How Many Hours Would AI Give Back?
Start from what the task costs today, decide how much of it AI can take on, and subtract the review time that never appears in a vendor demo. The result is net hours freed and what they are worth, per year and per person.
Use one task, not a whole job. The share AI can handle is your judgement, so try a cautious figure first and see whether the result still matters.
AI Time Savings Calculator
Net hours freed after review, and what they are worth.
Log it for a week rather than guessing.
Salary plus super, leave and on-costs, divided by hours worked.
Time a person spends checking and correcting output.
Net hours freed at your hourly cost. Capacity, not guaranteed cash.
Every figure is calculated from your inputs. No benchmark or industry averages are applied. The share AI can handle and the review percentage are your estimates, and the result is only as reliable as they are. Inputs are stored in this browser only.
Reading the Result
The headline is net hours, after review. The cost figures put a dollar value on those hours at the rate you entered, nothing more.
Hours today is the anchor
Staff on the task, multiplied by hours each spends per week, multiplied by working weeks. If this number looks wrong, fix it first. Every other figure is a share of it.
Review time comes off the top
AI output has to be checked. The review percentage is the share of the AI-handled hours that a person still spends reading, correcting and approving. Net hours freed is what is left after that.
Value is not the same as cash
Freed hours are only cash if they turn into fewer hires, more billable work or less overtime. For most businesses they become capacity. The dollar figure tells you what that capacity is worth, not what will land in the bank.
The Formulas
Four steps, all shown in the result. There are no hidden assumptions and no benchmark figures: every number comes from your inputs.
Annual hours and cost today
Staff on the task multiplied by hours per week each, multiplied by working weeks. Cost today is those hours at the hourly cost you entered.
Hours AI handles
Annual hours today multiplied by the share of the task you judge AI can take on.
Review time added back
The AI-handled hours multiplied by the review percentage. Net hours freed is AI-handled hours minus review hours.
Annual value and value per person
Net hours freed multiplied by hourly cost. Divided by staff on the task for the per-person figure, and by working weeks (times 60) for minutes per person per week.
Getting the Inputs Right
The calculator is only as honest as its inputs. Four places where the number tends to go wrong, and how to check each one.
Hours per week on the task
People overestimate time on tasks they dislike and underestimate time on tasks they do in fragments. Ask two or three people to log the task for a week rather than guessing in a meeting. A five-minute job done thirty times a day is two and a half hours.
- Log it for one normal week before using the calculator
- Include the fragments: reading, finding, re-keying, chasing
- Exclude time on the parts AI clearly cannot do, such as site visits
- Use the average, not the busiest person
The share AI can handle
This is the input that decides the result, and it is your judgement, not a benchmark. Split the task into steps and ask which steps are pattern work on text, data or documents, and which need a decision, a relationship or a physical action. The AI share is the first group.
- Drafting, summarising, classifying and extracting: usually AI candidates
- Judgement calls, negotiation and anything physical: usually not
- Run the calculator at a cautious share and a hopeful share
- If only the hopeful share makes the case, the case is weak
Review time
Review is the cost vendors leave out. Early on, a reviewer may read every output, so the review percentage can be high. As accuracy is measured and trust builds, review usually drops to spot checks. Use the early figure for a first-year estimate.
- Reviewing is faster than doing, but it is not free
- Higher review for customer-facing or irreversible outputs
- Measure it during a pilot rather than guessing
- Review time falls over time; the first year is the conservative case
Hourly cost
Use the loaded cost of the people doing the task: salary plus superannuation, leave and on-costs, divided by hours actually worked. For billable staff you could instead use the charge-out rate, but then the result is potential revenue, not cost saved, and the two should not be mixed.
- Loaded cost, not base salary divided by 38 hours
- Use one basis throughout: cost saved or revenue gained, not both
- Owner time is real cost even when no salary is paid
- Check the figure against what a replacement hire would cost
Next Steps
AI Business Case Calculator
Turn hours freed into a risk-adjusted business case with build and running costs.
Build the case →AI Project Cost Estimator
What it would cost to build the thing that frees these hours.
Estimate the cost →AI Automation Consulting
How we find and build the automations behind numbers like these.
See the service →Frequently Asked Questions
Is the share AI can handle a standard figure?
No. It is your estimate for your task, and the calculator does not suggest one because there is no honest general figure. The useful way to arrive at it is to break the task into steps, decide which steps are pattern work on text, data or documents, and add up the time those steps take as a share of the whole. Then run the calculator twice, once cautious and once hopeful, and see whether the cautious result is still worth doing.
Why does the calculator subtract review time?
Because someone has to check the output, and that time is real. A system that drafts fifty replies a day still needs a person to read and approve them, at least until accuracy has been measured and trust established. Leaving review out is the most common reason a business case for AI looks better on paper than in practice. The review percentage is the share of AI-handled hours that a person still spends, and it comes straight off the hours freed.
Are freed hours the same as money saved?
Only if you do something with them. Freed hours become cash when they mean not making a hire, cutting overtime, taking on more work with the same team or reducing contractor spend. If the hours are absorbed into the day without any of those, the value is real capacity but not a saving. The dollar figure here is the value of the hours at the rate you entered. Whether it becomes a saving is a management decision, not a calculator result.
What working weeks figure should I use?
The number of weeks the task is actually done in a year. For a full-time role in Australia with four weeks of annual leave, public holidays and some sick leave, somewhere between 44 and 47 is typical. For seasonal work, use the weeks the task runs. The default is 46. It is an input rather than a fixed value so you can match it to your own roster.
What if the task is done by one person?
Set staff to one. The per-person and total figures will match, and the hours per week freed shows what that person gets back. Single-person tasks are often the best first automation, because the baseline is easy to measure and the reviewer is the same person who did the work, so accuracy is checked by someone who knows what right looks like.
Does this replace a proper business case?
No. It gives you the benefit side of one task. A business case also needs the cost to build and run the automation, the time to reach full use, and an honest view of the chance it works as planned. The AI Business Case Calculator on this site takes hours freed as an input and adds those. Our fixed-price audit, at $3,000 plus GST, does the same across every workflow in the business with measured rather than estimated inputs.
Want These Hours Checked Against Reality?
Tell us the task, the number of people on it and the share you think AI can take. We will tell you whether the share is realistic, what the review load would look like, and what it would cost to build.