AI Chatbot ROI & Cost Calculator
Planning
Chatbot ROI is the agent time the bot saves minus what the bot costs: tickets deflected × handle time ÷ 60 × agent cost per hour, minus the plan price, divided by the plan price. At 800 tickets a month, 45% deflection, 7 minutes a ticket and $24 an hour, that is about $1,008 a month in saved agent time, or about $988 net of the $19.99 MySiteGPT Pro plan.
An assumption, not a guarantee: start around 45% and adjust it to what your own bot actually resolves.
Like the numbers? Start deflecting tickets for free.
Free plan: every feature, 1 chatbot and 100 messages a month, OpenAI included. No card, no time limit.
New to this? See how to train an AI chatbot on your website content.
How to calculate AI chatbot ROI
Chatbot ROI comes down to one idea: every repetitive ticket the bot answers is agent time you don't pay for. The calculator above turns that into a monthly dollar figure with five inputs. Here's the formula it runs:
- Tickets deflected = monthly tickets × deflection rate
- Hours saved = (tickets deflected × avg. handle time in minutes) ÷ 60
- Gross savings = hours saved × agent cost per hour
- Net savings = gross savings − your chatbot plan cost
- ROI = net savings ÷ plan cost, shown as a percentage
What drives the number
- Ticket volume. More repetitive volume means more to deflect. Support queues are mostly the same handful of questions wearing different hats.
- Deflection rate.The biggest lever. It's set by how much of your common volume is actually documented and well-structured, which is why AI-ready content matters so much.
- Handle time & agent cost. The more expensive and time-consuming each ticket is for a human, the more each deflection is worth.
- Plan cost.The denominator. At $19.99/mo for MySiteGPT Pro it's small enough that ROI is dominated by the savings, not the price.
A worked example
Take the calculator's defaults: 800 tickets/month, a 7-minute average handle time, a $24/hour loaded agent cost, 45% deflection, and the $19.99/mo MySiteGPT Pro plan:
- 360 tickets deflected (800 × 45%)
- 42 agent hours saved (360 × 7 ÷ 60)
- $1,008 gross savings (42 × $24)
- About $988 net savings/month ($1,008 − $19.99), an ROI of about 4,940%
Even halving the deflection rate keeps the bot in the black at these inputs. That's the usual shape of support-chatbot economics: a small fixed cost against agent time that scales with your volume.
The default assumptions
The defaults are starting assumptions for you to replace, not published benchmarks. Your own numbers will always beat them:
- Deflection (45%): replace it with the share of conversations your bot answers without a hand-off once it's live.
- Handle time (7 minutes): take the average from your help desk's reports.
- Agent cost ($24/hour): use your loaded cost, salary plus overhead, divided by paid hours.
- Plan cost ($19.99/month): MySiteGPT Pro; enter any other tool's price to compare.
Want the deeper version of the math? Cut support tickets with an embedded AI assistant walks through the ticket economics, and the comparison hub shows how pricing stacks up across tools. MySiteGPT starts on a Free plan, and Pro is $19.99/mo with OpenAI included and no per-message markup.
How much does an AI chatbot cost?
Use this as a chatbot cost calculator too: the “plan cost” input is the number that matters. Website AI chatbots are priced three ways, and they behave very differently as you grow:
- Flat monthly. One predictable price regardless of volume. Easiest to forecast: a busy month never spikes the bill.
- Per-message / per-conversation. Cheap at a trickle, but the cost climbs with exactly the traffic you want, and AI usage is often billed on top.
- Per-resolution. You pay each time the bot resolves a ticket, so the price scales directly with success, which can get expensive fast.
Typical small-to-mid tools run $9 to $50/month, and many add AI/model usage separately. MySiteGPT has a Free plan and a flat $19.99/mo Pro plan, both with OpenAI usage included and no per-message or per-resolution meter, so the ROI number above is the whole story, not a starting point. Plug your real plan price into the calculator to compare any tool on the same footing.
AI chatbot ROI FAQ
How do you calculate AI chatbot ROI?
Multiply your monthly support tickets by the share the bot deflects to get tickets deflected. Multiply that by your average handle time to get minutes saved, divide by 60 for hours, then multiply by your loaded agent cost per hour for gross savings. Subtract the chatbot's monthly cost for net savings, and divide net savings by the plan cost for ROI as a percentage. This calculator does all of that live as you type.
How much does an AI chatbot cost?
A website AI chatbot typically runs $9 to $50/month for a small-to-mid business tool, and many charge AI usage on top. MySiteGPT has a Free plan (every feature, 1 chatbot, 100 messages a month, no card) and Pro at $19.99/mo, both with OpenAI usage included, so there is no API key to add and no per-message metering. Enter your real plan price in the calculator to see net savings and payback against that number.
What's a good ticket-deflection rate for a support chatbot?
There is no single benchmark: deflection depends on how much of your common volume (password resets, refund windows, shipping times, 'where's my invoice') is documented in the content the bot is trained on. The calculator starts at 45% as an adjustable assumption, not a measured figure. Once your bot is live, replace it with the share of conversations it actually answered without a hand-off.
How quickly does a support chatbot pay for itself?
Payback is the plan cost divided by the gross savings the calculator shows. With the default assumptions, $19.99 a month against about $1,008 of saved agent time is covered in well under a month, but with low ticket volume or a low deflection rate it takes longer. The bigger your ticket volume and agent cost, the faster and larger the return.
What inputs does this chatbot cost calculator use?
Five: monthly support tickets, average handle time per ticket (minutes), loaded agent cost per hour, the deflection rate you expect, and your chatbot plan price per month. Adjust any of them and the hours saved, tickets deflected, net savings, and ROI update instantly.
Does this work for conversational AI or virtual assistant ROI?
Yes. The math is the same for any assistant that answers questions a person would otherwise handle: count the enquiries it resolves, multiply by the minutes each one takes a person, and value that time at your loaded staff cost. Public-sector, education and internal helpdesk teams can enter enquiries in place of support tickets.
Put this to work with a chat assistant trained on your site
Free plan: every feature, 1 chatbot and 100 messages a month, OpenAI included. No card, no time limit.