Process mining engagements typically deliver 3:1 to 10:1 first-year ROI with payback periods of 3–9 months. This guide covers typical engagement costs, where ROI comes from, and how to build a defensible business case.
Engagement cost ranges
- Fixed-scope discovery (6–8 weeks): $50K–$150K depending on scope and team size
- Discovery + diagnosis + design (12–14 weeks): $120K–$400K
- End-to-end transformation (6–18 months): $400K–$3M+
- Embedded team (12+ months): $80K–$200K per consultant per year
- Sustain advisory: $5K–$25K monthly retainer
Tool licensing costs
- Celonis enterprise: $200K–$2M+ per year depending on data volume and modules
- SAP Signavio (within SAP enterprise agreement): often bundled, marginal cost varies
- ABBYY Timeline: $50K–$500K per year
- Open-source alternatives: $0 license, but significant implementation engineering investment
Where ROI comes from
- Cycle time reduction (10–40% typical)
- Working capital release (faster invoice-to-cash, reduced WIP)
- Quality improvement (rework reduction)
- Capacity recovery (more output from same headcount)
- Compliance cost reduction (automated conformance vs manual audit)
Building the business case
The strongest business cases for process mining engagements: (1) start with a single high-value process, (2) quantify current waste using event-log evidence, (3) project conservative improvement scenarios, (4) include capability transfer value. Avoid generic industry-benchmark claims; your data is the proof.
Book a scoping call for indicative pricing on your specific use case.