4 Questions to Ask to Determine Your RPA Budget

Measuring return on investment (ROI) is the best way to tell if a robotic process automation (RPA) implementation is successful. As you start to narrow down your choice of RPA solution, determining your budget will become one of the most important factors in your decision.

This will be the basis for measuring ROI post implementation.  

The many benefits of RPA—like improved accuracy, boosted productivity, and streamlined workflows—are easy to understand. But as you determine your budget and decide which solution provides the most value for your organization, keep these four questions top of mind to help you on your way to a positive RPA ROI.

1. How Many RPA Bots Will I Need?

Software robots, or RPA bots, refer to what some vendors also call agents or tasks. No matter their name, these are the individual devices running the automation solution. As you evaluate vendors, it’s important to understand the following:

• The amount of bots offered
• The price per bot
• The price for unlimited bots

While starting small is key to RPA success, you also want to make sure your new RPA solution scales and grows along with your organization. For example, one bot is great for starting with desktop automation, five bots can help a single department streamline tasks, and unlimited bots makes it easier to expand your RPA footprint across the entire enterprise.

As you set out on your RPA journey, take a look at your current processes and identify potential processes to automate, such as data scraping, user provisioning, or report generation. This will help get you thinking strategically about how you see RPA fitting into your organization so you can get a better idea of the best automation approach for your needs—whether desktop or enterprise.

2. What's the Cost of a Human Doing a Task vs the Cost of a Bot?

When deciding on your RPA budget, think of an RPA solution as an investment in your workforce. One of the best ways to see RPA ROI is by comparing how much it would cost to add a human employee to do a task versus a software bot. For example, if it costs around $60,000 per year to hire a new employee, and a bot costs around $3,000, you’ll quickly start seeing the savings.

This doesn’t mean replacing your human workforce with bots. Instead, RPA bots enhance your current employees to stretch resources, boost productivity, and keep the focus on higher value tasks. Leveraging a digital workforce helps you get more from existing employees—without adding headcount.

3. Should I Buy Subscription or Perpetual Licensing?

It’s critical to understand the licensing fees when determining your budget. There are a wide range of pricing structures, and you should carefully examine vendor options in order to choose a solution that will work best for you to deliver the greatest ROI. The two most common pricing structures are:

• Subscription-Based: Subscription-based pricing is becoming more and more common for RPA vendors. Subscriptions require a lower initial investment, but will be the main cost associated with your RPA solution as it reoccurs upon renewal.
• Perpetual License: Some vendors may offer a perpetual license for their RPA software, in which case you would avoid the recurring annual fees but pay more up front.

4. How Much RPA Training is Needed?

A great RPA solution should be easy to use. The faster you can get up and running, and the easier it is for users of all skill levels to use, the higher ROI you’ll see. Look for an RPA solution that offers low-code or no-code automation—easy enough for business users but powerful for IT.

RPA software is one of the only products where customers can get exponential increasing returns every year as they scale and automate more and more—RPA is not install-and-forget software. Given this, you should plan for ongoing RPA training to make sure you and your employees are kept up to date on current capabilities and able to see what’s possible with the latest innovations. And keep in mind that not all training comes with a price tag. Vendors with an RPA community featuring online resources and forums give another opportunity for continual education.