Free tool
How much is manual data entry costing your business?
Most owners guess a few thousand. The real number is usually five to ten times that, because the hours are spread across people who each think it is a small part of their job. Move the sliders and see yours.
- Hours lost / week
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- Hours lost / year
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- Error cost / year
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- Recoverable with automation
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- Payback on a $6,000 project
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Assumes 48 working weeks, 70% of manual hours recoverable, and $180 average cost per mistake (rework, credit notes, lost orders). Adjust on the call.
How the calculator works
The annual labour cost is people × hours per week × 48 working weeks × fully loaded hourly cost. Fully loaded means salary plus employer taxes, benefits and overhead, which is typically 1.25 to 1.4 times the base wage.
The error cost uses a conservative average of $180 per mistake. A wrong shipment, a missed supplier discount, a duplicate payment or a lead that never got a reply each cost far more than that once you include the time spent fixing them, but $180 keeps the estimate defensible in front of a finance team.
Automation rarely removes 100% of manual hours. Exceptions still need a human. The calculator assumes 70% of hours and 90% of errors are recoverable, which matches what well-built integrations deliver in practice.
What to do with the number
If the recoverable figure is above $15,000 a year, a single flat-fee automation pays for itself inside six months and you should book a Workflow Audit. If it is below that, start with the free templates and cheat sheet and automate the simplest step yourself.
Next step
Stop paying people to be the integration layer.
Book a 45-minute Workflow Audit. You leave with a written plan and a fixed price, whether or not you hire me.