Your team is stretched. The instinct is to hire. But what if a $10K AI build replaces a $100K salary and works 24/7 without sick days? Here are the real numbers for Australian businesses.
Tell us what you need. We will tell you exactly what we can build, what it costs, and how fast.
| Cost Factor | AI Automation (Source Digital) | Full-Time Employee (Admin/Support Role) |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront Cost | $5,000-$15,000 (one-off) | $3,000-$8,000 (recruitment) |
| Annual Cost (Year 1) | $5,000-$16,200 | $88,000-$108,000 |
| Annual Cost (Year 2+) | $1,200-$6,000 | $90,000-$115,000 |
| Base Salary/Build | $5K-$15K one-off | $65,000-$80,000/yr |
| Super (11.5%) | $0 | $7,475-$9,200/yr |
| Leave Entitlements | $0 (works 365 days) | $5,000-$7,000/yr |
| Workers Comp Insurance | $0 | $500-$2,000/yr |
| Equipment & Software | $0 | $2,000-$5,000/yr |
| Training & Onboarding | $0 (instant deployment) | $3,000-$8,000 |
| Management Overhead | $0 | $5,000-$10,000/yr |
| Hours Available/Week | 168 (24/7) | 38 (minus breaks) |
| Sick Days | 0 | 10/year average |
| Annual Leave Impact | None | 4 weeks offline |
| Scale During Peak | Instant, no extra cost | Overtime or temp hire |
| Time to Productive | 1-3 weeks | 4-12 weeks |
| 3-Year Total Cost | $7,400-$27,000 | $266,000-$338,000 |
The best approach is usually automate first, then hire for the work that actually needs a human. Your existing team becomes more productive and your new hires focus on high-value work from day one.
Data entry and processing. Email triage and responses. Invoice generation and chasing. Report compilation. Customer FAQ responses. Lead qualification and follow-up. Appointment scheduling. Document extraction.
Client relationship management. Complex negotiations. Creative strategy. Novel problem-solving. Team leadership. Business development. Situations requiring empathy and judgment. Work that builds trust.
A team that spends zero time on busywork. Lower operational costs. Faster response times for customers. Employees doing meaningful work they enjoy. A business that scales without proportional headcount growth.
Free strategy call. We will identify which tasks to automate and which genuinely need a human. No obligation, no hard sell.
No. AI handles the repetitive, low-value tasks that your staff currently spend too much time on. This frees your existing team to focus on higher-value work like client relationships, complex problem-solving, and business development. Most businesses that implement AI do not reduce headcount. They get more output from the same team.
A typical AI automation costs $5,000 to $15,000 one-off and handles the equivalent of 15 to 25 hours of manual work per week. A full-time employee at $70,000 per year costs $85,000 to $100,000 including super, leave, and overheads. AI pays for itself in 1 to 3 months.
AI excels at data entry, document processing, email triage, lead follow-up, report generation, scheduling, invoice processing, and customer FAQs. Humans are still better at relationship building, creative problem-solving, negotiation, and handling novel situations.
AI does make mistakes, but at a much lower rate than manual processing for repetitive tasks. We build confidence thresholds so uncertain items are flagged for human review. The error rate for well-built AI on structured tasks is typically 2 to 5 percent compared to 5 to 15 percent for manual data entry.
Most automations are live in 1 to 3 weeks. Hiring a new employee typically takes 4 to 8 weeks to recruit and another 2 to 4 weeks to onboard and train. AI is operational in a fraction of the time.
Yes. AI works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. No sick days, no annual leave, no public holidays. Customer enquiries at 2am get the same quality response as those at 10am.
Instantly. During peak periods like EOFY or holiday seasons, AI handles 10x the volume without overtime costs or temporary staff. There is no recruitment, training, or management overhead.
Most businesses see a positive ROI within 1 to 3 months. A $10,000 automation that saves 20 hours per week at $50 per hour generates $52,000 per year in value. That is a 5x return in year one.
Automate first. Identify which tasks are repetitive and rules-based, automate those, then assess what gaps remain. Often you will find you need a different type of hire than originally planned, or that existing staff can absorb the remaining work.
Hosting costs are typically $10 to $100 per month depending on scale. Optional managed support is $500 to $2,000 per month. Compare that to $85,000 to $100,000 per year for a full-time employee.
"Literally within hours I was getting leads. Blown away with every bit of work from Source Digital - speed, quality and just a real good bloke to deal with."
"Within 2 hours he had a full plan & quote ready. The final project delivery was absolutely phenomenal - 100 times better than we could have ever imagined."
"Source Digital did an exceptional job building our Shopify site. Visually appealing, user-friendly, works across all devices. The final product exceeded our expectations."
Book a free strategy call. We will look at your operations and show you exactly where AI delivers the biggest savings.