IQAAN Tools — Calculator
Project ROI Calculator
Will the project pay for itself? Investment vs hours saved, revenue, and avoided costs — payback period, 3-year ROI, and a 36-month break-even chart.
The investment
Loaded rate = salary × burden — what an hour truly costs, not the wage
Payback period
13 mo
Break-even at month 13 of 36
Net benefit / year
$56,400
Benefit $5,200/mo − ongoing $500/mo
3-year ROI
+182%
Net gain vs investment over 36 months
Cumulative return — 36 months
Bars below the dashed line are months still paying off the investment; viridian bars are months of positive return. No discounting applied — at this horizon the decision is go or no-go, not treasury precision.
About this tool
Will the project pay for itself? Investment vs hours saved, revenue, and avoided costs — payback period, 3-year ROI, and a 36-month break-even chart.
Every internal tool, automation, or custom build lives or dies by one question: when does it pay for itself? This calculator takes the one-time investment, ongoing yearly costs, and the three benefit streams projects actually produce — staff hours saved at a loaded hourly rate, new revenue, and costs avoided — and computes the honest arithmetic.
The outputs are the three numbers a decision-maker needs: net benefit per year, payback period in months (the headline), and 3-year ROI, color-coded so a value-destroying project cannot hide. The 36-month strip draws cumulative position month by month — bars below the dashed line still pay off the investment, viridian bars are months of real return.
The model is deliberately undiscounted and transparent: at this horizon the decision is go or no-go, not treasury precision. All math runs in your browser; your business case never leaves your machine.
Frequently asked questions
How is payback period calculated?
Payback = one-time investment ÷ monthly net benefit, where net benefit is hours saved × loaded rate + new revenue + costs avoided − ongoing monthly costs. A $60,000 investment returning $5,000 a month pays back in exactly 12 months.
What is a loaded hourly rate?
The fully burdened cost of an hour: salary plus benefits, taxes, equipment, and overhead — typically 1.5–2× the wage. Using the wage instead of the loaded rate quietly halves your savings, which is how business cases die in year two.
What ROI should a project clear?
A positive 3-year ROI is the floor, not the bar — most organizations want internal projects to clear roughly 2–3× over three years to justify the distraction. Anything paying back beyond 36 months on this chart deserves a harder look.
Why no discount rate or NPV?
At a 3-year horizon with typical software projects, discounting moves the answer by single-digit percents while burying the intuition. This tool optimizes for the go/no-go decision; your finance team can NPV the survivors.
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From the studio
This is an estimate — IQAAN delivers a firm, itemized quote within 48 hours.
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