Field note
How to think about ROI on automation
Hours, capacity, and risk — not a vanity demo metric.
Wrong frame
Don’t price the bot. Price the leak.
ROI theater starts with tool cost. Operator ROI starts with what the week already wastes.
A demo that “saves time” without a baseline is fiction. Name the process, the frequency, the hours, and who does the work. Then stack the cost of doing nothing against a fixed-price build line. Only then does a model or a vendor invoice make sense.
We don’t sell hours. We price clarity and builds against the cost of the problem, the cost of inaction, and the value of the change — three anchors, not a vague monthly hope.
Three anchors
What operators actually buy.
Scan these three. If none move, automation is entertainment.
Time the week loses to re-entry, chase, and handoffs — valued against the people who do that work today.
Throughput or revenue path unlocked when the admin tail stops eating the day.
What breaks when the one person who knows the process is out — and what that exception costs.
Put a number on it this week.
Thirty minutes on the path already costing you capacity, margin, owner time, or cash — and you leave knowing which one it is.