AI support ROI calculator
Will an AI support bot actually pay off for you? Enter your own volume and costs and see three scenarios, with the bot's fees, upkeep, ramp-up and handoffs counted, and a ready-made platform next to a custom bot. Free, no sign-up, and sometimes the answer is no.
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Free calculator by ISTRALLEN. Your numbers stay in your browser unless you share a link or send us a message.
Why most AI support ROI numbers look too good
Almost every calculator of this kind is published by a company selling bots. The ones we reviewed assume 45 to 90% of conversations closed, usually leave out setup and upkeep, and count every closed conversation as money saved. One shows payback in days.
Three things get lost that way. The rate itself: vendors report far more than self-service usually achieves. The running costs: someone has to keep the knowledge base current and pick up what the bot could not close. And the step from hours to money: a freed hour saves nothing unless you cut paid hours or avoid a hire.
How the calculation works
- Today. Conversations × agent time × the cost of an agent hour. Breaks and idle time are not added, so this errs on the low side.
- Three scenarios. The rate you enter, plus one a third lower and one a third higher, because nobody knows their real rate before a pilot.
- Month by month. Nothing before launch, then the bot grows from zero to its full rate. Agent time saved on closed conversations, minus extra time on handoffs and knowledge-base work; of what is left, only the share you really save counts as money.
- Bot costs. A platform charges per closed conversation. A custom bot pays for the AI model on every conversation it tries, plus developer upkeep, but no fee per closed conversation.
- The custom bot limit. We do not guess what a build costs you. The calculator shows the most a custom bot is worth next to a platform; enter a quote and you also get payback and the volume where it starts to win.
Where the default numbers come from
- US agent wage, $21.53 an hour: median for customer service representatives, May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook).
- US employer costs, 35%: in private-industry office and administrative support jobs, benefits are $11.51 an hour on top of $25.22 in wages (BLS ECEC, June 2026). Leaving out paid leave ($2.77), which is already in the wage, gives 35%.
- Germany agent wage, €18.35 an hour: €3,180 a month, the median shown for customer advisers (Kundenberater) by brutto-netto-gehaltsrechner.de, which calculates it from the Federal Employment Agency's pay data. A secondary source, divided by 2,080 hours a year.
- Germany employer costs, 21%: the employer's share of statutory pension, unemployment, health and long-term care insurance in 2026.
- Agent time, 10 minutes per conversation: our assumption. As published benchmarks, a benchmark roundup quotes SQM Group at about 11.6 minutes for a call and LiveChat at about 8.4 for a chat. We found no solid number for email. Use your own.
- Bot closes 30, 45 or 60%: our scenarios, not a measurement. Intercom says its Fin bot averages 76%, but that is the vendor's own number, and it counts a conversation as resolved when no further help is requested after the bot's last answer, which also covers a customer who gave up. Small independent tests we saw on blogs came in around 40 to 50%, which is too thin to cite as fact. On the low end, Gartner found only 14% of issues fully resolved in self-service of any kind in a survey of 5,728 customers, from December 2023.
- Price per closed conversation, 1: Intercom Fin lists $0.99 per outcome; Salesforce Agentforce lists pay-per-conversation pricing. Vendor prices change, so check yours.
- Knowledge-base upkeep, 16 hours a month: at the low end of one vendor's advice of 3 to 5 hours a week. We found no measured data.
- Custom bot size, 285–435 hours: from our own estimate calculator: a chatbot with history and limits plus production document search. Integrations with your systems come on top.
- Our assumptions, no source: 2,000 conversations a month and a 24-month period as a starting example, 1 month to launch a platform and 3 a custom bot, 3 months to full rate, 40 hours to set up the knowledge base, 1 extra minute per handoff, 0.10 of AI model cost per conversation (about 25,000 tokens on a mid-range model), 10 developer hours a month of upkeep at 85 an hour, the middle of our rate ($60–110), and no platform subscription. Bot prices and the developer rate are not converted between currencies. Change any of them.
What the calculator cannot put a number on
Bad answers cost more than handoff time. We leave lost customers out of the math because we found no reliable number for them, but the risk is real. In a Gartner survey, 64% of customers said they would prefer companies not to use AI in customer service, and 53% would consider switching. That is what people say, not what they do, but it is worth a test before a full rollout.
Klarna is the well-known example. In 2024 it announced that its assistant handled two-thirds of its service chats, the work of 700 agents. In 2025 its CEO said that focusing on cost had lowered quality, and the company began piloting a new group of human agents. Gartner also predicts that over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027. A prediction, not a measurement, but a reason to start small and measure your real rate.
FAQ
How much of customer support can AI really automate?
Nobody can tell you before a pilot, because it depends on your questions, your documentation and how a bot's success is counted. Intercom reports a 76% average for its Fin bot, counting a conversation as resolved when no further help is requested after the last answer. Gartner found only 14% of issues fully resolved in self-service of any kind in a December 2023 survey. The calculator shows 30, 45 and 60% by default so you can see what happens if your rate turns out lower than you hope.
Is a chatbot worth it for a small support team?
Often not yet. Below a few hundred conversations a month, upkeep and fees can take most of what the bot saves. On the default numbers, 300 conversations a month pays off only in the optimistic scenario and 100 does not pay off at all. Your numbers may differ, so enter them.
Should we use a ready-made platform or build a custom bot?
On cost alone, a platform usually wins at low volume: there is no build, and you pay per closed conversation. A custom bot has a build cost and upkeep but no such fee, so it starts to win as volume grows. On the default numbers its advantage over a platform only appears at around 4,500 conversations a month over 24 months, even before the build is paid for. The other reasons to build are not about cost: the bot has to act through your own systems in ways a platform cannot, or your data cannot leave your infrastructure.
Why doesn't the calculator say how much a custom bot costs?
We found no reliable public data on it, and a number we made up would decide the result. So the calculator turns the question around: it shows the most a custom bot is worth next to a platform. If you have a quote, enter it and you get payback and the volume where a custom bot starts to win. For scale, our estimate calculator gives the hours, without a price tag.
Will an AI bot let me cut support staff?
Only if you decide to, and it is not guaranteed to work out. Freed hours become money only when you cut paid hours or avoid a hire; otherwise you get spare capacity, which may still be valuable but is not a saving. Lower the "Freed time you actually save" field to see the difference. Klarna is a known example of a company that started piloting new human agents after focusing on cost lowered quality.
What does the calculator leave out?
Lost customers from bad answers, happier customers from instant replies, sales, and agent turnover. We found no reliable numbers for these, so they stay out of the math in both directions. Treat the result as a reason to run a pilot, not a forecast.
You build custom bots. Is this biased?
Judge for yourself: every default has a source or is marked as our assumption on this page, and you can change all of them. On the default numbers the calculator recommends a platform over a custom bot, and at low volume it tells you not to bother at all. The hours for a custom bot come from our own estimate calculator, and we use the middle of our own rate for upkeep.
Is my data stored anywhere?
No. The calculator runs in your browser and keeps your numbers in its local storage. The only exceptions are a share link you create, which contains the numbers, and the optional message you send us.
When a platform is not enough
This tool is made by ISTRALLEN. We build AI into the systems you already run: support agents that work through your own order, billing and account APIs, and search over your own documents. If a ready-made platform can do the job for less, we will tell you so.