EDI ROI Calculator

Payback and first-year ROI for automating retailer orders with EDI, from your own volumes, chargebacks and software quotes.

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Net savings a year with EDI automation

$91,935

Removing 90% of entry time and 95% of order errors saves $99,135 a year; after $7,200 in fees that is $91,935.

Payback: Under 1 month
First-year ROI: 978%
First-year net: $89,935
Cost today: $106,633
Cost after automation: $14,698
Hours saved: 1,560

Currency

Your order entry today

Orders per day

Minutes to enter one order

Reading, keying, checking and fixing one order by hand.

Loaded hourly cost (USD)

Wage plus employer costs (taxes, benefits, paid leave).

Working days a year

260 is 52 five-day weeks. Around 252 in the UK after bank holidays.

Orders with a costly error

The default 2% is a placeholder, not a measured rate. Use your own.

Average cost of one error

Re-ships, credits, returns handling and the time to sort it out. The default is a placeholder.

Retailer chargebacks per month

Compliance fines for late or wrong ASNs, invoices and labels.

What EDI automation changes

Entry time removed by automation

Order errors prevented

What it costs you

Software and VAN fees per month

From the quotes you have. The default is a placeholder, not anyone's price.

One-off setup cost

Onboarding, mapping and partner testing.

Show the working

Orders a year:50 × 260 days = 13,000
Hours:13,000 × 8 min ÷ 60 = 1,733
Labour:1,733 h × 25 = 43,333
Errors:13,000 × 3% × 150 = 58,500
Chargebacks:400 × 12 = 4,800
Cost today:106,633
Left after automation:43,333 × 10% + (58,500 + 4,800) × 5% = 7,498
Net saving:99,135 − 600 × 12 = 91,935
Payback:2,000 ÷ (91,935 ÷ 12) = 0.3 months

The EDI ROI Formula

Net annual saving = (cost today - cost left after automation) - yearly EDI fees. First-year ROI = (net saving - setup) / (yearly fees + setup). Cost today is labour to key orders, the errors that slip through, and retailer chargebacks.

Worked example: 50 retailer orders a day

Orders a year = 50 x 260 = 13,000
Labour = 13,000 x 8 min / 60 x $25 = $43,333
Errors = 13,000 x 3% x $150 = $58,500; chargebacks = $400 x 12 = $4,800
Cost today = 43,333 + 58,500 + 4,800 = $106,633
Left after automation = 43,333 x 10% + (58,500 + 4,800) x 5% = $7,498
Net saving = 106,633 - 7,498 - ($600 x 12) = $91,935
Payback = $2,000 / (91,935 / 12) = 0.3 months

With these placeholder costs, EDI pays back its setup in under a month. Put in your own quotes to check.

What to Include on Each Side

Costs to include in an EDI ROI calculation
Side	Include
Cost today	Keying time, order errors, compliance chargebacks, late-ASN fines
Cost after	Exception review time, errors that remain
EDI fees	Software or VAN subscription, per-document charges
Setup	Partner mapping, testing, onboarding

Retailers set the rules, so chargebacks often move the numbers more than labour does. See which documents your retailers require in the retailer EDI compliance guides, check whether you are ready with the EDI readiness assessment, and validate a document in the EDI inspector. For orders that arrive by email and PDF as well, the order processing cost calculator adds multi-channel overhead.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you calculate EDI ROI?

Work out what manual processing of retailer orders costs a year (labour, errors and compliance chargebacks), take off what remains after automation, then subtract the yearly EDI software and VAN fees. First-year ROI is that net saving, less the setup cost, divided by the year's total spend. Payback is the setup cost divided by the monthly net saving.

What does EDI cost?

It depends on the provider, the number of trading partners and the documents you exchange. Expect a monthly software or VAN fee, sometimes per-document or per-kilocharacter charges, and a one-off setup per trading partner for mapping and testing. Enter the quotes you have; the calculator does not assume any vendor's price.

What are retailer chargebacks?

Fines retailers deduct from your invoices when you break their compliance rules: a late or missing 856 ASN, a wrong carton label, an invoice that does not match the PO. They are often a percentage of the invoice or a flat fee per violation, and they add up quietly in deductions.

Why does the calculator not assume errors drop to zero?

Because they do not. Automation stops keying errors, but bad master data, wrong prices on the PO and short shipments still happen. The default prevents 95% of order errors and the retailer fines that follow them; lower it if your issues are mostly in the warehouse.

Is 260 working days right?

It is 52 five-day weeks. Use around 252 in the UK after bank holidays, or more if you take orders at weekends. The field is editable.