← Labs
Labs Resources
Free resource
AI ROI Calculator
Enter your costs and expected benefits to see payback period, ROI and scenarios — with OECD/NZ benchmarks to sense-check the numbers.
| Scenario | Annual benefit | First-year cost | ROI | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $24,960 | $7,600 | 228% | 2.8 mo |
| Expected | $41,600 | $7,600 | 447% | 1.6 mo |
| Optimistic | $58,240 | $7,600 | 666% | 1.1 mo |
Annual benefit vs first-year cost
Annual benefitFirst-year cost
Benchmark notes
- OECD studies put early generative-AI productivity gains at roughly 10–30% on suitable knowledge tasks — concentrated in a few workflows, not spread evenly.
- First projects routinely under-budget oversight, not licences: the ongoing human-in-the-loop time is where costs quietly grow.
- NZ and Australian SMEs typically see the fastest payback on document-heavy and customer-response workflows.
- Treat a payback period under 12 months as strong, 12–24 months as worth doing, and beyond that as needing a second look at scope.
Estimates only, for planning conversations — not a forecast. The figures you enter drive the result; sense-check them against the benchmarks above.
Take the next step.
Get carefully considered AI thinking in your inbox, or book a candid strategy call — we'll tell you what we would do first, whether or not we end up working together.
Join the mailing list
Occasional insights, no noise.