How the maintenance admin cost & ROI calculator works

The calculator helps a multi-site maintenance contractor estimate four things: the office hours and cost of managing work orders each year; how that time splits across portal entry, status updates, photos, reporting, invoicing, subcontractor paperwork and rework; how many hours a workflow change could recover under scenarios the user chooses; and whether the change pays for itself after implementation and running costs, including when it doesn’t.

Only the cost of an office hour is pre-filled, and it comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Every figure below was checked against the BLS bulk data files on 28 October 2026.

All ECEC values are dollars per hour worked, from Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (released 9 September 2026); data: https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/cm/. Occupation wages are from Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (released 15 May 2026); data: https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/oe/.

The default is $36.73 per hour worked: the BLS average employer cost for private-industry office and administrative support workers in June 2026, wages ($25.22) plus benefits ($11.51).

For a specific role and industry, the calculator takes the OEWS May 2025 national mean hourly wage and multiplies it by 1.4564 (36.73 ÷ 25.22), the ratio of total compensation to wages for office and administrative workers in the ECEC release. ECEC counts paid leave as a benefit and divides by hours worked, so ECEC wages per hour worked approximate the straight-time pay rate that OEWS reports. The result approximates employer cost per hour worked.

A common mistake: benefits are 31.3% of total compensation, which is about 46% on top of wages. Adding 31% to a wage understates the cost.

The small-business alternative, 1.3501 (37.64 ÷ 27.88), is for all occupations at establishments with 1–49 workers; BLS doesn’t publish office staff separately by establishment size. Hours worked per full-time employee default to 1,874 (2,080 ÷ (1 + 2.77 ÷ 25.22)), used only to express hours as people.

Caveats. OEWS wages are from May 2025 and the benefits ratio from June 2026; ECEC office and admin wages rose 3.9% between June 2025 and June 2026, so OEWS wages run about a year behind. Figures are national, not specific to maintenance contractors, and no BLS series gives benefits for office staff at small specialty contractors. The calculator uses means, because costs add up linearly; medians are lower. OEWS cross-industry figures include government; industry rows are private. OEWS wages exclude overtime, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses and employer benefit costs.

Role and industry presets

OEWS May 2025 mean hourly wage → loaded cost per hour worked (× 1.4564, rounded to cents). Series IDs follow OEUN0000000 + industry code + occupation code + 03.

We looked for an independent, published measurement of how long multi-site maintenance contractors spend on work order entry, status updates, client reporting, invoicing, portal switching or subcontractor paperwork, and found none. What exists is vendor surveys of technicians, vendor marketing claims, single testimonials and data from other industries (accounts payable departments, construction project teams). Using any of those as a default would make results look precise when they aren’t.

The same goes for automation savings. The only published percentages are vendor marketing, studies commissioned by vendors about large enterprises, or single-company cases. So every time figure and every reduction starts empty or at 0%. The “Lower / Moderate / Higher impact” presets (20%, 40% and 60% for every task) and the example are labelled as hypothetical, and the time-study guide shows how to measure your own figures.

Because of this, the calculator leads with the break-even reduction: the share of admin time a change must remove just to cover its costs. It needs no savings estimate.

Recovered hours are reported as value of time freed: hours × the same hourly cost. That is capacity, not money in the bank. It becomes cash only if it cuts overtime, temporary or outsourced labor, or a hire you’d otherwise make, or lets your team take on more work without adding staff. In a published case study of automation at Telefónica O2, freed staff were largely redeployed rather than removed (Lacity, Willcocks & Craig, 2015).

The cash basis counts only the share of freed time you say will turn into cash, plus any other cash benefits you can trace to a real record. It isn’t shown until you enter that share.

Quick start and Advanced edit the same inputs and use the same calculation; Quick start just shows fewer of them. Anything set in Advanced stays when you switch back.

When comparing, Scenario A and B share the business (volume, times, labor cost and years evaluated) and each has its own plan: reductions, go-live, cash share, other benefits and every cost. Each is calculated with the full model; the comparison shows the differences.

This card runs three plans through the same model. The off-the-shelf price starts at ServiceChannel’s provider API price ($1,000 setup, $500 a month at the entry tier for under 500 work orders a year; higher tiers aren’t published). It is one vendor’s price, not an average. The custom build is a rough range from Bram Nation’s own deliverable pricing (our commercial model, not research, and not a quote). Its scope comes from the admin tasks you have time in, each mapped to the features that would automate it. The low end prices each feature’s simpler version at our standard (smaller-company) prices; the high end its more complex version at our higher (large-company) prices. It covers development only. Under “Compare your options” you can use your own figures instead. A build paid over several months is counted over those months only, and its benefits start no earlier than the last payment. If off-the-shelf software or today’s process comes out ahead, the card shows that.

Nothing is rounded until it’s displayed: dollars to the nearest dollar, hours to whole hours, FTE to one decimal, percentages to whole numbers.

