Estimate the simple payback period and multi-year return for a warehouse robot investment. Enter purchase and implementation costs, annual operating costs, labor savings, productivity benefits, avoided costs, and a planning horizon. The calculator shows net annual benefit, payback time, horizon ROI, and cumulative benefit.
Simple payback is the time required for undiscounted annual benefits to recover the initial investment. It ignores financing, tax, depreciation, residual value, and changes over time.
Use a discounted cash-flow model for capital approval when the timing of cash flows, cost of capital, or tax treatment is material.
A $750,000 purchase plus $150,000 implementation costs $900,000 upfront. With $310,000 labor savings, $110,000 other benefits, and $120,000 annual operating costs, net annual benefit is $300,000 and simple payback is 3.00 years. Five-year ROI is 66.67%.
Include maintenance, software, connectivity, energy, support labor, insurance, and recurring vendor fees that are incremental to the project.
The project has no finite simple payback under the entered assumptions, and the calculator reports that result explicitly.
No. This is simple payback; discounted payback or NPV is more appropriate when timing and capital cost matter.
No. Include credible avoided hiring, overtime reduction, or productive redeployment, but document how each benefit will be realized.
No. It is cumulative simple ROI across the selected horizon, not an annualized internal rate of return.
| Input | Unit | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Robot purchase cost | USD | User-provided planning input. |
| Implementation and integration | USD | User-provided planning input. |
| Annual robot operating cost | USD/year | User-provided planning input. |
| Annual labor savings | USD/year | User-provided planning input. |
| Annual productivity/avoided cost benefit | USD/year | User-provided planning input. |
| Planning horizon | years | User-provided planning input. |