AI Service Desk ROI Calculator
3-Year Savings at Real Deflection Rates
Inputs
HDI: typical enterprise range 10K-500K/yr
HDI/MetricNet: $6-$40+ North America. Default $22 (midpoint)
Gartner best-in-class: 40-60%. Default 40%
Default $200K (Moveworks/Aisera mid-range)
Default $75K (mid-market). Enterprise: $300K+
3-Year Projection
3-Year Sensitivity Table
Using your ticket volume (50,000) and cost-per-ticket ($22). License at $200K/yr, implementation at $75K.
| Deflection | Annual Saving | 3-Year Net | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25% | $275K/yr | $150K | Month 12 |
| 40% | $440K/yr | $645K | Month 4 |
| 55% | $605K/yr | $1.14M | Month 3 |
| 65% | $715K/yr | $1.47M | Month 2 |
Worked Examples
Methodology and Caveats
Cost-per-ticket: HDI/MetricNet 2024 benchmarks put fully-loaded cost-per-ticket at $6-$40+ in North American enterprises. The $22 default is the midpoint for internal IT organisations. Tier 1 (L1 only) organisations may be lower ($12-$18); organisations counting management overhead and tooling may be higher ($28-$40).
Deflection rate: the calculator uses the gross deflection rate (tickets avoided entirely). Gartner best-in-class is 40-60% for mature deployments. Year-one deployments typically achieve 20-35%. The calculator assumes steady-state deflection, which typically takes 12-18 months to reach.
What this calculator does not capture: change management cost (typically 15% of implementation budget; programmes that underinvest see 50% lower adoption), agent-headcount reallocation lag (agents do not disappear when deflection improves; headcount flattens over 2-3 hiring cycles), and KB governance investment (the upfront work that determines whether deflection reaches 40% or 60%). These factors typically make year-one economics look worse and year-three economics look better than this model shows.