← Back

The Hidden Cost of Human-in-the-Loop Payments

Today, agents are unable to close the loop on payments, and humans step in. Here's an exploration of what that costs.

Select workflow

✓
Property Management
Paying contractors, vendors, utilities
✓
Freight & Logistics
Settling with truckers and carriers
✓
Procurement
Supplier payments, inventory management
✓
Healthcare Back-Office
Vendor payments, medical supplies

Your numbers

50
$2,500
$45

Annual cost

Time cost — manual approval hours $16,200
Delay cost — missed discounts, churn $7,500
Error cost — duplicates, reconciliation $3,750
Total annual cost $27,450
With human approval
2–4 days
→
With autonomous payments
<1 second

Breakdown

Minutes per payment approval 12 min
Payments per year 600
Total volume processed $1,500,000
Error rate (industry avg) 0.25%
Early payment discount missed ~0.5%

Agents will move more transaction volume than humans within a decade. Natural is building the rails to make that happen.

natural.co →
Built by Aryan and Claude Opus 4.5
Inspired by Natural