What does "runs on rules" actually mean?

That the job has a right answer you could describe to somebody else without saying "it depends". Same input, same output, every time. The opposite is not a hard job, it is a job where a person weighs something up, and plenty of the best work in a business is that second kind.

Why three piles rather than yes or no?

Because most real jobs land in the middle, and a checker that forced them into yes or no would be lying to you. The middle pile is the honest one: mostly the same, with the odd judgement call, which is the mix that needs somebody to look at it properly.

Does this tell me what to automate?

No, and it does not tell you how either. It sorts what you listed so you can see the shape of your own week. What a job would actually take to hand over depends on what it touches, what happens when it goes wrong, and who is accountable for it, none of which fits in three dropdowns.

Your figures are not. The sums run in your browser and the numbers you type are never sent to us. We do count that a tool was used, with no figures attached, so we know which tools are worth keeping. The one thing that reaches us is the summary on the button at the end, and only if you press it, because that button puts the same summary into the audit form in front of you, where you can edit or delete it before sending anything. No cookies, no tracking, nothing stored on your device.

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Which of your jobs run on rules?

List up to ten jobs your business does over and over. For each one, say how often it happens, whether the answer is the same every time, and whether somebody has to decide something. This sorts them into three piles.

The jobs you repeat

The page opens on three example jobs, one in each pile, so you can see what it does. Type over them with your own. Answer all three questions and a job drops into a pile.

Job How often Same every time Anyone decide

Look rules based

Need a person

Need a closer look

Change anything above and the piles sort themselves again.

Take this to a free audit

How this works it out

This one does no arithmetic. It reads the three answers you gave about each job and puts it in one of three piles, and there is no score behind that, nothing weighted and nothing added up.

Look rules based

A job where the answer is always the same and nobody has to decide anything is rules based by description.
Need a person

A job where somebody decides something is not, whatever else is true about it.
Need a closer look

Everything else is in the middle, which is where most real work lives.

The middle pile is the honest part. "Needs a closer look" is not a polite way of saying maybe: it is the accurate answer when a job is mostly the same but not always, or when the answer varies and nobody can say what makes it vary.

That usually means a rule exists and nobody has written it down, which is a good thing to find out and not something three dropdowns can settle.

How often a job happens does not change which pile it lands in, because a rare job that runs on rules still runs on rules. It changes whether the job is worth anybody's attention, which is why the sentences mention it. If you want the hours and the money behind that, the cost of admin time calculator counts them, and our full workings are on the methodology page.

What it will not do

Tell you what to automate
Tell you what to use
Tell you in what order

Questions people ask

What does "runs on rules" actually mean?: That the job has a right answer you could describe to somebody else without saying "it depends". Same input, same output, every time. The opposite is not a hard job, it is a job where a person weighs something up, and plenty of the best work in a business is that second kind.
Why three piles rather than yes or no?: Because most real jobs land in the middle, and a checker that forced them into yes or no would be lying to you. The middle pile is the honest one: mostly the same, with the odd judgement call, which is the mix that needs somebody to look at it properly.
Does this tell me what to automate?: No, and it does not tell you how either. It sorts what you listed so you can see the shape of your own week. What a job would actually take to hand over depends on what it touches, what happens when it goes wrong, and who is accountable for it, none of which fits in three dropdowns.
Is anything stored?: Your figures are not. The sums run in your browser and the numbers you type are never sent to us. We do count that a tool was used, with no figures attached, so we know which tools are worth keeping. The one thing that reaches us is the summary on the button at the end, and only if you press it, because that button puts the same summary into the audit form in front of you, where you can edit or delete it before sending anything. No cookies, no tracking, nothing stored on your device.

Where these numbers come from

Nothing here but your own answers . This is a sorter, not a calculator. There is no score, no public rate and no industry average in it. It opens on three generic example jobs so you can see what it does, and after that it reads the three answers you give about each job and nothing else.

Last checked 19 September 2026.

Our workings are on the methodology page .

The real number

This is an estimate. The audit is the count.

A calculator works from what you typed. The free audit works from your actual week: every repeated job, ranked by the hours it eats, with a map of the five worth doing first. It costs nothing and you keep the lot.

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