TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

TCO for an AI employee is the all-in annual cost — subscriptions, model spend, integration build, oversight, eval, security, and human review — not just the line item on the invoice.

Vendor pricing is one input. TCO honestly accounts for: integration engineering hours, monthly token spend, dedicated reviewer time, eval infrastructure, compliance overhead, and the opportunity cost of failures. A low-cost AI tool with $30K/yr in setup and review hidden inside it has a TCO of ~$31K/yr.

Example

AI Recruiter sticker: $1.2K/yr. TCO once integration time, monthly token usage, and the recruiter's review hours are counted: $9K/yr. Still cheaper than a $90K coordinator — but plan for the real number.

How OpenLabor uses it

OpenLabor publishes TCO calculators alongside subscription pricing so the comparison is honest.

What's the biggest hidden cost?

Almost always human oversight time. Bad systems steal hours; good systems return them.

Related: roi, cost-per-task, headcount-equivalent.

AI Labor Glossary