AI Receptionist ROI Calculator

Framed as a decision a business owner is making right now: is the system worth renewing?

A patio door company is paying $2,200 a month for its AI receptionist system, all-in — service fee, phone lines, messaging, and the manager’s time reviewing it.

Count only incremental leads — ones the system reasonably helped create or preserve that the old process would have lost. This owner conservatively counts 12 per month.

Apply booking and show rates. At 66 percent booking and 89 percent show, those 12 leads produce about 7 completed appointments.

Apply expected value per appointment. With a $6,500 average sale and a 33 percent close rate, one completed appointment carries roughly $2,145 in expected gross profit.

Calculate expected contribution. 7 appointments × $2,145 ≈ $15,015.

Subtract system cost. $15,015 − $2,200 = $12,815 net expected contribution.

Calculate the ROI ratio. $12,815 ÷ $2,200 ≈ 5.8, or about 580 percent in this example.

The number that matters most isn’t the ratio — it’s whether “incremental” was counted honestly. Leads the old process would have handled fine anyway don’t belong in this math.