The Total Economic Impact™ Of Notion

Technical Team Productivity Improvement

Evidence and data. The interviewees said Notion helped their organizations’ technical teams move faster and save time managing projects by leveraging Notion agents for technical Q&A and checking code. The teams increased development speed and added more product features and capabilities without requiring additional headcount.

• The technical teams included developers, engineers, and technical project managers who were typically early adopters of Notion. The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization said: “Notion adoption was mostly driven by the tech people. It was strongly adopted by engineers, and they have a very big say in the company. I haven’t seen organic adoption as strong as we have seen with Notion.”

• The same interviewee explained how their organization’s technical team saved time managing projects: “Our top use case for Notion is for project management across multiple verticals. Before, we would have to switch between tools. For project management, we would have to switch between a project management tool, data stored in the cloud, and meeting notes stored in another place. With Notion, we have it all in one place, which is a great time-saver. We don’t have to switch between multiple tools, learn new tools, and buy new tools. We have most of the functionality that we need inside one tool.”

• Interviewees said technical team time savings were highest for specific technical tasks like coding and development. The CEO at the software organization reported that Notion agents helped developers save time during coding: “We have engineers who are using custom Notion agents to improve the development process. As developers work on new features, a custom agent reviews the code to see if there are any issues. Before, a developer might spend 40% of their day reviewing somebody else’s code, [but] that’s gone to zero with Notion.” The interviewee also said Notion helped accelerate development speed and that developers gained the ability to launch more product features and capabilities without additional resources.

• Several interviewees said their organizations created Notion Q&A agents that drew on senior technical team subject-matter expertise, allowing the senior experts to focus on technical work instead of time-consuming Q&A. The head of sales and success at the hospitality organization explained: “Before Notion, we would have to pull engineers and developers into customer issues, but that then became their job instead of the job they were [originally] supposed to be doing. We wanted to give people the ability to get the information that they needed without having to drag in domain expertise. With Notion, we could get what we needed by searching our database and returning results that were accurate. People are asking the same questions; they are just now being answered by an agent and not by a senior developer.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization’s technical team consists of 225 FTEs.

• In Year 1, 70% of the technical team adopts Notion.

• Adoption increases to 90% in Year 3.

• The technical team saves an average of 5 hours per week with Notion.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate for a technical team FTE is $77.

• The technical team repurposes 50% of the time saved to higher-value tasks.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The skill, experience, and sophistication of the organization’s technical team.

• How quickly the technical team adopts Notion.

• The level of executive buy-in and organizational maturity, which could impact adoption rates.

• Compensation rates for the technical team.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $4 million.

Sales And Customer Success Team Productivity Improvement

Evidence and data. Interviewees explained that Notion helped their organizations’ sales and customer success teams stay on top of the latest sales enablement content, easily find key data points and metrics for customer presentations, and save time needed to prepare for client calls and meetings. Several said their organizations built Notion custom agents to help their sales and customer success teams work more efficiently. Interviewees reported that customer success teams became more responsive to customer issues with Notion, which helped increase customer satisfaction and improve retention.

• Interviewees said that before Notion, sales and customer success teams often used outdated sales enablement content that limited their effectiveness and understanding of current product offerings. The director of revenue enablement at the financial services organization shared: “Before Notion, it was incredibly difficult to keep our content for salespeople updated all the time, [including] things like training decks, customer guides, and white papers. A lot of reps would save content locally on their computers, and when the content was updated, they were still using older versions. We would end up with a situation where only 30% had the updated versions.”

• The same interviewee explained how Notion helped solve this problem: “We have about 600 pieces of content that would potentially be helpful for our go-to-market organization, [such as] webinars, training decks, or customer-facing assets. Our Notion custom agent sits on top of that database. Salespeople can ask the agent what materials to use for a customer meeting, and it will provide them with options such as a presentation deck and applicable reference customers. It’s become our go-to for sales. The time for our salespeople to prepare for customer calls and execute them well was reduced by 80%.”

