AI automation vs hiring an admin: what does each really cost?

How much does an admin really cost per hour?

An admin costs their hourly wage plus everything the employer pays on top: payroll taxes, paid leave, insurance and retirement contributions. In the US that adds about 46% to the wage for office staff. In Canada, the legally required contributions alone add about 8%, before paid time off and benefits.

Start with real wage data. These are medians, so half of workers in each group earn more and half earn less.

Now add employer costs. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey found that in June 2026, private employers spent $25.22 an hour on wages and $11.51 on benefits for office and administrative support workers: $36.73 per hour worked in total. That is about 46 cents of benefits on top of every wage dollar.

Apply that ratio to the medians and a general office clerk costs about US$31.50 an hour, and an administrative assistant about US$33.80. These are national averages; your own payroll records are a better number if you have them.

In Canada, employers pay CPP contributions of 5.95% in 2026 and EI premiums of 1.4 times the 1.63% employee rate, about 2.28%, up to yearly maximums. On the CA$23.99 median, that is roughly CA$26 an hour before paid time off and any health or dental plan you offer.

How do you calculate the yearly cost of a repetitive task?

Multiply the number of people who do the task by the hours a day each spends on it, the loaded hourly cost, and the working days in a year. Use the loaded cost from the section above, not the wage.

These rows are illustrations, not client results. $30 is a round loaded rate close to the US figures above; replace it with your own.

Adaptiwise AI designs workflows to cut the cost of the automated work by up to 90%. In the last row, that means up to $135,000 a year saved on $150,000 of work. It is an "up to" figure, not a promise: how close you get depends on how many cases still need a person and on the fees in your quote. Try your own numbers in the Adaptiwise AI savings calculator.

That last row is 5,000 hours a year of typing and clicking. Automating it does not mean four people leave. It means those hours go to customers, follow-ups and the work you hired them for.

How much does AI automation cost for a small business?

There is no single price, because vendors charge in different ways. Most use one of three models, and each gives a different total for the same task.

Per-task tools are cheap to start and are the right choice when both apps already have a connector and volumes are modest. Watch the limit: on Zapier, going over your task allowance either pauses your Zaps or bills extra tasks at a higher rate. Robot-based platforms suit larger teams with someone to build and maintain the bots. We compare all three in AI agents vs Zapier vs RPA.

Adaptiwise AI does not publish a price list. After a free 30-minute assessment by video call, you get a written plan with the setup fee, the monthly fee, flexible payment options and the expected saving.

For a year-one comparison, add up: setup fee + 12 × monthly fee + (hours a week reviewing exceptions × loaded hourly cost × 50 weeks). Compare that with the yearly cost from the table above. From year two, the setup fee drops out.

What hidden costs should you count on each side?

Both options cost more than the headline number. A fair comparison includes your team's time, not just the wage bill or the invoice.

Hiring

• Recruiting: writing the ad, screening, interviews, and any agency or job-board fees.
• Training: the weeks before a new person is fully up to speed, plus the time of whoever trains them.
• Paid leave: in the BLS data above, paid leave was 7.5% of total compensation for office and administrative support workers. The work still needs doing on those days.
• Turnover: when someone leaves, you pay for recruiting and training again.
• Errors and supervision: retyped data has typos, and someone has to check and correct them.

Automation

• Your setup time: walking through the process, sharing sample files and giving test access.
• Exceptions: cases that do not fit the rules and need a person to review them.
• Approvals: payments and submissions that a person should sign off.
• Website changes: when a portal changes its layout, a step may need fixing.
• Process changes: a new supplier, form or software can mean updating the workflow. Ask any vendor what the monthly fee covers.

How can you estimate your own number in 15 minutes?

Pick one task, time it, and price it with the formula above. A reasonable estimate is enough to decide whether a closer look is worthwhile.

1. Pick one task that follows the same steps every time, such as downloading bank statements and matching them at month-end.
2. Write down who does it and how many minutes a day each person spends. For weekly or monthly tasks, convert to a daily average.
3. Find each person's hourly wage in payroll, then add employer costs: about 46% in the US for office staff, or CPP, EI, paid time off and benefits in Canada.
4. Use 250 working days unless you know your own figure.
5. Multiply: people × hours a day × loaded hourly cost × working days.
6. Add rework: hours a month spent fixing errors from this task × loaded hourly cost × 12.
7. Note what must stay with a person: exceptions, approvals and anything that needs a phone call.
8. Enter the result in the savings calculator to see what up to 90% less would mean for you.

Which tasks are worth automating, and when is hiring better?

Automate work that is repetitive, rule-based and frequent. Hire for work that depends on relationships, discretion or variety.

Hiring is the better choice when the role is mostly about people: answering the phone, calming upset customers, negotiating with suppliers. It also wins when volume is too low to repay a setup fee, or when the work changes so often that nobody can write the rules down. A part-time person who covers ten small, varied jobs may be worth more than automating one of them.

Often the answer is both. Automation takes the repetitive part of a role, not the person. As volume grows, the workflow simply runs more often, so you can take on more orders or clients without adding payroll for data entry.

How would Adaptiwise AI handle the comparison?

Adaptiwise AI starts with a free 30-minute assessment by video call, maps the task's systems, steps and exceptions, and gives a written plan with the price, flexible payment options and the expected saving. You can then set it against your own yearly cost.

The agents do the computer work a person does now: sign in to portals, download and upload files, read PDFs and emails, fill in forms and move data into spreadsheets and business software. Workflow steps are fixed; AI reads pages and documents whose layout changes. When something does not fit, the agent stops and asks a person instead of guessing. Payments, submissions and unfamiliar screens wait for approval.

Every run is logged with status and timing. If a run fails, an Adaptiwise AI operator is alerted, and the fix is proven on a replay before the workflow is trusted again. Through an integration such as Google Sheets, thousands of records can be entered and checked in minutes; work inside a website moves at that site's pace, so it usually runs overnight. The workflow can run on your own computer, in a hybrid setup or on Adaptiwise AI's servers in Canada. Book a free assessment to get your number.