The real cost of hiring vs. automating.

A fully loaded employee costs 1.25–1.40x their base salary. For a $70,000 salary, the true annual cost is typically $87,500–$98,000 when you include employer payroll taxes (7.65%), health insurance ($8,000–$15,000/year), 401(k) matching (3–6%), paid time off (15–20 days), recruiting fees ($5,000–$25,000), onboarding training, and management overhead (20–30% of salary). Source: BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), Q4 2024.

AI deployment costs vary by role but typically run $15,000–$85,000 annually, versus $85,000–$200,000+ for a fully loaded human FTE. Costs include AI platform/API usage ($5,000–$30,000/year), integration and maintenance ($10,000–$30,000/year), human oversight (0.25–0.5 FTE), and initial setup ($5,000–$25,000 amortized over 3 years). Best-suited roles: data entry, customer support tier 1, content generation, research, scheduling. Sources: Anthropic, OpenAI published pricing; Deloitte AI Deployment Cost Benchmark 2025.

Most companies reach break-even between 4–18 months. High-volume, structured roles (support, data entry, content) break even fastest (4–8 months). Knowledge-intensive roles requiring judgment (product, strategy) take 12–18+ months. Break-even accelerates with team size — replacing 5 support reps breaks even ~3x faster than replacing 1. The calculator accounts for implementation costs, ramp time, and productivity delta.

High AI-suitability (70–90% automatable): data entry clerks, customer support tier 1, high-volume content writers, structured research analysts, schedulers.

Hybrid-optimal (30–60% automatable): marketing coordinators, sales development reps, finance analysts, HR generalists, QA engineers.

Low AI-suitability (<20%): strategic leadership, complex B2B enterprise sales, therapists, skilled trades, executive decision-makers.

Source: McKinsey Global Institute, "The future of work in America," 2024 update; WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025.

Yes. Base salaries use U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program data, updated through Q4 2024. The calculator labels BLS-sourced figures clearly. AI cost estimates are based on published pricing from Anthropic and OpenAI plus deployment cost studies from Deloitte and McKinsey. All formulas are shown in the detailed breakdown.