whirrwork

Robot or Human?

Warehouse order picking (AMR-assisted)

Picker walking with a cart vs Collaborative picking AMRs (people still pick)

Whirrwork modelled estimates, not facts. Methodology · Track record

Human · Per year$338,587Manual cart picking
Robot · Per year$371,332AMRs as a service
Paybacknever
Crossover year2029 (2028–after 2035)Base-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers it is close: decide on the things that are not cost. Even running flat out, one robot would not displace enough work to pay for itself.

United States · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

Run your numbers

Change anything. Results update as you type and stay in your browser; nothing is stored or sent. Works offline after your first visit.

Workload
Assumption

Order lines picked per day.

Assumption

Operating hours per day (two shifts).

Assumption

Operating days per month.

Assumption

Active months per year.

People
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7065.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Assumption

Picks per hour for a person walking a cart. Varies hugely with order profile; use your own WMS figure.

Robot
Assumption

Picks per robot-hour. Collaborative AMRs do the walking; people still do the picking, so this is robot throughput, not autonomy.

CIVL

Reported Locus Robotics RaaS price per robot per month.

Assumption

WMS integration, mapping and change management for a first site. Integration often costs more than the robots.

Assumption

Contract or useful life in years.

Assumption

Share of the shift each robot is available.

Assumption

Share of robot work lost to faults.

Assumption

Share of picks that stay manual (oversize, hazmat, rush orders).

Assumption

Picker minutes per robot-hour. In assisted picking a person meets the robot at each pick face, so this is large by design.

Assumption

kWh per robot-hour.

Assumption

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Money
Assumption

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Assumption

Years in the NPV comparison.

Assumption

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Assumption

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Assumption

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Results

OptionPer monthPer yearPer unit (pick)UpfrontPaybackBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Human Manual cart picking Baseline $28,216$338,587$0.321— — — —
Robot AMRs as a service
Robots needed: 5
 $30,944$371,332$0.352$30,000 never not reachable
Utilisation 83%
 -$100,854

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: AMRs as a service5-year NPV vs baseline: AMRs as a serviceRobot output per hourlow value: 35 → -$1,045,149high value: 90 → $399,000Human output per hourlow value: 50 → $697,188high value: 150 → -$721,553Supervisionlow value: 20 → $200,750high value: 45 → -$553,258Subscription per robot per mo…low value: 1500 → $22,443high value: 3000 → -$347,446Hourly wagelow value: 14.36 → -$185,906high value: 21.54 → -$15,801Work lost to failureslow value: 0 → -$73,709high value: 0.08 → -$182,286Uptimelow value: 0.8 → -$100,854high value: 0.97 → -$2,217Integration and setuplow value: 10000 → -$80,854high value: 100000 → -$170,854Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → -$145,492high value: 1.579 → -$56,215-$100,854low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/warehouse-picking/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Whirrwork modelled estimates, not facts.

ChartHuman cost per unit (Base), Robot cost per unit (Base), Robot cost per unit (Robots fast), Robot cost per unit (Robots slow). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/warehouse-picking/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.$0.00$0.10$0.20$0.302026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / pickscenario rangeHuman cost per unit (Base)Robot cost per unit (Base)Robot cost per unit (Robots fast)Robot cost per unit (Robots slow)Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/warehouse-picking/). Modelled estimat…

Crossover year: 2029 (2028–after 2035)

What the spreadsheet misses

Safety
Less walking and pushing; mixed robot and forklift traffic needs rules.
Quality
Fewer mis-picks are commonly reported because the robot screen shows the next pick; measure yours.
Flexibility
RaaS lets you add robots for peak and hand them back, which is the main argument for it.
Edge cases
Oversize items, very low volumes and constantly changing slotting reduce the benefit.
Customer experience
Invisible to customers except via speed and accuracy.
Jobs and redeployment
Assisted picking keeps people picking; it changes the job (less walking) more than it removes it.
Regulation
Workplace safety rules for mobile robots (ISO 3691-4 in many markets) apply to the vendor and the site.

Related

Sources on this page

  1. Locus Robotics offers warehouse robots for $2,000 per month as a service CIVL, 2026-10
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  3. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  4. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  5. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  6. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  7. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  8. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  9. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  10. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  11. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  12. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013