Automation planning
Check the effort before automating.
A transparent planning model for one repeatable scope. Enter your own costs and cadence; the sample values are illustrative and use your chosen currency.
Example assumptions; replace them with your own measurements.
- 192 hours / 9,600
- 88 hours / 4,520
- 5,080
- 1.69 months
Calculated locally in your browser. No values are submitted or saved by this tool.
Automation effort and cost calculator
Compare the same work
Both options must cover the same behaviour, clients and data. A ten-minute smoke check cannot fairly be compared with a four-hour exploratory session. Manual exploration and automated regression answer different questions; estimate the repeatable portion here and retain a separate plan for human investigation.
Keep operating costs visible
Setup includes fixtures, assertions, pipeline wiring and review. Each automated run still needs somebody to investigate results, and maintenance grows when the product changes. The calculation adds those recurring hours and tool costs instead of assuming automated execution is free. It excludes discounts, tax, financing, hiring and opportunity cost.
Use the result as an assumption record
The estimated crossover divides initial setup cost by the recurring monthly saving. It is absent when recurring costs consume the saving. A fractional month is a model output, not a delivery promise. Download the worksheet, name an owner and revise the assumptions after a small pilot provides measured execution and maintenance effort.
Money is only one decision input
A positive estimate cannot prove that automation is appropriate. Consider failure impact, observability, test data, product stability and the value of a faster signal. Conversely, a negative estimate may still justify a narrow security or recovery gate. Use the automation decision worksheet to record these reasons alongside the numbers.