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Chatbot Containment Savings and Break Even Calculator

A chatbot on WhatsApp or Teams is worth building only if enough conversations are resolved without an agent. This calculator shows the saving at your containment rate and, more usefully, the containment you must reach just to break even.

Your numbers

Conversations per month

conversations

Containment rate

45 %

Share resolved by the bot with no human handoff.

Cost of a human handled conversation

Loaded agent cost per conversation, not per hour.

Variable bot cost per conversation

Message charges plus model or hosting cost per conversation.

Fixed monthly cost

Platform, hosting, maintenance and review time.

Your results

Monthly saving

$8,250

Break even containment

14.4%

Below this the bot costs more than it saves.

Monthly cost with no bot

$27,000

Conversations still handled by humans

3,300

Monthly cost with bot

$18,750

Assumes every conversation incurs the bot cost, including those handed to humans, and that handoffs cost the same as a fully human conversation.

Save results:

Monthly saving vs containment rate

Sweeps Containment rate from 0 to 90, holding your other inputs fixed.

Want your containment target sanity checked?

An optional review of intents, data access and handoff design for an ERP support bot.

Optional. The tool and every export work without this. No spam.

How to use it

Count real conversations, not messages, from your helpdesk or shared inbox. Use a loaded cost per handled conversation: agent salary, overhead and tooling divided by conversations handled. For the bot, add per conversation variable costs and a fixed monthly figure that includes the time someone spends reviewing failures. Containment should be measured as resolved with no handoff and no repeat contact within a few days, not merely ended by the user.

Count repeat contacts as not contained
Include review and tuning time in the fixed cost
Start with the three most common, simplest intents

Formulas and reading the result

Cost without a bot equals conversations times human cost. Cost with a bot equals human handled conversations times human cost, plus all conversations times the bot variable cost, plus fixed cost. Break even containment equals bot variable and fixed costs divided by the total human cost, as a percent. With 6,000 conversations, a 4.50 dollar human cost, 0.35 bot cost and 1,800 fixed, break even is about 14 percent. At 45 percent containment the saving is roughly 10,000 dollars a month.

Common mistakes

Containment figures from vendors often count abandoned chats as resolved. Test with sampled transcripts. Also, a bot rarely removes agent headcount in a small team; the saving shows up as capacity, not a smaller payroll, so say that honestly. For ERP related questions such as order status, a simple lookup flow with exact answers beats a general chat model, and private hosting may be needed for sensitive data.

Sample transcripts to verify real resolution
Do not claim headcount savings you will not realize
Offer a human handoff at every step

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a realistic containment rate?

It depends on intent mix. Narrow, repetitive questions such as order status can reach a high share, while open ended support is much lower. Measure on a pilot instead of using a vendor figure.

Should handed off conversations cost more?

Often yes, since the agent must read the bot transcript first. If so, raise the human cost slightly or lower containment to reflect it.

Does this include development cost?

Only as part of the fixed monthly figure. Spread a one time build over 24 to 36 months and add it to fixed to see a true payback.

How is it different from the chatbot vs agent calculator?

This one focuses on containment and break even for a single bot. The related calculator compares a chatbot with an agent style system.

If you want a support or internal helpdesk bot that answers from live ERP data and runs on your own infrastructure, Netray can scope it with you.

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