Comparison
Should I hire an admin person or automate the repetitive tasks?
Short answer
It depends on the work. If it's repetitive volume with clear rules (reading and sorting email, copying data, chasing documents), automating usually costs less and copes with peaks. If it needs judgement, client contact or tasks that change, you need a person. Often the best answer is both.
Amud team · Reviewed on October 29, 2026 · 3 min read
When a business can't keep up, the first idea is usually to hire. That's reasonable, but first look at which work isn't getting done. If there's a lot of it and it's always the same, hiring someone to do it by hand means paying a salary to copy and paste.
What does one more person cost?
According to the INE's Quarterly Labour Cost Survey, in the second quarter of 2026 the average cost per worker in Spain was €3,388 a month. Of that, €2,513 is salary and €875 is other costs, mostly social security contributions. The cost per hour actually worked was €26.18.
That's an average across all sectors and roles: an admin role may be above or below it. And some costs aren't in that figure:
- Recruiting and training until the person is up to speed.
- Holidays and absences: at least 30 calendar days of paid holiday a year (Article 38 of the Workers' Statute), plus sick leave and other leave.
- Workload peaks: a person works set hours; a quarter-end close or a campaign doesn't.
What does the repetitive work you already do cost?
With the assumptions in our ROI calculator (€30 an hour and 4.33 weeks a month), every daily hour someone spends on a repetitive task costs about €650 a month. If three people spend two hours a day reading email, copying data or chasing documents, that's about €3,900 a month on work that needs no judgement. That's more than the average cost of a new hire, and you're already paying it.
What does automating cost?
It depends on the process, which is why Amud starts with a free assessment. After that, the price is fixed per project with no lock-in, plus the usage cost of the tools and AI models, which depends on volume. What's worth comparing isn't the price but how many hours it frees up and how quickly it pays back.
Hiring vs automating, point by point
| Hire a person | Automate the task | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Salary and contributions every month, about €3,400 on average per the INE | Fixed-price project plus usage cost by volume |
| Until it pays off | Recruiting and training | Assessment, build and testing with real cases |
| Volume and peaks | Limited hours | Absorbs peaks without overtime |
| Judgement and exceptions | Handles them | Spots them and hands them to a person |
| Client contact | Their strength | Prepares replies a person approves |
| Hours | Their working day, holidays and absences | Works at any hour |
| Repetitive errors | Fatigue and slips when copying | Copies the thousandth time like the first |
| If they leave | Their know-how leaves too | The process stays documented in your accounts |
When to hire, when to automate, and when to do both
Hire when the work needs judgement, relationships with clients or suppliers, or tasks that change every day. Also when what's missing is sales or technical capacity, not admin time.
Automate when the task:
- repeats many times a week
- follows rules you could explain
- moves information from one place to another (email to software, PDF to spreadsheet, order to ERP)
Do both when the team is swamped by repetitive work and also lacks someone for the work that adds value. Automating the repetitive part first usually changes the profile you need to hire: instead of someone to type, someone to serve, review and decide.
What if we already do it with ChatGPT?
It's the objection we hear most. ChatGPT helps the person using it, but it works when someone asks: you open the conversation, give it the context and move the result where it belongs. A digital employee is connected to your email and software, starts on its own when work arrives and asks for approval before anything important. We compare them in detail in we already use ChatGPT: what does a digital employee add?.
Where to start
- List the tasks that repeat every week and who does them.
- Note how often they happen and how long each one takes.
- Mark the ones that follow clear rules: those are the candidates to automate.
- Put numbers on them with the ROI calculator and compare them with the cost of hiring.
To go further, which processes to automate first explains how to prioritise, and how we work describes the assessment.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
We already use ChatGPT for some of these tasks. Isn't that enough?
It helps whoever uses it, but it works when someone asks: you open the conversation, give it the context, check what it returns and move the result where it belongs. Automating means that happens without anyone starting it, connected to your email and software, with approval where it's needed.
Which tasks aren't worth automating?
The ones that happen rarely, change every time or depend on a personal relationship, like negotiating with a client or handling a delicate complaint. A person does better there than any automation.
Does the person doing that task today lose their job?
In an SMB, that person usually stops doing the repetitive part and moves on to what wasn't getting done: better client service, reviewing exceptions or clearing the backlog. Automation changes their tasks; whether the role changes is the company's decision.
How do I know what a task costs me today?
Count how often it happens each week and how long it takes each time, then multiply by the hourly cost. Amud's ROI calculator does it in three steps.
Keep reading
Guide
Automation savings calculator
Answer three questions about your team and find out what repetitive work costs you each year and how much of it you could recover by automating. Below we explain the formula so you can check it.
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What can an AI digital employee do? 10 real tasks in a small business
A digital employee is an AI agent with a job in your company. The definition is quick to grasp; the hard part is picturing what it would do day to day. These are ten concrete tasks it already handles in small businesses, what it shouldn't do and how it gets started.
Solution
Email and WhatsApp orders, straight into your ERP without retyping
Every order that arrives by email, WhatsApp or as a PDF goes into your ERP with the customer, items, quantities and prices checked. The ones that don't add up are left for a person to review. Nobody types in an order again.
Question
We already use ChatGPT at work: what does a digital employee add?
ChatGPT helps whoever uses it, when they ask. A digital employee does a whole task when work arrives: it reads the email, checks your software, prepares the reply and asks for approval before sending it. They don't compete: most companies use both.
Which task would you like off your plate?
Tell us how your team works. In a free 30-minute session we'll tell you what can be automated, how much you'd save and what isn't worth it.
Book a free meeting