The pitch for an AI agent usually compares two numbers: what a person costs per task, and what the agent costs per task. The second is always smaller. But an agent does not work alone. Someone checks a share of what it does, someone fixes what it gets wrong, and someone runs the platform it sits on. Those costs are real, they are paid in people's hours, and they are the part of the case that pilots most often discover late. This calculator puts them in from the start, for one task at a time.
Agent vs. headcount
Pick one kind of task your team does by hand. Enter how long it takes and what an hour costs, then what an AI agent would cost per task and how much checking its work needs. Every figure is a month.
How many times this task is done in a month: tickets, invoices, claims, drafts.
10,000Fully loaded: pay, benefits, management and space, not just the wage.
$45The rest stay with people, as they are done today.
60%Model fees and computing power for each task the agent handles.
$0.3Licenses, integration upkeep and the people who run the agent.
$5,000Monthly saving: $39,775 · All-in cost per agent task: $2.37
Results
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Cost today, all done by people | $90,000 |
| Cost per task today | $9 |
| Tasks the agent handles | 6,000 |
| Tasks that stay with people | 4,000 |
| Cost of checking and redoing the agent's work | $7,425 |
| Cost with the agent | $50,225 |
| Monthly saving | $39,775 |
| All-in cost per agent task | $2.37 |
| Hours of people's time freed a month | 1,035 |
| The same, in full-time people | 6.47 |
Your inputs
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Tasks a month | 10,000 |
| Minutes per task, done by a person | 12 |
| Cost of an hour of a person's time | $45 |
| Share of tasks an agent can finish on its own | 60% |
| Agent's running cost per task | $0.3 |
| Share of agent tasks a person checks | 30% |
| Minutes to check one | 3 |
| Share of agent tasks that need redoing | 5% |
| Minutes to redo one | 15 |
| Fixed cost of the agent platform, a month | $5,000 |
About the method
- Tasks the agent cannot finish stay with people at today's cost per task.
- Oversight is the time people spend checking a share of the agent's work and redoing the tasks it gets wrong, at the same hourly cost.
- The all-in cost per agent task adds the platform's fixed cost, so it falls as volume rises. Compare it with the cost per task today.
- Hours freed are not people let go. Whether they become savings, capacity or new work is the decision this calculator does not make for you.
A thinking aid from Stratrix. The arithmetic is exact; the inputs are your assumptions. The oversight and error inputs matter most and are the easiest to set too low: use what a pilot measured, not what a vendor promised. Nothing here is a forecast or advice about staffing decisions.
Get the full report: PDF report, Word (editable), Excel
How to read the result
- Monthly saving
- Today's cost of the task done entirely by people, minus the cost with the agent: the tasks people still do, the agent's running cost, the checking and redoing, and the platform.
- All-in cost per agent task
- Everything the agent costs, spread over the tasks it handles. If it is close to today's cost per task, the case rests on volume growing, not on the agent being cheap.
- Hours freed
- The people's time the agent gives back, after the time spent checking it. What happens to those hours is a separate decision, and the one that decides whether the saving is real.
Questions
- How do you compare the cost of an AI agent with an employee?
- Per task, not per head. Work out what one task costs done by a person, then what it costs with an agent once you add its running cost, the time people spend checking and fixing its work, and the fixed cost of the platform.
- What costs do AI agent business cases leave out?
- Most often the oversight: the share of tasks a person checks, the share the agent gets wrong and someone redoes, and the people who run the platform. A small error rate on a large volume of tasks can cost more hours than it saves.
- Does an AI agent replace a full-time employee?
- Rarely one for one. An agent takes on a share of tasks and adds checking work for people. The calculator shows the hours freed after that checking, in full-time people at 160 hours a month.
More from Stratrix
“Where does the money actually come from, and who sets the rate it comes in at?”
See the pack — $499 →The Business Model Wizard
Make the seven choices that define your model, test your numbers against real companies, and meet the rival AI would build against you.
Free · about twelve minutesBuild your Model Thesis →Test a decision, free
Set a live decision against the companies that made it before you.
AcquisitionsThe Distance TestDivestituresThe Divestiture TestDiversificationThe Diversification TestMake or buyThe Make-or-Buy TestAll Access
Every Casebook, three Strategy Packs a seat each year and the Analyst, for teams that face these decisions all year.
$1,999 a year · $499 a seatWhat is included →New analyses, by email
The defining moves in business, checked against the record, as they publish.