AfieldIn this article
Compare the cost of completing the same work. A subscription fee and an entire salary describe different scopes; neither alone tells you what an assisted workflow will cost.
Demo worksheet: all amounts and times below are illustrative assumptions, not product prices or measured Afield performance.
Put the workload beside the inputs
Monthly scope: account research, four article briefs, eight reviewed social drafts and one campaign report. The example excludes ad spend, customer interviews, design production and sales calls in both columns.
| Input | Manual | Assisted |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring human hours, including review | 24 | 12 |
| Consistent planning cost per hour | $50 | $50 |
| Monthly tools | $100 | $200 |
| New setup for this decision | $0 | 6 hours × $50 = $300 |
Copy the calculation into a spreadsheet
Paste the tab-separated block into cell A1. Replace the input cells in rows 2–5 with your estimates; the remaining rows are formulas.
Measure Manual Assisted
Recurring hours 24 12
Hourly cost 50 50
Monthly tools 100 200
One-time setup cost 0 300
Recurring monthly total =B2*B3+B4 =C2*C3+C4
First-month total =B6+B5 =C6+C5
Three-month total =B6*3+B5 =C6*3+C5
Monthly difference =B6-C6
First-month difference =B7-C7
Assisted break-even hours =(B6-C4)/C3 | Result from these inputs | Manual | Assisted |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring month | $1,300 | $800 |
| First month | $1,300 | $1,100 |
| Three months | $3,900 | $2,700 |
The recurring difference is $500; month one releases only $200 after setup. If you only run the workload quarterly while paying for tools every month, change the time horizon and tool cost before using that result.
The decision turns on review time
| Assisted human hours | Recurring cost | Difference from $1,300 manual |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | $800 | $500 less |
| 18 | $1,100 | $200 less |
| 22 | $1,300 | Break-even |
| 23 | $1,350 | $50 more |
The break-even point is ($1,300 − $200) ÷ $50 = 22 hours. A useful trial must check whether the agreed outputs meet their quality standard within that total time.
Record the work that changes the estimate
Assignment | Input preparation | Production | Source checks
| Corrections | Formatting/handoff | Total human time
| Saved artifact | Quality accepted? | One-off or recurring?Include reformatting, source repairs and another person’s review. Separate a one-time template repair from a correction every record needs. Use the same labor-cost basis on both sides; an employee’s take-home pay is not comparable with a contractor’s billable rate.
Decision for this demo: trial the assisted process on the stated workload; retain it if accepted output consistently requires fewer than 22 human hours and the setup cost is justified by the expected repetitions. This is a conditional budget decision, not a software performance claim.
If payroll stays the same and time moves to customer calls, describe the benefit as released capacity. For a public result, retain the measurement record; for a purchase decision, use the defined-deliverable trial.