The arithmetic · Automating vs hiring
Before you hire an admin, run the real numbers.
The rate on the job ad is not the cost. Statute and the award add the rest, and the calculator below works it out on your own figures.
- superannuation guarantee
- +12%
- casual loading
- +25%
- annual leave loading
- +17.5%
- paid annual leave
- 4 wks
statutory, since 1 July 2025
award standard, if casual
standard in most awards
plus 10 days personal leave
The calculator
The cost of hiring, on your numbers
Only the statutory and award rates are fixed here, and each one is labelled. The wage, the hours and the rest are yours to change, so the answer is your arithmetic, not our claim.
Your numbers
Defaults are placeholders, not advice. Put in the award rate and hours you are actually considering.
Award or agreed rate, before loadings
Your insurer's rate; varies by industry
Ads, your time, an agency if used
How long before you recruit again
What that hire really costs
- Base wages, 52 weeks paidYour numbers
- $24,960
- Superannuation guarantee, 12%Statutory
- $2,995
- Annual leave loading, 17.5% on 4 weeksMost awards
- $336
- Workers compensation, 1.8% of wagesYour insurer's rate
- $449
- Recruitment, $1,500 over 2 yearsYour numbers
- $750
- True cost per year
- $29,490
$42.74
per hour actually worked, about 46 weeks a year
+34%
above the $32.00 rate on the job ad
15 of the 168 hours in a week are covered. The other 153, enquiries arrive with nobody there.
A roster covers the hours it is paid for. Enquiries do not check the roster.
Not counted: payroll tax, which in NSW applies at 5.45% only once total wages pass $1.2 million a year, so most small businesses never pay it; public holidays, which reduce worked hours further; and training weeks, cover for leave and management time, which are real but yours to estimate. General arithmetic, not financial advice.
The comparison
The other side of the comparison
We are not going to put a made-up automation price next to that total; ours is fixed in writing after a scope, and it depends on what you need. What can be said honestly is how the two costs behave.
- How the cost recurs
- A hire is the full amount again every year. A build is paid once; what recurs is platform subscriptions billed to your own accounts, and any monthly work you choose.
- Hours covered
- A part-time admin covers their rostered hours. The system answers at 10pm, on weekends and on public holidays, with no penalty rates attached.
- Leave and turnover
- Software does not resign, take leave or need cover. The calculator's recruitment line disappears from the sum entirely.
- What it cannot do
- Judgement. It will not calm an angry customer, price a strange job or make a call that needs a human. That work still deserves a person.
The honest comparison is not machine versus person. It is machine for the typing, person for the judgement.
Sometimes the hire is right
If the work drowning you is quoting complex jobs, managing a crew or holding client relationships, that is judgement work, and you should hire for it. Automation earns its keep on the other pile: intake, reminders, follow-up, quote chasing, review requests. The typing.
Most operators we talk to are carrying both piles at 9pm. The useful move is usually to automate the typing first, then hire for judgement with the hours and margin that frees up, because a good hire deserves better than spending the numbers above on copy-paste.
Before you make the hire
Run your numbers, then ring ours.
Bring the total the calculator gave you. Twenty minutes with Ali Ishtiaq puts a fixed written figure next to it, and if the honest answer is that you should hire instead, that is what you will hear.
+61 469 759 353Ali Ishtiaq answers it himself. Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm AEST.