What goes into the numbers.

One fixed planning example: Indie hacker, with 250 AI-generated posts across 5 TikTok accounts. We compare setup and the first month of output. These are illustrative workload assumptions, not measured customer savings or a growth forecast. The comparison does not change when you select a different plan.

An automated workflow

• DIY: 55.42 hours. Research: 4 hours. Ideas: 4 hours. Account setup: 3.75 hours. Scripts and captions: 12.5 hours. AI generation, checking and editing: 25 hours. Scheduling and publishing: 4.17 hours. Monthly reporting: 2 hours.
• Publishalready: 1.5 hours. Choosing a package: 5 minutes. Company brief: 10 minutes. Account verification and access: an allowance of 15 minutes per account, or 75 minutes across 5 accounts. The platform runs production and publishing. People handle quality checks and exceptions.
• Hiring: 28.17 founder hours. Role and budget: 2 hours. Candidate screening: 5 hours. Interviews: 8 hours. Offer: 2 hours. Onboarding: 4 hours. First production: 3 hours. Ongoing management: 4.17 hours.

The DIY allowance is 3 minutes per post for scripts, 6 minutes for AI generation, review and editing, and 1 minute for publishing. Research and setup are additional. This example fits a streamlined, carousel-heavy workflow. Longer videos, original research, failed generations and revisions can take substantially more time. It is not a promise that every post takes 10 minutes.

Hiring uses one AI-assisted operator as a reference, not a universal posts-per-employee capacity rule. The format mix and required production quality determine actual staffing. Founder hours exclude the employee's production hours, which are compensated by salary.

The first post, on the same clock

DIY uses an assumed seven calendar days. Hiring uses SHRM's 2026 median of 39 calendar days to fill a nonexecutive role, plus an assumed seven days for onboarding and first production. This is a general recruiting benchmark, not a content-role guarantee. SHRM 2026 recruiting benchmark.

The Publishalready marker is a 48-hour planning target after the brief, product assets and publishing-ready account are available. It excludes new-account preparation and can be affected by account-specific scheduling lead times and platform checks. US managed-account preparation is normally 1-2 days, sometimes up to 7, before this ready-account scenario applies; other countries vary. The timeline starts on the visitor’s local date as an illustration, not a reserved launch slot. Dates refresh overnight.

Workload assumptions updated September 14, 2026; scope corrected September 15, 2026. Dollar-valued founder time and hypothetical software budgets have been removed from the comparison so they cannot be mistaken for alternative service prices.