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ROI worksheet

Plug in your team's inputs. We'll show you the distribution of completer outcomes — not a hero number.

Why we don't put a hero ROI figure on this page. We refuse to put a hero ROI number on this page because we have seen what happens when buyers reverse-engineer them. Here's the worksheet instead. Sophisticated buyers reverse-engineer the assumptions. We'd rather expose the assumptions up front and let you change them. The math below is conditional on completion. Roughly half of paid-and-cohort enrolled managers complete; non-completer ROI is zero. Plan and price accordingly.

Your inputs

Number of seats5-25 fits a department-discretionary team plan.seats

Course price per seat$1,200 Operator (all 8 modules, self-serve). $1,400/seat Team (5-seat min, contact-driven).$

Marginal value of one reclaimed hour$50 is conservative for a salaried manager (not fully-loaded $87 — Parkinson's Law absorbs that for non-billable work). For billable roles (law, audit, consulting), use the blended billable rate.$/hr

Hours saved per week per completerBelow every published productivity benchmark. Microsoft Work Trend power-users self-report 2.5 hr/wk. 1.5 is the floor that survives a hostile finance review.hr/wk

Active weeks per year52 minus paid time off, holidays, ramp.wks

Realistic completion rateIndustry benchmark for self-paced courses: 12-15%. With paid commitment, leaderboard, and manager reporting, target band is 35-50%. We use 50% for the median scenario.%

Your distribution

10th, 50th, and 90th percentile of cohort outcomes given your inputs.

10th percentile

$4,500

Conservative case · 3 completers

50th percentile (median)

$7,500

Base case · 3 completers

90th percentile

$10,500

Strong case · 3 completers

Total seat cost (year 1)$7,000

Median annual capacity returned (50th pct)$7,500

Median return multiple1.1×

Median payback period37.3 weeks

How the distribution is computed (full assumptions)

Per-completer annual capacity returned = hours per week × active weeks × marginal $/hour.

Cohort-level annual return = seats × completion rate × per-completer capacity.

10th percentile applies a 0.6× multiplier to the per-completer annual capacity (some completers underuse the Playbook).

50th percentile uses your inputs directly.

90th percentile applies a 1.4× multiplier (some completers compound usage via the leaderboard and manager-reporting reinforcement).

What the model does NOT count:

Decision-quality uplift (real but unquantified — BCG/Harvard "Jagged Frontier" showed 40% quality lift on in-frontier tasks; not added to dollar number)
Manager retention savings (real but not causally attributable to a single training program)
Recruiting / employer-brand value
Year-2 compounding through the Playbook (gains do not decay the way most training does)

What the model assumes you'll do: Track completion rate at 30 / 60 / 90 days. Validate workflow change in manager 1:1s. Renew on outcomes, not effort.

Why the inputs are conservative (and where to push back if you think they're too conservative)

1.5 hr/wk is below every published benchmark. Microsoft Work Trend Index (2024): power Copilot users self-report 2.5 hr/wk. St. Louis Fed (2025): median user self-reports 5.4% of work hours = ~2.2 hr/wk. We use 1.5 to survive a hostile review.

$50/hr marginal is below fully-loaded. Bureau of Labor Statistics median manager fully-loaded is $87/hr. We discount to $50 because Parkinson's Law absorbs reclaimed time for salaried managers — the marginal hour rarely returns as cash. For billable roles (law, audit, consulting) replace with your blended billable rate; $400-$700/hr is realistic.

50% completion is realistic for paid + cohort + manager-reported. LinkedIn Learning self-paced averages 12-15%. Cohort + manager visibility roughly triples it. We're not assuming heroics.

If you think any of these are too conservative for your team, raise them. The point of this worksheet is that you set them — not us.

What outcome metrics to track in the pilot (instead of "hours saved")

Completion rate — target ≥50%. Cohort-level, not per-seat.
Weeks-active in the Playbook — target ≥6 of 12 weeks logged use.
Documented workflow change — each completer ships ≥2 named, AI-augmented workflows owned by name (e.g. "the Q3 deal-memo template owned by Maya").
Capacity returned — validated qualitatively in manager 1:1s, not a self-report number on a survey.
Organic spread — ≥1 workflow adopted by a non-pilot teammate inside 90 days.

If the pilot misses these gates, do not expand. The cost was capped at the pilot price.

The Operator's Brief — a paid course for managers in professional services and real estate.
Operator $1,200/yr · Team $1,400/seat/yr · 14-day money-back guarantee.
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