• Interviewees said Notion helped sales teams identify key quotes and metrics from within case studies and white papers. The director of revenue enablement for the financial services organization noted: “Salespeople don’t want a whole white paper; they want a quote from the white paper that is super helpful. They don’t want a whole case study; they want one stat from the case study. With Notion, we were able to drive consistent usage of our best sales materials [while minimizing] the time for the account executives and customer service managers to find and retrieve what they needed to be successful in their conversations.”

• The head of productivity and enablement at the AI software organization said their organization built a custom Notion product Q&A agent to help salespeople understand product offerings and know how to best respond to customer product questions. The interviewee shared: “We have a product question agent that is powered by Notion custom agents. It solved a major pain point for sales reps, which is what was happening with a particular product. [Now,] if the customer has a question or concern, [the agent] tells [reps] how to respond. That single agent is by itself worth the cost of Notion. It’s used by everybody on the sales team multiple times a day. We love it.” The interviewee added that because their organization’s sales and customer success team saved time, team members spent more time enriching and supporting existing customers, which helped increase customer retention.

• The CEO at the software organization said their organization built Notion Custom Agents to help the customer success team: “We’ve built a lot of custom Notion agents to help with customer success. So if a customer writes in that they have an issue, the agent can help triage it. We have become a lot more responsive to customer issues, and that has helped us with customer retention and customer satisfaction.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization’s sales and customer success team consists of 300 FTEs.

• In Year 1, 60% of the sales and customer success team adopts Notion.

• Adoption increases to 90% in Year 3.

• The sales and customer success team saves an average of 2 hours per week with Notion.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate for a sales and customer success team FTE is $58.

• The sales and customer success team repurposes 50% of the time saved to higher-value tasks.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The skill, experience, and sophistication of the organization’s sales and customer success team.

• How quickly the sales and customer success team adopts Notion.

• The level of executive buy-in and organizational maturity, which could impact adoption rates.

• Compensation rates for the sales and customer success team.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.5 million.

Knowledge Worker Productivity Improvement

Evidence and data. Interviewees said knowledge workers at their organizations saved between a few minutes and 2.5 hours per week with Notion.

• They explained that Notion provided a unified interface for knowledge workers to search, find, and understand information across their organizations. Previously, the knowledge workers had to switch between multiple tools and data sources to find the knowledge they needed. The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization shared: “Notion can search conversations, chats, internal wikis, emails, calendars, project management tools, and cloud drives in one interface.” The CEO at the software organization said: “If an employee wants to ask a question, for example, what products are releasing next month, they don’t have to go into four different dashboards to find the information. They just go to their personal Notion agent, and it tells them exactly what is going on.”

• The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization said, “People save 20 to 30 minutes a day because they don’t have to switch between multiple tools.” The chief product officer at the professional services organization said: “What used to take an hour searching for information [has been] reduced to 10 minutes, and that has drastically improved our efficiency. Employees can now use that time deeply investigating questions and planning ahead.”

• The professor and technology manager at the education organization noted: “The knowledge base is established. Before, it was hard to find things. Now the knowledge base is right there, and it’s easy to find things. … The teachers use Notion to share the information with their students, for example, upcoming events, if the classes have changed, or if the content of the class has changed. They let the students know in real time, and the student can see the content via their phone.” The interviewee also said that reviewing older exams to create new exams used to take professors between 20 and 30 minutes, but Notion does it instantly.

• The same interviewee shared that Notion helped their education organization move faster and save costs. They noted that it would previously take a month to publish a 300-page student handbook, but Notion eliminated back-and-forth with the printing company, which cut the time to two days. The organization also avoided $5,000 per year in printing costs because Notion delivers the handbook digitally.

• The quality engineer in construction said project managers at their company value Notion’s mobility and time savings: “Our work involves a lot of work onsite. Before, when were on the go, we could not fully utilize our project management systems. We realized we need something more mobile-friendly. Employees dispatched to the construction sites carry laptops or mobile devices including tablets. Notion is used on all of these mobile devices.”

• The same interviewee noted that construction project managers must verify what is happening on a construction site once a month. They said: “Before, it could take up to two days for the onsite people to gather information from hundreds and hundreds of regulations and relevant documents. With Notion, it takes only 30 minutes to gather the information and have it at their fingertips.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization has 975 general knowledge worker FTEs.

