ROI (Return on investment)
Return on investment (ROI) is a financial metric that assesses whether investing money, time, or other resources in a particular activity is worthwhile.
On this page
Source content checked . English translation published 2026-10-27.
In business automation
Before connecting a tool or building a process, the question of whether it is worthwhile comes up: will the time and money pay off? Return on investment assesses whether it is worthwhile to invest resources in an activity. In this guide, the term appears alongside performance indicator and automation, without calculating the return for any particular tool.
Examples
These examples illustrate a possible workflow. Adapt the connections and rules to your own systems.
Comparing manual follow-up hours with setup time
A business compares the hours spent manually following up on leads with the hours needed to set up and maintain a process. They record the assumptions and source for each number, and do not include savings that have not been measured.
Relevant tools
- Make
- An automation platform in this guide. Return on investment is calculated by your organization based on time and cost. This guide does not publish a price or determine a tool's return.
What to check
- Calculating return based only on the license price overlooks setup time, failures, and checks.