ROI
The ROI tab prices a workflow against the manual work it replaces, so you can check whether a workflow is worth building before you build it.
Setting a baseline
Click Set up ROI economics to open the baseline editor.
| Field | Captures |
|---|---|
| Hands-on time per run | The actual doing, per run — ~45m |
| Meeting time | Coordination meetings this retires, hours/week |
| Status reporting | Writing and reading updates, hours/week |
| Duplicated work | The same answer retyped, hours/week |
| SaaS this retires | Tool, seats, and $/seat/month |
| Who did this by hand | The people whose rates price the hours |
The three coordination fields are easy to forget. A 45-minute report can also cost a 30-minute status meeting and three people re-reading it — include that.
Who did this by hand determines the rate applied to the hours. Leave it empty and Alma uses the workspace default rate.
Loaded rates
Rates cascade, most specific first:
- The person’s own rate — see People
- Their group’s rate — see Groups
- The workspace default — see Workspace
- A built-in $90/hr
Rates are visible only inside the Console.
What Alma measures
You supply the baseline. Alma measures:
- Runs per week — actual executions over the trailing 7 days
- Cost to run — the metered cost of those runs: model and tool calls
The three numbers
- The work, by hand — the measured baseline this replaces, per week
- Cost to run — model + tool calls
- Net return — the difference, per week, with an annualized figure
Feasibility gate
| Ratio (baseline ÷ cost) | Verdict |
|---|---|
| 3× or more | Clears the feasibility gate — worth building |
| 1.5×–3× | Thin margin — worth building if time saved matters more than dollars |
| Under 1.5× | Doesn’t clear the gate — don’t build this yet |
A workflow that barely pays for itself in dollars can still be worth building if it removes an interruption or a task everyone hates. The ratio informs the decision; it doesn’t make it.
A workflow with no baseline shows no economics — that’s why ROI looks empty until you enter one.
Where the numbers come from
Hands-on time is drawn from the manual work this workflow was proposed from; meeting, reporting, and duplicate hours are measured from calendars and connected tools. Run volume comes from source history. Hours are priced at loaded rates from the directory — never shown outside the Console. Cost to run is metered from every run’s model and tool calls.
Coming soon. The budget cap always reads “Not set” and can’t be set — there’s no per-workflow spend limit yet. Some copy on this tab refers to credits, where the tab actually shows dollars.
For workspace-level spend, see Billing.