Annual hours by activity
  intake        = work orders × intake minutes ÷ 60
  status        = work orders × status minutes ÷ 60
  photos & docs = work orders × photo/document minutes ÷ 60
  reporting     = work orders × reporting minutes ÷ 60
  invoicing     = work orders × invoicing minutes ÷ 60
  subcontractor = work orders × subcontracted share × sub minutes ÷ 60
  exceptions    = work orders × rework rate × minutes per fix ÷ 60
  portals       = hours per week × 52
  monthly       = hours per month × 12
  H             = sum of the above

Current cost
  Admin cost      = H × C            (C = cost of an office hour)
  Cost per order  = Admin cost ÷ work orders
  FTE             = H ÷ P            (P = 1,874 hours by default)

Scenario
  R  = Σ hours for each activity × that activity's reduction
  V  = R × C                         (value of time freed, not cash)
  Capacity benefit per year = V + other benefits
  Cash benefit per year     = cash share × V + other benefits

Costs
  I  = one-time external cost + (project hours + training hours) × C
  K  = subscriptions + platform fees + hosting + maintenance + support hours × C
       (maintenance = an amount, or build cost × a percentage)
  Build paid over b months (b = 0: all at the start): the external one-time
  cost leaves in b equal monthly parts, each discounted by the year it falls
  in; the total is unchanged
  go-live used = the later of go-live months and b (no benefit before the
  build is finished)

Timing, for each year t = 1…N
  f_t = share of year t after go-live = min(12, max(0, 12t − go-live months)) ÷ 12
  D_t = 1 ÷ (1 + discount rate)^t    (1 when the rate is 0)

Over N years, per basis
  Total benefit = Σ f_t × annual benefit × D_t
  Total cost    = I + Σ K × D_t
  Net           = Total benefit − Total cost
  ROI           = Net ÷ Total cost   ("n/a" when there are no costs)

Payback (undiscounted, month by month)
  start at −I; each month subtract K ÷ 12 and, after go-live, add benefit ÷ 12;
  payback = first month the running total reaches 0, else "no payback"

Break-even uniform reduction
  r* = (Total cost − Σ f_t × other benefits × D_t) ÷ (H × C × ρ × Σ f_t × D_t)
  ρ = 1 for capacity, the cash share for cash
  r* ≤ 0 → covered by other benefits alone; r* > 1 → not reachable

Sensitivity, for a uniform reduction u = 10%…90%
  Net(u) = Σ f_t × (ρ × H × u × C + other benefits) × D_t − Total cost

Payback chart, month m (undiscounted)
  benefit to date = max(0, m − go-live months) × annual benefit ÷ 12
  cost to date    = I + m × K ÷ 12   (with b > 0, the external part counts
                    min(m, b) ÷ b of itself)
  net to date     = benefit to date − cost to date   (the payback running total)

Which assumptions matter most
  each driver moved down and up on its own, everything else held, and the
  full model re-run: volume, minutes, hourly cost, reductions, one-time cost
  and running costs ±20%; go-live ±3 months; cash share ±10 points

Keep it, buy it or build it? (admin time plus software over N years)
  each path = today's admin cost × N − that path's undiscounted net
  off-the-shelf: setup + monthly fee × 12 a year, from the vendor price
  custom: Bram Nation estimate range (simpler scope × standard prices to
  more complex scope × higher prices), or your own figures

Running costs are charged from month 1, before go-live, which is conservative. Payback is undiscounted even when a discount rate is set; the totals, ROI and break-even use the discount rate.

• Technician field time, travel and wrench time.
• Revenue growth from taking on more work.
• ServiceChannel’s provider usage fee (1.5% of each approved invoice, up to $4), because it doesn’t change with automation (ServiceChannel).
• Taxes, depreciation and financing costs.
• The chance that a project fails, a client refuses an integration, or a portal improves its own tools first. Clients may need to approve each automated transfer, and integrations need upkeep whenever a portal’s API changes.

• Results are only as good as the time estimates you enter.
• Reductions apply evenly within an activity; in practice some clients’ work automates more easily than others’.
• Platform requirements differ by client, not just by platform (CorrigoPro developer docs), and ServiceChannel’s 2026 guidelines cover its Managed trade partner program; other clients may set other rules.
• Cost hints quoted on the calculator (ServiceChannel’s provider API pricing, the GoodFirms survey’s 10–20% yearly maintenance, a vendor’s 8–12 week go-live claim) are context, never defaults.

Calculations run in your browser; the numbers you type aren’t sent to us. Our analytics record that the calculator was used (started, mode changed, preset or example loaded, comparison started, results shown, exports), never the values. Your inputs are saved in your browser’s local storage so they’re there when you return, on that device only; Reset clears them. A shared link carries your inputs after the “#”, which browsers don’t send to our server; the calculator removes them from the address bar once it has read them.

• 28 October 2026: launched with ECEC June 2026 and OEWS May 2025 data. Next ECEC release (September 2026 data) scheduled for 16 December 2026; OEWS May 2026 estimates are expected in spring 2027.

Bram Nation builds custom software and integrations for maintenance contractors. We built this calculator to help contractors decide whether their current software, an off-the-shelf integration or a custom build makes sense. Sometimes the answer is "none of them".