Calculators
Run the numbers on your content before you invest.
A simulator that works out your content plan over 36 months and sets it alongside search ads, and eight calculators for what content costs, what an AI flow saves, what your traffic is worth, what AI answers cost you, what a better next step and repurposing deliver, ROI, and agency or in-house. Everything is calculated in your browser, nothing is stored.
Content simulator
Choose a type of business, move the sliders and see when your content plan pays for itself, alongside what the same budget in search ads delivers. Lower the number of months you publish and see what happens when you stop.
How we calculate
Per month: visitors = sum over all published pieces of visitors per piece × growth curve × wear. A piece grows slowly, accelerates and levels off (an S-curve) until it is fully grown after the chosen number of months, and then wears out by the chosen percentage per year. Customers = visitors × conversion. Margin = customers × gross margin per customer. Costs run until you stop publishing. Search ads for comparison: visitors = monthly budget / cost per click, with the same conversion and margin, and zero as soon as the budget stops. Brand campaigns are not included here: they keep working for months, but deliver few direct clicks. The example values per type are illustrative, not benchmarks.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting.
What does content cost per month?
Choose how much you create per month, your hourly rate and how much time AI saves. You get the monthly cost, the hours, the cost per piece and how many full-time people it takes.
How we calculate
Hours per piece: article 7, customer story 11, newsletter 5, post 1.25 and short video 7.5, each including briefing, final editing, visuals and publication. According to Orbit Media 2026, writing an article takes 3 hours 20 minutes on average; we add the rest of the process. Production hours = sum of number × hours × (1 − time saved with AI). Coordination = 15 percent on top of production hours. Total = (production + coordination) × hourly rate + promotion + tools. Full-time = hours / 133 productive hours per month. Freelance rates in Belgium: copy 66, graphic 87, audiovisual 70 euros per hour (Creative Shelter, April 2026). The hours per piece and the time saved are estimates by Edge.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
What does an AI flow save?
A tailored AI flow does the research, the first draft and the variants, in your voice. A human checks and edits. What does that save per year, and when have you earned back the set-up?
How we calculate
Cost per piece today = hours today × hourly rate. With the flow = hours with the flow × hourly rate + tools divided by the number of pieces. Saving per year = (today − with the flow) × pieces × 12. Set-up earned back = one-off set-up / saving per month. An honest time saving is usually between 30 and 60 percent, because a human always checks the facts, adds expertise and does the final edit. According to CMI 2026, 87 percent say AI improved productivity, but 39 percent say the content performs better.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
What is your organic traffic worth?
What would the traffic from Google and AI search engines cost if you had to buy it with ads, and what does growth deliver?
How we calculate
Value of your traffic = organic visits × 12 × cost per click. Growth = visits × growth × 12. Advertising value of the growth = growth × cost per click. Extra conversions = growth × conversion rate. Value = extra conversions × value per conversion. Organic traffic is not free: creating and promoting content costs money too. You will find your visits in Google Search Console and the cost per click in Google Ads. For the keyword content marketing, the estimated bid in Belgium was between 1.53 and 6.92 euros (Google Ads via DataForSEO, October 2026).
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
What do AI answers cost you?
When there is an AI summary above the search results, fewer people click through. How many visits and conversions could that cost you, and how many remain?
How we calculate
Lost visits = visits × 12 × informational share × share with AI summary × fewer clicks. Value = lost visits × conversion rate × value per conversion. The default of 58 percent fewer clicks comes from Ahrefs (February 2026, 300,000 keywords) and applies to position 1 for informational searches. The share of informational searches and the share with an AI summary are assumptions: check in Search Console which queries bring you traffic. What it does not show: how often you are cited in those summaries. That also builds recognition.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
What does a better next step deliver?
Readers are not yet leads. What does it deliver if more readers take a next step, thanks to a better call to action, a tool, a guide or a newsletter?
How we calculate
Leads per year = visitors × 12 × conversion. Extra leads = leads × improvement. Value = extra leads × value per lead. Net = value − cost × 12. Improvement needed = cost × 12 / (leads × value per lead). Calculate the value per lead honestly: what a lead delivers on average, after success rate and margin.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
What do you get out of one core piece?
Create one strong core piece and turn it into derivatives, or create each piece separately. What is the difference, and how much reach does it deliver?
How we calculate
Package = (hours core piece + derivatives × hours per derivative) × hourly rate. Cost per piece = package / (1 + derivatives). Stand-alone = hours for a stand-alone piece × hourly rate. Saved = derivatives × (stand-alone − hours per derivative × hourly rate). Reach = (1 + derivatives) × reach per piece. Derivatives are quicker to create because the thinking and the knowledge are already in the core piece.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
ROI of your content programme
Does a content programme pay off over several years, if you estimate the extra cash flow honestly?
How we calculate
NPV = −investment + sum of extra cash flow / (1 + rate)^year. ROI = (extra cash flow × years − investment) / investment, without discounting. Payback period = investment / extra cash flow per year. IRR is the rate at which NPV is zero. Content rarely pays for itself in the first year: calculate over three to five years, and use the simulator to see the month-by-month trend.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
Agency or in-house: the cost per year
What does a year of content cost in-house compared with an agency or partner?
How we calculate
In-house = people × salary cost / 12 × months. With agency = days × day rate + the in-house cost × the share of internal time still needed. Not included: tools and promotion budget (you have those in both cases), rhythm, quality and what your team learns or misses out on.
Simplified model: use it for an order of magnitude, not as a quote or for accounting. Example values, adjust them to your situation.
Do not know your own figures?
You will find your visitors and search queries in Google Search Console, your leads in your CRM, your cost per click in Google Ads. Edge is happy to help you put together an honest business case for your content.