Calculate the real return on investing in custom software — based on your team's time savings, headcount, and fully-loaded staff cost.
This free ROI calculator helps Australian businesses quantify the return on a custom software investment. Enter your project cost, how many hours per week the software saves, and your team's loaded hourly rate — and get an instant payback period, annual savings figure, and 3-year ROI estimate.
Most business software ROI comes from one place — giving time back to your team. Here's how that compounds.
An Australian knowledge worker costs $60–$120/hr all-in. If your team spends 5 hours/week on tasks that software could handle, that's $15,000–$30,000 per person per year in recovered capacity.
Unlike a consultant fee or a project cost, time savings from good software compound every week indefinitely. The calculator models 3 years, but the real payback extends far beyond that.
The calculator only accounts for staff time. It doesn't include error reduction, faster revenue cycles, or the opportunity cost of your team spending time on high-value work instead.
Based on Bocati project data and client-reported outcomes across Australian SMBs.
| Software type | Typical investment | Time saved/team/wk | Typical payback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom CRM | $18k–$35k | 5–10 hrs | 4–8 months |
| Internal Tool / Dashboard | $10k–$25k | 3–8 hrs | 2–5 months |
| Business Automation | $8k–$20k | 5–15 hrs | 1–4 months |
| SaaS Platform | $25k–$55k | 10–20 hrs | 6–14 months |
All figures AUD. Assumes 5 staff, $80/hr loaded rate. Actual outcomes vary by scope and team size.
Hours saved per week × number of staff × hourly rate × 52 weeks. This gives you the annual value of the time your team gets back. It does not include error reduction, faster revenue cycles, or other downstream benefits.
Investment ÷ monthly savings. The number of months before the software has paid for itself from staff time savings alone. Most Bocati projects achieve payback within 3–8 months.
(Annual savings × 3 − investment) ÷ investment × 100. This is the net return on your investment over 3 years, expressed as a percentage. It assumes savings are stable — in practice, ROI often improves as usage scales.
Explore our core services — each page covers scope, timeline, and pricing in detail.
Replace outdated, fragile software with a modern cloud platform. From legacy desktop apps to old web systems, fixed price, delivered in weeks, zero data loss.
Custom CRMs built around how your team actually sells, not how off-the-shelf software thinks you should.
From idea to production-ready SaaS in weeks, not months. Proper architecture, auth, and billing from day one.
Automate the manual work slowing your team down, integrations, workflows, and live reporting.
Dashboards, admin panels, and internal apps your team will actually use, built to fit your exact workflow.
Branded self-service portals where clients access documents, track project status, submit requests, and view invoices, without emailing your team.
Tell us what you're building. We'll tell you how fast we can deliver it, and what it'll cost.