Is it worth it?
Put a number on the work you keep chasing.
Use your own hours, team costs and dropped work to estimate the cost of one bottleneck. Check whether a fix is worth pursuing before you spend.
If it doesn't, the calculator tells you that too.
Your numbers
About $123,360 a year. You'd keep about $2,570 a month. Your estimate covers Direct Advisory.
Example numbers. Change them to yours.
- What you're looking for
- Not sure yet
- Your hours a week on work the team should handle
- 8 hours
- What an hour of your time is worth
- $150
- People who touch this workflow
- 4
- Hours a week each of them loses
- 3 hours
- Full hourly cost per person
- $40
- Jobs, leads, or requests that slip through each month
- 2
- Average value of each
- $1,500
- How much of this cost a fix could win back
- 25%
This workflow is costing you about $123,360 a year.
That's $10,280 a month, until you fix it.
- Owner time
- $62,400 a year
- Team time
- $24,960 a year
- Dropped work
- $36,000 a year
If fixing it won back 25%, you'd keep about $2,570 a month.
| Offer | Price | Pays back? |
|---|---|---|
| First stepAI Operations Diagnostic$1,000 once | $1,000 once | Yes. Pays back in about 12 days. |
| AI partnershipDirect Advisory$2,500/month | $2,500/month | Yes. Returns $1.03 for every $1, so you're $70 a month ahead. |
| AI partnershipStrategic Partner$4,500/month | $4,500/month | No. Returns $0.57 for every $1, so you're $1,930 a month short. |
| AI partnershipFractional Product Lead$7,500/month | $7,500/month | No. Returns $0.34 for every $1, so you're $4,930 a month short. |
Your estimate covers Direct Advisory
What you'd win back covers the $2,500/month Direct Advisory tier. Every Partnership Tier starts with the $1,000 Diagnostic, which measures your real baseline before choosing a month-to-month partnership.
See the DiagnosticWhere to start
Most of this is your own time. Start by getting decisions and drafts off your desk.
Estimates from example numbers. Not a quote, and not a promise.
How the math works
No black box.
- Owner time
- Your hours a week on work the team should handle, times what an hour of your time is worth, times 52 weeks.
- Team time
- People who touch the workflow, times the hours each loses a week, times their loaded hourly cost, times 52 weeks.
- Dropped work
- Jobs, leads, or requests that slip each month, times the average value of each, times 12 months.
Add the three for the yearly cost. Divide by 12, then multiply by the share you expect to win back. That's what you'd keep each month.
A Partnership Tier pays for itself when that covers its monthly price.
The $1,000 Diagnostic's payback is how many days of that monthly amount it takes to add up to $1,000. If that takes longer than a month, we don't call it paid back.
Want the real number instead of an estimate?
The free Snapshot maps one workflow in 15 minutes. The Diagnostic measures it for real in 1 week.