Free tool
Your numbers
Wages plus taxes, benefits, and overhead. Most small businesses land between $30 and $60.
Hours lost per week, by task
Your best honest guess is fine.
Chasing new inquiries, sending quotes, checking in after estimates.
Building estimates, formatting proposals, following up on them.
Booking jobs, confirming appointments, sending reminders.
Sorting email, data entry, filing, chasing paperwork.
Weekly numbers, job costing, pulling reports together.
Your results
Busywork cost per year
$54,080
Across 26 hours a week at $40/hour.
Per employee, per year
$2,163
The number most owners have never actually added up.
| Task | Hrs/wk | Cost/yr | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead follow-up | 5 | $10,400 | Medium |
| Quoting and proposals | 4 | $8,320 | Medium |
| Scheduling and reminders | 6 | $12,480 | High |
| Inbox and admin | 8 | $16,640 | Medium |
| Reporting | 3 | $6,240 | Medium |
Scheduling and reminders ($12,480/yr, High fit)
Calendars and reminders are pure pattern work.
Inbox and admin ($16,640/yr, Medium fit)
Varied, but most of it is sorting and filing by rule.
Lead follow-up ($10,400/yr, Medium fit)
Same steps every time, and speed decides who wins the job.
Quoting and proposals ($8,320/yr, Medium fit)
Partly judgment, partly paperwork. The paperwork half automates cleanly.
Reporting ($6,240/yr, Medium fit)
Same reports on a schedule. Machines love schedules.
Estimates, not quotes. Real workflows have details a calculator cannot see, which is exactly what a diagnostic is for.
Keep going
The calculator tells you what the busywork costs. The checklist tells you whether your business is ready to automate it.
Thirty things to get right before connecting your systems to AI, with a readiness grade at the end.
Thirty minutes with us. We map your operation, name what is costing you the most, and give you a written assessment either way.
Questions we hear
From you. We multiply the hours you enter by 52 weeks and your hourly rate. The full formula is shown under your results. No hidden math.
What an employee truly costs per hour: wages plus taxes, benefits, and overhead. Most small businesses land between $30 and $60. When in doubt, use $40.
No. Everything runs in your browser. Your numbers never leave your computer and we never see them.
Start with the top item on your fix-first list. Then book a diagnostic and we will map the actual workflow behind the number, because a calculator cannot see your details.
Engagement starts here
Bring your results to a free 30-minute diagnostic. We will look at your top-ranked task, map the actual workflow behind it, and give you a written plan either way.
Not limited to what's listed. Every engagement starts by assessing what your business actually needs, and we build whatever it requires.