How to Calculate ROI for a Project: Formula Explained

Lucija Bakić

September 11, 2024

A screenshot of a software for project ROI calculation displaying a digital marketing strategy. The dashboard shows a bar chart with billable time, scheduled time, budget total, and budget used across several weeks. Key project metrics like estimated time, worked time, remaining time, revenue, cost, and profit are listed. Invoicing and budget details are included below, with fields for tracking expenses related to equipment and people. Settings for time approval, expense approval, and custom cost rates are visible on the right, aiding in calculating ROI for the project.

Return on investment (ROI) is an evergreen project management metric for gauging the value of various types of projects.

Learning how to calculate ROI for a project is necessary to understand its financial gain and make informed decisions for future projects. Let’s get started.

How to Calculate ROI for a Project? Basic ROI Formula

Here’s the basic formula for how to calculate project ROI:

net profit / cost of investment x 100 = return on investment

A positive ROI means that your project was successful and brought in more financial benefit than its immediate costs, while a negative ROI means the opposite.

You can also monitor two different types of ROI:

  • Anticipated ROI is calculated before the project begins. It’s used to decide whether it’s worth starting a particular business venture (if the projected values are accurate).
  • Actual ROI is based on actual costs incurred and benefits gained and is calculated after the project is completed.

Example of ROI Calculation

Let’s say you’re running a website with around 1,000 users and 50$ ARPU (average revenue per user). You’re planning on implementing a redesigned sign-up page to increase your user base, and you want to calculate whether this is a good investment.

For example, if your expectations are a 5% increase in the user base the month after implementation, your anticipated ROI will amount to:

Net profit = 50 users x $50 ARPU = $2,500

Cost of investment = $3,000 to cover salaries for a week (designer and developer)

ROI = $2,500 / $3,500 x 100 = −28.57%


You can manage employee salaries in Productive

So, your potential return in that first month will be negative if the userbase increases by only 5%.

The same calculation can be done with different variables, such as signups increasing permanently, which you can calculate with payback period analysis or internal rate of return — learn more below.

Cost-Benefit vs Payback Period vs Rate of Return

Now you know the simple formula.

However, there are additional types of formulas you can use for calculating return on investment, depending on how in-depth you want to go: cost-benefit ratio, payback period, and internal rate of return (IRR) analysis.

Let’s explore them in more detail.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

The cost-benefit analysis, also known as the cost/benefit ratio, depicts your return of investment with an index. The formula is as follows:

project solution benefits / project solution costs = cost-benefit ratio

In cost-benefit analysis, a ratio of 5 (often written as 5:1) would mean that for each dollar spent, five are returned in benefits.

The standards for what is considered an acceptable vs bad cost/benefit ratio usually depends from organization to organization:

A 1:1 ratio (break-even status) is unacceptable for any projects. In others, a minimum 1.25:1 ratio is required, where the benefits are 1.25 times the cost of the project.

Source: The Project Management Scorecard

Payback Period Analysis

Payback period analysis looks at how many years it will take to recuperate the cost of the initial investment into a project, program, software, etc.

total investment / annual savings = years to payback

For example, let’s say you’re considering buying a machine that costs $50,000. The machine is expected to save you $15,000 annually (having subtracted the project expenses).

This means your payback period is: $50,000 / $15,000 = 3.33, meaning that the period of time to pay back your initial investment is 3 years on average.

The payback period ignores the time value of money or the fact that money has a different value in the present vs the future.

Internal Rate of Return

The internal rate of return (IRR) can be a bit of a complex calculation to explain, but in its essence, it’s the rate at which your investment will break even, considering the time value of money.

So, let’s say your initial investment is $1,000. You expect that the investment will result in a cash flow of $400 in the following 3 years — however, you’ll need to account for cost factors in the future (such as inflation, but there are other factors as well) to understand the value of this money in the present.

So, you want to find the so-called discount rate by which to multiply the future cash flow to find out the present value of your money.

The IRR looks for a discount rate at which the cost of investment is equal to the benefit of the investment; or, in other words, that the sum of your future cashflows (translated into present value, since money devalues) is equal to the cost of investment.

Main Steps of ROI Analysis

We can separate the process of calculating ROI into three steps:

1. Conducting a Needs Analysis

Needs analysis identifies the goals and objectives of an investment or project. It usually involves meetings with various stakeholders, analysis of historical data, setting estimates, and documenting all conclusions.

A well-executed needs analysis helps determine whether the project or investment is aligned with business goals and if the expected ROI will justify the investment. It also supports effective resource prioritization.

2. Tracking Costs and Expenses

Tracking actual costs in project management ensures that all financial inputs related to the project are accounted for. Without it, you won’t have accurate data for optimizing your investment strategy.

This includes direct costs, such as initial investments, materials, and labor, as well as indirect costs, like maintenance, overhead, and any recurring expenses.

Learn more about managing your costs and accounting for budget overruns.


Productive uses an overhead algorithm to help you manage costs

By keeping a precise record of all expenses, businesses can ensure their ROI analysis remains grounded in real numbers. An incomplete or inaccurate cost assessment risks overestimating or understating the impacts of a project.

