor savings, the most defensible line item. Error reduction, faster cycle times, 24/7 coverage and revenue uplift from faster response are real but vary too much per engagement to model generically. They make the calculator output a conservative floor, not a ceiling. The PDF report covers methodology for adding these dimensions.
Is my data sent anywhere when I use the calculator?
No. All math runs locally in your browser via JavaScript. Your inputs do not leave the page unless you choose to request the PDF report, in which case the inputs and computed outputs are sent to our Formspree-hosted intake along with your email. We do not run any third-party analytics on the calculator inputs themselves.
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