When a process starts taking too many hours, a mid-sized company has six options: keep doing it by hand, hire another person, give it to a freelancer or an agency, build a tool in-house, automate it with someone who has done it at other companies, or do nothing. The right choice comes from four numbers that almost nobody measures before deciding: how many hours the process takes today, what each of those hours costs, how many errors slip through, and what happens when the volume doubles.
This article compares the six options against those four numbers, and shows how to run the calculation before opening a vacancy or asking for a proposal.
The comparison the client actually makes
When a company thinks about automating a process, it rarely compares one consultancy with another. It compares with what it would do if it did not call us. In most of our conversations, the real alternative is one of two: leave everything as it is, because “it only takes five minutes”, or hire another person.
Both look cheap because the cost is hidden. The five minutes repeat dozens of times a day, spread across several people. A new hire brings a salary, but also months before the person works at the team’s pace, and a dependence on someone who will one day leave.
The six options, side by side
| Option | When it makes sense | Where the hidden cost sits |
|---|---|---|
| Keep doing it by hand | Low volume, a process that changes often | Hours spread across several people, errors that surface weeks later |
| Hire another person | The work needs judgment every day | Months before the person is up to speed, the process depends on them |
| Freelancer or agency | Peaks of work, well-defined tasks | Handing over context at every change of person, uneven quality |
| Tool built in-house | There is a technical team with time | Maintenance nobody planned, knowledge held by one person |
| Automate with someone who has done it | Repetitive process, with rules and volume | The diagnosis and build at the start, maintenance afterwards |
| Do nothing | The process is about to disappear | The cost of every month in which nobody looks at it |
No single option is right for every process. A task that needs judgment every day is better with a person. A task that repeats the same way hundreds of times a month is better with a system.
The phrases that give away an expensive process
Before any calculation, there are signs in conversations with the team. “It only takes five minutes.” “We have a spreadsheet for that.” “Joana handles that.” Each describes a different cost.
The first hides the volume: five minutes times the number of times a day, times the number of people. The second hides the risk: a spreadsheet shared by several people is where rows go missing, records get duplicated and wrong values get copied. The third hides the dependence: when Joana is on holiday, the process stops.
How to run the calculation
The calculation has four parts, and each is measured on the process as it runs today, not as it is described in the manual.
- The hours. Who does the process, how many times a week, and how long it takes each time. Include the time of whoever reviews and whoever corrects.
- The cost of each hour. Salary, employer costs and the share of overheads each person takes up. This is the fully loaded hourly cost, and it is usually well above salary divided by hours.
- The errors. How many slip through each month, and what each one costs: an invoice paid twice, a tax ID with two digits swapped that accounting rejects weeks later, a contract that renews because nobody saw the notice period.
- The volume a year from now. If the business grows, the process grows with it. One more person solves today’s volume. If the volume doubles, you need another.
With these four numbers, each option gets a comparable annual cost. At an accounting firm we worked with, invoice collection took 30 hours a month. After the system, it took under 2 (see the case). The difference, multiplied by the fully loaded hourly cost and by twelve months, is the most it made sense to pay for the automation in the first year.
When hiring is still the best answer
There are processes where a person is the right choice, and it is worth saying so. If the work changes every week, if each case needs a different decision, or if the volume is so low that a system would never pay for itself, hiring or keeping it manual costs less. The same applies to work where the relationship with the customer is what is being sold.
Often the answer is a mix: the system does the rule-based work and the person you were going to hire takes the exceptions and the decisions. It is the same person, with a smaller and more interesting job. The choice between keeping the system in-house and handing it to someone who runs it is covered in buy an AI tool, or hand the process to someone who runs it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know whether automating beats hiring?
By comparing the annual cost of both options with the same four numbers: the hours the process takes today, the fully loaded hourly cost, the cost of errors and the expected volume a year from now. If the process is repetitive, has clear rules and a stable or growing volume, automating usually costs less.
What is the fully loaded hourly cost?
The real cost of one hour of a person’s work, including salary, employer costs and the share of overheads (space, equipment, management) they take up. It is the right number to compare with the price of a system or a supplier.
Is outsourcing to an agency different from automating?
Yes. An agency puts people on the work and charges by the hour or by the piece, so the cost grows with the volume. A system does the rule-based work and leaves people for the exceptions, so the cost per unit falls as the volume rises.
What if the process changes after it is automated?
That is why the business rules are written down and belong to the client, who can change a threshold without calling a developer. Maintaining the system is part of the cost, and it should be in the calculation from the start.
To see how the price of an automated, managed process is put together, see what a managed process costs.
Thinking of opening a vacancy for repetitive work?
Run the numbers first. Book a call and we will measure the hours and euros of the process with you before you decide.
