See what automation would save you
Punch in a few numbers about the repetitive work eating your team's week. In a few seconds you will see the hours you would get back and the money it would free up over a year. Then grab the automation audit checklist below so you know exactly what to look at before you build anything.
Estimate your automation ROI
Honest estimate, not a quote. We assume automation removes about 90% of the manual time on a clean, repetitive task. Your real number depends on your stack, which is what the free audit is for.
These are estimates. A free audit gives you the real number for your stack.
Why the numbers matter, and how to use them
Most teams underestimate how much repetitive work actually costs them, because it never shows up as a single line on a budget. It hides in fifteen minutes here, a copy-paste there, a report someone rebuilds every Monday. Add it across a year and across a few people, and you are usually looking at the cost of a full role. The calculator above just makes that invisible cost visible.
Read the weekly hours figure first. That is the time your people would get back to do work a machine cannot do, talking to clients, closing deals, thinking. The yearly money figure is the same time priced out, so you can compare it against what a build would cost and decide if it is worth doing. If the yearly number is bigger than a few weeks of build work, automation almost always pays for itself inside a quarter.
We deliberately assume automation removes about 90% of the manual time, not 100%. Real workflows have exceptions: the odd record that needs a human eye, the approval that has to be signed off, the edge case the rules did not foresee. A good system handles the routine 90% automatically and routes the rest cleanly to a person. Anyone promising 100% is selling you a demo, not a production system.
A few honest caveats. The calculator does not know your data quality, whether your tools have APIs, or how many of your tasks are genuinely rules-based versus judgement calls. Those are exactly the things that decide whether a build is a quick win or a slog. That is why the estimate is a starting point, and the workflow automation audit is where the real number comes from.
If the numbers look worth chasing, the next step is not to start wiring things together. It is to audit first. Below is the same checklist we run through before any build, so you can spot the easy wins and the landmines before you commit. Work through it, then book a free audit and we will turn it into a phased plan.
What to check before you automate anything
Twelve things we work through on every audit. Print it, save it as a PDF, and tick them off against your own process.
- Map every repetitive task and its real frequency, not the frequency you assume.
- Quantify the time and cost per task, then total it across the whole team.
- List the systems involved and confirm which ones have an API or webhook.
- Check data quality and pin down where the source of truth actually lives.
- Spot the manual handoffs, the approvals, and the copy-paste steps between tools.
- Separate rules-based steps from genuine judgement calls.
- Decide where logic routes deterministically and where AI only extracts or drafts.
- Flag any compliance, PII, or sensitive-data concerns up front.
- Define the exceptions and edge cases, and who a human handoff goes to.
- Make the design config-driven so non-developers can adjust it later.
- Pick the platform deliberately, n8n by default for no timeouts and flat cost.
- Set the success metric in advance: hours saved per week or money saved per year.
Questions about the calculator
It gives you a sensible estimate, not a quote. It assumes automation removes about 90% of the manual time on a repetitive task, which is realistic for clean, rules-based work but optimistic for messy edge cases. The real number depends on your systems, data quality, and how many exceptions need a human. A free audit replaces the estimate with figures grounded in your actual stack.
Anything a person does the same way over and over: copying data between two tools, sending the same kind of follow-up email, qualifying inbound leads, updating CRM records, chasing approvals, building the same weekly report. If the steps rarely change and the decision is rules-based, it is a strong automation candidate.
No. We build the system for you in n8n, document it, and hand it over. Our builds are config-driven, so you can change templates and logic later without touching code. You do not need a developer on staff to run it.
We map your repetitive tasks, the systems involved, where data lives, and the manual handoffs, then show you exactly what is automatable and what it would save. You leave with a real number and a phased plan, no obligation. Browse our full services if you want to see what we build.
Turn the estimate into a real plan
Book a free audit. We will map where your team's time leaks and show you exactly what automation would save, with a phased build plan. No spam, ever.
Book My Free Audit bastien@otimizagency.com