Free calculator

What is manual work costing you?

Repetitive work — chasing leads, answering the same tickets, copying data between tools, reconciling invoices — quietly costs real money every week. Enter a few numbers to see what it adds up to a year, and how much you’d get back by automating it.

What kind of work is it? — optional, sets a starting point
Share you could automate50%
Your estimate — most teams are conservative here to start.
What this work costs you today
$62,400
a year · 30 hours every week3 × 10 hrs × $40 × 52 weeks
Automating 50% would give back
$31,200
a year
15 hrs
every week · ≈ 0.4 of a full-timer
Over 3 years$93,600
Over 5 years$156,000
Get a tailored automation plan

This is an estimate from the numbers you entered — nothing is stored. Your free 30-minute audit turns it into a real plan.

Not sure what to automate first? See the teardown →
How it’s calculated

Your numbers, nothing invented

The math is deliberately simple, so you can trust it: every figure comes straight from what you enter.

01

What it costs today

People on the work × hours a week × 52 weeks × their hourly cost. That's the annual price of doing it by hand.

02

What you'd get back

You set the share you think could be automated. We apply it to your cost and hours — a conservative estimate, in your control.

03

What to do with it

Take the number to a free 30-minute audit, where it becomes a real plan: which workflows to automate first, and what it takes.

The real cost

The wage bill is just the visible part

The calculator above counts the hours. But repetitive manual work costs more than the salary behind it — these are the parts that rarely make it onto a spreadsheet.

Mistakes and rework

Manual steps fail quietly — a mistyped number, a missed row, a stale copy. The cost isn't just the error; it's the hours spent finding and fixing it later.

Slower turnaround

Work that waits for a person sits in a queue. Tickets, approvals, and reports that take days instead of minutes quietly cost you customers and momentum.

Capped growth

When output is tied to headcount, more volume means more hiring. Repetitive work that scales with the business becomes the ceiling on what your team can take on.

Burnout and turnover

The dullest work wears people down first. The hidden line item is the focus, morale, and good people you lose to it.

Cost of Manual Work Calculator: FAQs

What does the Cost of Manual Work Calculator do?
It shows what your team's repetitive work costs you every year, and how much time and money you'd get back by automating part of it. You enter how many people do the work, how many hours a week it takes, and their average hourly cost — the calculator does the rest, instantly and for free.
How is the cost calculated?
It's simple arithmetic on your own numbers: people × hours per week × 52 weeks × average hourly cost gives the annual cost. The savings figure applies the share you say could be automated. Nothing is assumed or invented — the numbers are yours.
What hourly cost should I use?
Use a loaded hourly cost — roughly the person's annual salary divided by about 2,000 working hours. A rough figure is fine; the goal is a realistic order of magnitude, not a precise payroll number.
Is the result a promise of savings?
No. The result is an estimate built from the numbers you enter and the share you choose — it's a way to size the opportunity, not a guarantee. Your free 30-minute audit turns it into a real, costed plan for your specific workflows.
What happens after I see my number?
You can book a free 30-minute AI audit. Bardo uses your figures to map the specific workflows where automation would pay off fastest, and what it would take to install it.

Turn the number into a plan.

One 30-minute call maps the workflows where automation pays for itself fastest — and what it takes to install it.