Chatbot ROI: How to Work Out If a Website Chatbot Pays for Itself

A website chatbot earns its cost in two ways: it saves time on questions you would otherwise answer by hand, and it captures inquiries you would otherwise lose. You can estimate both with numbers you already have.

Part 1: time saved

1. Count the routine questions you get per month by email, phone and social messages.
2. Estimate the share a bot could answer from your content. Be conservative; half is a reasonable starting guess.
3. Multiply by the minutes each takes, then by what an hour of that person's time costs.

Part 2: extra leads

1. Take your monthly website visitors.
2. Estimate the share who would open a chat. A small percentage is normal.
3. Estimate how many of those leave their details, then how many become customers.
4. Multiply by your average profit per customer.

A worked example

Say you get 200 routine questions a month, a bot answers half, each takes 5 minutes and the time costs $30 an hour. That is 100 questions × 5 minutes = about 8.3 hours, worth $250 a month. If the bot also brings in two extra customers worth $150 profit each, that adds $300. Against a $79 plan, the return is clear. These are illustrative numbers; put in your own.

Be honest with the inputs

The result is only as good as the guesses. Run the sum with cautious numbers first. If it still pays for itself, the decision is easy. After a month of real use, replace the guesses with what actually happened.

Our free chatbot ROI calculator does this arithmetic for you.