Price one AI workflow in pounds, with the arithmetic shown
- The starting figures are the invented example from our published how-to. Replace each one with your own.
- Hours released are not counted as money. Only a cost line that falls is priced in pounds.
- The sheet appears on this page straight away, with a copy by email to forward to finance.
Free · about four minutes · result on this page and by email
An outcome sheet a finance director can re-run
The sheet keeps three figures apart, because only one of them is money.
- 01
Handling effort released
The hours the workflow removes and what they cost at your loaded hourly rate. The how-to calls it the honest measure of the work removed, and it is not the price of the outcome. - 02
Money that leaves a cost line
The cover that will not be renewed, priced at its own hourly cost. This is the priced outcome, annualised, with the in-quarter share beside it. - 03
Recovered capacity
The people who stay on the payroll, counted in full-time equivalents and booked at zero, with a prompt to name the work they move onto. - 04
Net of run cost, base and low
The money less twelve months of your five run-cost lines, then your realisation ratio as its own line, with the low case beside the base. - 05
Months to recover the fixed fee
Counted after the 13 weeks the 90-day programme takes to put the workflow into use, as a base case and a low case, for the fee you choose. - 06
The outcome record
The parts no calculator can fill in: one named owner, the validation query and its source, the condition for calling the outcome not realised, and the work the recovered capacity moves onto.
If one of the three figures is not what your finance team expected, bring the sheet to a 30-minute call with James Rooney and ask for it to be stress-tested.
Talk it throughHow the calculator reaches its figures
There is no hidden formula. It runs the arithmetic printed in our how-to on defining and pricing a business outcome, and it prints each step so you can check it.
Hours measure the work
Volume multiplied by handling time gives the hours, and the hours at your loaded hourly cost give the handling effort released. The how-to calls that figure the honest measure of the work removed, and it is not the price of the outcome. The calculator shows it and never adds it to the money.
Only a cost line that falls is money
The money is the cover that will not be renewed: full-time equivalents, multiplied by productive hours, multiplied by that cover's own loaded hourly cost. The calculator counts no more cover than the work removed can account for. The rest of the work removed is recovered capacity, booked at zero.
Run cost is five lines, all yours
Model inference, the platform, storage and search, evaluation and monitoring, and human review time. Volumes, model choices and the amount of human review determine the total, so the lines start at zero for you to fill, and the sheet says so if you leave them there.
The low case flexes two assumptions by a third
The how-to says to flex the two assumptions you are least sure of by a third each, and its example flexes the share handled end to end and the cover released. The calculator takes a third off each and states the lower share to one significant figure, which turns the example's 55% into the 40% it publishes.
Your realisation ratio is a visible line
Value realised divided by value planned across your last four closed quarters, entered by you. It starts at 100%, which the method calls uncalibrated when there is no history behind it. It is applied to the net after run cost and shown as its own line.
The fee is the published fee
You choose the 90-day outcome programme at £120,000 or £180,000, fixed. The months to recover start after the 13 weeks it takes to put the workflow into use. The calculator never rebuilds a fee from day rates, and it works out no payback for a proof of concept, which is bought to remove uncertainty rather than to pay back.
If your finance team works the arithmetic differently, say so on a 30-minute call with James Rooney and leave with a rough scope and a useful next step.
Talk it throughThe worked example the calculator starts from
This is the cost-base example from our how-to on defining and pricing a business outcome, in full. The insurer is invented and so is every number. The calculator's starting figures are this example's, so with nothing changed it reproduces it line for line.
Worked example: pricing a claims document outcome at an invented insurer
Marlow Mutual is a made-up UK general insurer. Every number below is invented, and the point is the shape of the arithmetic rather than the figures. A checkout conversion rate does not transfer to an insurer, so this is the same method run on an operational cost base rather than a revenue line, and it works the harder half out loud: how much of a saving is actually money.
Result: fewer claims documents need a human to read, key and file them before the claim can move.
Baseline: 260,000 claims documents handled in the twelve months to 30 June, counted from the claims workflow system, excluding duplicates and internal re-scans. Average handling time of 11.0 minutes per document, taken from the same system's start and finish timestamps and reconciled against a two-week sample the claims operations manager sat through herself. The loaded hourly cost is £34, supplied by finance and covering salary, on-costs and a share of supervision. It reconciles: 260,000 at 11 minutes is 47,700 hours a year, which at £34 is £1.62m, and that sits inside the claims operating cost line rather than beside it.
Target movement: 55% of documents handled end to end with no human keying, with the remaining 45% unchanged.
Arithmetic: 260,000 multiplied by 0.55 is 143,000 documents. At 11 minutes each that is 26,200 hours a year, and at £34 an hour it is £891k of handling effort released. That figure is the honest measure of the work removed, and it is not the price of the outcome.
Recovered capacity, not money: 26,200 hours is 15.4 full-time equivalents at 1,700 productive hours each. Nothing has left the business until a cost line actually falls, so the outcome splits the number in two. The claims operation currently buys 6 FTE of agency cover to hold the backlog at £38 an hour loaded, which is 6 multiplied by 1,700 multiplied by £38, or £388k a year, and that cover is not renewed once the straight-through rate holds. That £388k is money. The remaining 9.4 FTE are permanent handlers who stay on the payroll, so it is recovered capacity, it is recorded as 9.4 FTE with the work it is being redeployed onto named, and it is booked in the outcome at zero. The outcome is priced at £388k annualised. The in-quarter share is stated separately: live in week five of a thirteen-week quarter, so eight weeks of benefit, £388k divided by 52 multiplied by 8 is £60k.