3. Collecting and Sharing Results

Finally, once you have some tangible project results, you’ll need to collect the results into a report and share them with stakeholders. This will more usually be done for internal projects, as data is more readily accessible.

For client projects, a project progress report is the more common type of data collected (including time, budgets, and other project-related data), since calculating overall ROI usually requires insights into the client’s finances and other sensitive data.


An example of a project progress report created with Productive’s Reporting

In any case, a ROI analysis report is a useful source for managing future projects, creating internal benchmarks for revenue goals and the profitability of investments, and a great way to iterate on and improve your processes.

Importance of ROI for Projects

So, here’s why ROI can be such a powerful metric in the right hands:

  • Project analysts and management roles can forecast the potential benefits and risks of a business venture before allocating valuable resources to it.
  • It provides a baseline for an equal comparison between various types of internal projects, improving prioritization.
  • It helps justify and correct project budgets using reliable data, improving financial decisions and overall business performance.

However, there’s a catch (or a couple of them).

Challenges of Calculating ROI

Here are the main challenges you might face in your ROI analysis:

Isolating the Influence of Other Factors

The example above (calculating anticipated ROI of a web design) is a good way to explain this challenge.

While you might be able to reasonably attribute the rise in signups in the first month after implementing the new redesign, doing this for subsequent months might be more difficult.

For example, maybe you’re running new marketing campaigns that have increased traffic, leading to a natural rise in signups. Seasonality can also have a marked impact on various business metrics.

Businessess will often use A/B testing to help them isolate the effects of a specific project (check out some reporting tools). However, A/B testing can also be difficult to perform reliably, as you need a sizable sample of users to get accurate results.

If you don’t, it might take multiple months to get results, which can slow down your decision-making and be a detriment to your agency’s processes.

This brings us to the next point:

Considering the Type of Project

Not all projects are suitable for a comprehensive ROI analysis, and even if they are, they might not need it. For example, certain initiatives will result in benefits that are difficult to quantify and put in monetary terms — for example, employee benefits and skill-building initiatives. However, this doesn’t make them any less important.

Additionally, a ROI study also requires valuable resources, so being selective when to conduct one or not is the cost effective approach. The need for ROI can also vary depending on your organizational maturity:

Some organizations do not have pressure to show value for programs and processes. If. you fit this description, then don’t worry about ROI. But if your organization has experienced failed programs, if senior management is concerned about resource allocation, if you have a large budget and a lot of programs, or if you want to be accountable for the funds you’re asked to manage, then you may be ready for ROI.

Source: Handbook of Improving Performance in the Workplace

Making Accurate Estimates

Finally, your ROI analysis starts with estimating. This is why it’s necessary to:

  • use reliable sources when estimating values
  • be conservative when developing benefits and costs
  • make sure you’re tracking all of your project expenses

Using agency project management software can help you achieve all of these three points. An all-in-one platform is a reliable source of your business information, including employee cost rates, overhead and expenses, and previous project performance (for ex. the average time needed to complete specific tasks).

A screenshot of a software for project ROI calculation displaying a new expenses report. The table lists multiple expenses, including service types like "Business Development" and "Programming," along with dates, total costs, and billable amounts. Payment statuses include "Paid," "Unpaid," and "Requested," with corresponding reimbursement details. This expense overview helps in determining overall project costs, a critical factor in how to calculate ROI for a project by comparing costs to revenue and profits generated.


You can manage and approve external expenses in Productive

This helps you get accurate data when estimating your average ROI, and makes the process of gathering all of these numbers much less tedious.

Benefits of Financial Management Software Like Productive

We’ve talked about the impact software software has on your financial management. In short, this includes consolidated data, workflow efficiency, and faster decision-making processes.

An example of such a tool is Productive, the all-in-one agency management software. Productive helps improve project delivery, client relationships, and overall agency operations.

Moving to Productive freed up about 40% of my time, and I was able to concentrate my efforts on other, more important areas of the business. One of the biggest changes has been accuracy. I don’t have to rely on someone to input costs, it’s all done pretty much automatically.

Chris Stones,
Strategic and Operations Director at Mitchell & Stones

Learn how you can support your data accuracy with Productive.

Productive’s key features include:


Get a real-time overview of your project finances with productive

Book a demo with Productive to learn more about the benefits of flexible budget management and financial forecasting for agencies.

Manage Business Finances With Productive

Switch from multiple tools and spreadsheets to an all-in-one agency management solution.

Book a demo

Conclusion: How to Calculate ROI in Your Business

To conclude, here are some tips for improving your ROI calculations:

  • Assess your organizational maturity and evaluate which projects (if any) are suitable for a ROI analysis
  • Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment before the project or investment is started
  • Work on getting more accurate estimates by monitoring the hours and costs associated with different projects
  • Decide which ROI calculation is most suitable: the basic ROI formula, cost-benefit analysis, payback period, or internal rate of return 
  • Implement project cost management tools for real-time cost tracking and financial reporting

If you want to learn more about cost savings in project management, check out our articles on cost variance and schedule variance.

Connect With Agency Peers

Access agency-related Slack channels, exchange business insights, and join in on members-only live sessions.

Lucija Bakić

Content Specialist

Related articles