Work out ai project roi instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
ROI is net benefit divided by total cost, where total cost is the one-off build plus running cost across the horizon. Payback is the build cost divided by the monthly net contribution, which is the number executives usually care about most. AI projects fail this test when the running cost — inference, monitoring, retraining and the team — is understated relative to a large upfront build.
ROI and payback
total cost = build + run x years; net = benefit x years - total cost; ROI = net / total cost; payback months = build / ((annual benefit - annual run) / 12)
For horizons beyond a couple of years, yes. Use net present value with your organisation's discount rate; simple ROI overstates value that arrives late.
Ongoing data labelling, monitoring and incident response, and the engineering time to keep the pipeline working. These frequently exceed the compute bill.