How much is manual work
costing your business?
Most business owners know their team spends time on work that could be automated. Few have put a dollar figure on it. This calculator uses your team size, average hours spent on admin tasks, and hourly rate to estimate your annual cost of manual work. Based on McKinsey Global Institute research. Takes less than 60 seconds. Results are emailed to you.
Adjust the three inputs below, then calculate.
Include full-time, part-time, and regular contractors.
Think: data entry, scheduling, chasing follow-ups, copying between systems, compiling reports, processing paperwork.
Not sure? The average knowledge worker spends around 10–12 hours per week on tasks like these. (McKinsey Global Institute, 2023)
Use gross pay including superannuation. If unsure, $40–$60/hr is a reasonable starting point for most Australian SMEs.
Common questions.
Any task your team does regularly that follows a predictable pattern and does not require human judgement. Common examples: copying information between systems, manually sending follow-up emails, compiling data into reports, scheduling appointments by phone or email, and processing standard paperwork.
The calculator uses your inputs alongside published research from McKinsey Global Institute on the proportion of working hours that can theoretically be automated using existing technology (60–70%, as of June 2023). The output is an estimate — your actual figures will depend on which specific processes you automate and how well they are implemented.
The savings estimate assumes a 70% efficiency gain on automatable hours — meaning the time cost of those tasks is reduced by 70% through automation, not eliminated entirely. This is a conservative assumption; some tasks are fully eliminated, others are only partially reduced.
The results give you a business case to evaluate before investing in automation. If the numbers look significant, the next step is understanding which specific workflows are driving the cost. Qode is currently offering a free Operational Audit to a small number of businesses — one conversation where we map your workflows, identify the best opportunity, and build a working prototype.