Sensitivity: if straight-through lands at 40% rather than 55%, and only 4 FTE of agency cover can be released, the money falls to 4 multiplied by 1,700 multiplied by £38, or £258k. Still worth the quarter, so the target stands, and both figures go in front of the owner.
Owner: the claims director, named, who confirms she will carry the £388k as a reduction in the agency cover line in next year's plan, and who states plainly that she will not carry the 9.4 FTE as a saving.
Validation: the agency cover spend on the purchase ledger, monthly, against the same twelve-month pre-change period, alongside straight-through rate by document type from the claims workflow system. The ledger is the primary source, because that is where money leaving the business shows up; the workflow dashboard is the explanation, not the evidence. Anything under a 5 percentage point move in straight-through rate is noise. Three months of post-live data before anyone calls it.
Not realised if: the agency cover line has not fallen by at least £250k annualised six months after the last epic ships, whatever the straight-through rate says.
Epics, all in Q4: document classification and routing £180k, structured extraction with confidence-routed human review £150k, straight-through handling for the two simplest document types £120k. All three move the same document population, so they are priced in landing order and each carries only what it adds on top of the one before. The shares total £450k against a £388k target. The last four quarters realised 70% of planned value, so the headroom rule wants £554k behind this target. That is £104k short, and it is visible in planning: either a fourth epic goes in, or the owner is told today that the honest target is £315k.
The how-to pages are free to read without a sign-up. The calculator is a separate tool that asks for a work email and runs the same arithmetic on your numbers.
- Read the full how-to
- How to measure the value a project delivered
- The business case for an agentic programme
Bring your own workflow to a 30-minute call with James Rooney and set it beside this example.
Talk it throughBring the sheet, or bring the question.
Thirty minutes with James Rooney. If you have run the calculator, your figures arrive with the booking and the call starts from them. If you have not, describe the workflow and leave with a rough scope and a useful next step.
Free · 30 minutes · James confirms call requests personally.
No time that suits? Email hello@tenhaw.com. Calendar not loading? Open it on cal.com.
Describe the work
Describe the work in a paragraph. James replies with a rough scope and budget range within two working days.
Questions about the ROI calculator
How does the AI ROI calculator work out its figures?
It runs the arithmetic from the cost-base worked example in our how-to on defining and pricing a business outcome, on your own figures. Volume multiplied by handling time gives the hours a year, and the hours at your loaded hourly cost give the handling effort released. The cover that will not be renewed, multiplied by productive hours and its own hourly cost, gives the money. The rest of the work removed is recovered capacity.
Each step is printed on the sheet, so a finance team can re-run it by hand.
Why does the AI ROI calculator not give a single savings figure?
Because only one of its three figures is money. Handling effort released measures the work removed, and the how-to says it is not the price of the outcome. Money that leaves a cost line is the cover that will not be renewed. Recovered capacity is the people who stay on the payroll, counted in full-time equivalents and booked at zero.
Adding the three together would count the same hours twice. The how-to's rule is that a saving is only currency if the cost leaves the business.
What counts as cover that will not be renewed in the ROI calculator?
Spending that stops once the workflow holds. In the published example it is agency cover: 6 full-time equivalents at £38 an hour loaded, which is not renewed once the straight-through rate holds. People who stay on the payroll are recovered capacity instead.
The business case guide's test is that cost avoided is money when a headcount, a contract or a licence actually changes, and not before. The calculator counts no more cover than the work removed can account for.
Why do the run-cost lines in the ROI calculator start at zero?
Because volumes, model choices and the amount of human review determine the total, so any starting figure would describe somebody else's workload. The five lines are model inference, the platform, storage and search, evaluation and monitoring, and human review time.
If you leave them at zero, the sheet says its net figure and months to recover are before running costs. The AI Readiness Audit estimates run cost per candidate workflow using prototypes built against your data.
How does the ROI calculator work out the months to recover the fee?
It divides the fixed fee by the monthly net: the money less your run cost, multiplied by your realisation ratio. The count starts once the workflow is in use, after the 13 weeks the 90-day outcome programme takes.
You choose the £120,000 or £180,000 fee, both published fixed prices. If the money does not cover the run cost, the sheet says the fee is not recovered on those figures. There is no payback for a proof of concept, which is bought to remove uncertainty rather than to pay back.
Why does the ROI calculator start with an insurer's figures?
Because they are the figures in a worked example we have already published, so you can check the calculator against the how-to line by line. The insurer, Marlow Mutual, is invented, and so is every number, from its 260,000 claims documents a year to its £34 loaded hourly cost.
None of them is a benchmark for your business. The sheet names any you have not yet replaced.
What does the low case in the ROI calculator change?
It takes a third off the share handled end to end and a third off the cover released, the two assumptions the published example flexes. The lower share is stated to one significant figure, so the example's 55% becomes 40% and its 6 FTE becomes 4, which gives the £258k the how-to publishes.
The low case sits beside the base for the money, the net after run cost and after the realisation ratio, the recovered capacity and the months to recover the fee.