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📈 Calculate Return on an Investment

Build the calculator you keep rebuilding in a spreadsheet, then put it on a link anyone can use. These prompts turn a formula into a working app: clean inputs, a result people trust, a saved record of every calculation, and an assistant that explains what the number means. Useful on your own desk, and useful in public as the page that brings people to you.
  • Tested prompts
  • Edit for your use case
  • Works across models
  • Save in Taskade
Calculate Return on an Investment

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I approve purchases without any real idea whether they pay back. Build me a return on investment calculator. Let me enter the one-off cost, the ongoing monthly cost, the expected monthly benefit whether that is money saved or money earned, and the period I care about. Work out total cost, total benefit, net return, return as a percentage, the payback period in months and the break-even month. Keep every assumption as its own visible, editable field with a note explaining where the figure came from. Let me save each case and compare several side by side. Add an AI agent that takes a case, rebuilds it on deliberately pessimistic assumptions, and tells me plainly whether the decision still holds and which single assumption the whole case depends on. Automate a scheduled reminder six months after a decision to come back and compare the forecast against what actually happened. Two logins: an analyst who builds cases, and an owner who approves them.

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01 / Spark - intelligence awakens

Calculate Return on an Investment

Model costs and benefits over time to get payback period, break-even, and a return, with editable assumptions and a pessimistic case.

// the spark catches · intelligence awakens · the answer unfolds

Most purchase decisions are made on a feeling and defended with a number afterwards. This does it the other way round, with the assumptions written down where they can be argued with.

What's Included

  • Costs and benefits over time not a single-year snapshot.
  • Payback period and break-even month which is what people actually ask.
  • Assumptions listed and editable because that is where the disagreement lives.
  • An assistant that tests the case against a pessimistic set of numbers.

How To Use

  1. Separate one-off cost from running cost. They behave very differently.
  2. Write assumptions down. An unstated assumption is an argument waiting to happen.
  3. Always run a pessimistic case. If it only works at best case, it does not work.
  4. Revisit the calculation after six months against what really happened.

Take it into the board pack with analytics prompts, and track the spend with personal finance prompts.

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