The job nobody adds up.
Repetitive work never arrives as a bill, so it never gets counted.
By Harvey Kubath, Agentic Builds · 23 September 2026
THE ONE-MINUTE VERSION
- Pick one repetitive job and time it on a normal day.
- Minutes a day × 5 × 48 ÷ 60 gives you hours a year.
- Multiply by what an hour of that person's time costs. That's what the job costs you.
Every business has jobs that happen the same way every day. Someone retypes orders into the accounts system. Someone copies enquiries into a spreadsheet. Someone chases the quotes that didn't get a reply.
None of it arrives as an invoice. That's why nobody ever adds it up.
The sum
Pick one job. Time it on a normal day, not a busy one and not a quiet one. Then:
minutes a day × 5 days × 48 weeks ÷ 60 = hours a yearhours a year × cost of an hour = what the job costs you
Worked through
Say retyping orders takes 40 minutes a day, and an hour of that person's time costs €20.
40 × 5 × 48 ÷ 60 = 160 hours a year160 × €20 = €3,200 a year
That's one job. Most businesses have several of these running quietly at once.
What the number is for
It isn't a reason to automate everything. It's a way to choose what to automate first: the job with the biggest number that happens the same way every time.
It's also the number to hold any price against, ours included. If a build costs less than a year of the job it replaces, it has paid for itself inside the first year. Ask what it costs to run, too.
The calculator on our home page does the sum for you, with your own numbers.