Free tool

AI Automation Cost & ROI Calculator

Estimate what an AI workflow will cost each month, how much staff time it can save, and whether it is worth building. Pick a business scenario, adjust a few plain-English inputs, and get a budget you can use.

Choose your path

Use the guided walkthrough, or open the full planner if you already know the inputs.

Advanced cost settingsSign in to export

Estimates aren't saved. Export to CSV to keep this budget. Prices as of 6/17/2026. View model rates.

How to use this calculator

Estimate the monthly budget for an AI workflow and compare it with the time your team spends doing the work today. You can use business inputs like tasks, words, pages, minutes, and hourly cost.

Start from a scenario to prefill a common workflow, then adjust the numbers to match your business.
Describe the work — how often it happens, how long it takes a person today, and the fully loaded hourly cost.
Choose the AI setup — use the default model or pick another one, then estimate how much information goes in and how much the AI should produce.
Use Advanced cost settings only when you need extra precision for batches, extra AI steps, safety buffers, or platform costs.
Read the results on the right: monthly AI cost, staff time saved, monthly savings, annual savings, and planning notes.
Export to CSV to keep a snapshot of the budget. On the public calculator, sign in to enable export.

How the math works

Pricing data — Rates are pulled from the current pricing catalog (sourced from the open-source model_prices_and_context_window.json maintained by BerriAI), plus any administrator overrides. All usage-based rates are stored as USD per 1M tokens and can be refreshed by an administrator at any time.

Token estimation — If you enter words, characters, or pages, the calculator converts them to tokens behind the scenes: 1 word ≈ 1.33 tokens (equivalently, 1 token ≈ 0.75 words); 1 character ≈ 0.25 tokens (4 characters per token); 1 page ≈ 800 tokens (roughly 600 words). Entering sizes directly in tokens skips any conversion. When company documents or knowledge-base lookup is enabled, the extra reference material is added on top of the base input size.

AI cost — Text cost per task = ((input tokens x input rate) + (output tokens x output rate)) divided by 1,000,000, then multiplied by any extra AI steps and items handled together. Monthly AI cost = per-task cost times monthly task volume, plus any safety buffer and other tool costs.

Labor value & net savings — Manual labor value per month = (minutes per task divided by 60) times monthly task volume times fully loaded hourly cost. Net savings = labor value minus total monthly AI cost. ROI compares net savings with AI cost. Annual net savings = net savings × 12.

Advanced settings — Extra AI steps multiply the per-task usage cost directly. A safety buffer adds a percentage on top of the base API cost to account for retries, edge cases, and traffic spikes. The buffer applies to usage-based API pricing only and has no effect on flat subscription pricing.

Estimates are planning guidance only — real costs vary with prompt size, caching, and provider rate changes.

Step 1 of 5

Workflow

Choose a pre-filled scenario or describe your own workflow.

1 / 5

Optional: start from a pre-filled scenario

Task or workflow nameName the job you want AI to help with.How often will this happen?

Use the unit that matches how your team thinks about the work.Items handled togetherLeave this at 1 unless a single run handles a batch of emails, records, products, or users.

Business outlook

AI cost / month

$1.28

Staff time saved

25 hrs/mo

Monthly savings

$1,013

Annual savings

$12,151

AI cost is less than 1% of the staff time saved.

AI cost$1.28

Value of staff time saved$1,014

Cost breakdown

Text / LLM$1.28/mo
Per task$0.0042
Tasks / month304

Annual planning number

$12,151

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