Cost to Automate: What it costs to automate a business process, by hand and with AI agents

What a business process costs today vs with AI agents, by industry and function. Wages are sourced, assumptions are labelled, and everything is also available as JSON.

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Wave 1 · 11 processes · 3 industries · 4 functions · Sources retrieved 2026-10-16

Industry: Logistics & freight
Function: Finance
Process: AP invoice processing
Labour cost (sourced: BLS median hourly wage): $23.54/h
Volume (estimate: tasks a month × minutes each): 800 × 6 min
Result (manual → agent, per month): manual $1,883 per month, agent $513 per month

See the full working for this example →

Industry × function matrix

Monthly scenario cost, manual then agent, by function (rows) and industry (columns)
Function ↓ Industry →manual → agent , USD/month; manual multiplies a sourced wage by estimated volumes and times, agent cost is estimated	Logistics & freight	Manufacturing	Healthcare administration
Finance	AP invoice processing, agent vs manual −73%, manual $1,883, agent $513	AP invoice processing, agent vs manual −71%, manual $2,514, agent $733	AP invoice processing, agent vs manual −73%, manual $948, agent $257 Claims and patient billing preparation, agent vs manual −68%, manual $4,334, agent $1,401
Customer service	Support ticket triage, agent vs manual −55%, manual $3,500, agent $1,563	Support ticket triage, agent vs manual −68%, manual $1,345, agent $434	Patient inquiry triage, agent vs manual −43%, manual $2,442, agent $1,404
HR & recruiting	CV screening, agent vs manual −67%, manual $2,062, agent $688	CV screening, agent vs manual −76%, manual $1,802, agent $433	CV screening, agent vs manual −69%, manual $1,302, agent $397
Operations / value chain	Carrier invoice & shipping document audit, agent vs manual −78%, manual $4,604, agent $993	Not covered yet	Not covered yet

Open the general calculator → · Wave 1: 11 processes. More industries and functions are coming.

How each estimate is built

The same method on every page, with every input shown and editable.

Manual cost

Tasks per month × minutes per task × the BLS OEWS May 2025 median hourly wage for the occupation in that industry. Wages only.

tasks × min ÷ 60 × wage (sourced)

Agent cost

Model cost per task from Zapier AutomationBench, plus browser, sandbox and email infrastructure, plus human review of a share of tasks.

tasks × (model + infra) + review share × review min ÷ 60 × wage

Labelled confidence

Wages are sourced. Volumes, minutes and review rates are editorial estimates, and every page marks them as such.

(sourced) sourced · (estimate) estimate