• In Year 1, 40% of the knowledge workers adopt Notion.

• Adoption increases to 60% in Year 3.

• Knowledge workers save an average of 1 hour per week with Notion.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate for a knowledge worker FTE is $48.

• Knowledge workers repurpose 50% of the time saved to higher-value tasks.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The skills, experience, and sophistication of the organization’s knowledge workers.

• How quickly knowledge workers adopt Notion.

• The level of executive buy-in and organizational maturity, which could impact adoption rates.

• Compensation rates for the knowledge workers.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.3 million.

Decommissioned Legacy Tools

Evidence and data. The interviewees said their organizations decommissioned legacy tools after implementing Notion, and five of the nine reported annual savings between $6,000 and $600,000. The decommissioned tools included project management, collaboration, cloud storage and AI note-taking tools. The IT teams at the organizations also saved the time previously needed to manage the legacy tools. The savings varied depending on the size of the organization and the tools decommissioned.

• The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization shared: “With Notion, we were able to decommission our AI note-taker tools. Everyone was using their own brand of choice. We were [also] able to decommission several project management tools because they were replaced with Notion. We used Notion to replace some of our cloud storage sites because they had horrible organic adoption.”

• Two interviewees said that while their organizations did not decommission legacy tools, Notion helped avoid future spending on other tools. The quality engineer in construction said, “While we have not decommissioned any specific products with Notion, we have avoided purchasing and introducing other products, and that’s a benefit for us.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization previously spent $150,000 annually on project management and collaboration tools.

• It decommissions 50% of these tools in Year 1, 75% in Year 2, and 100% in Year 3.

• The organization redeploys one IT team FTE who previously managed and maintained the legacy tools.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The size of the organization.

• The number and types of legacy collaboration and project management tools.

• The costs of legacy tools.

• How quickly the organization decommissions legacy tools.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $509,000.

Faster New Hire Onboarding

Evidence and data. Interviewees explained that Notion allowed their organizations to onboard, train, and ramp new employees faster. They noted each new employee received a personal Notion agent that connected them to company resources and helps them find answers to their questions.

• With Notion new employees at the interviewees’ organizations had a tool to help them search for and find answers to their questions. The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization said: “New employees can ask Notion questions like ‘Where are our offices?’, ‘What is my insurance policy?’, and ‘How can I book my travel?’ You don’t have to figure out where to find the information, you just go to Notion.”

• The head of sales and success in hospitality said Notion reduced the time needed to onboard salespeople from six months to two months: “Notion has been really important for training and onboarding new staff. It helps bring them up to speed faster and gives them the confidence to know they can find the answers they need. It decreases the ramp time for new employees. … ”

• Interviewees said Notion helped new sales and customer success team members get up to speed and bring in new deals faster. The head of sales and success in hospitality said their organization reduced the time to onboard new salespeople from 6 months to 2 months: “We’ve had some good results with the sales and customer success team being able to get deals done sooner.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization has 1,500 employees.

• The organization onboards 75 new employees (5% of the workforce) each year.

• The organization saves two weeks on new hire onboarding with Notion.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for an employee is $115,000.

• New employees repurpose 50% of the time saved to more productive tasks.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The size of the organization.

• The number of new hires per year.

• The skill levels of new employees, which may vary by role and affect adoption speed and the ability to ramp to productivity.

• The level of executive buy-in and organizational maturity, which could impact adoption rates.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $380,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:

• Accelerated AI adoption and AI confidence. Interviewees said that with Notion, their organizations’ employees increased their use of AI and became more confident using AI. The quality engineer in construction said: “Some employees were not familiar with AI before Notion. Now they feel more confident using AI and can access AI with more ease.” The chief product officer at the professional services organization noted, “Ninety percent of our employees are using AI through Notion.” Interviewees also found that Notion simplified the process of building custom AI agents. The CEO at the software organization explained: “Notion’s UI makes it very easy for anyone to build custom agents. You can use your English language skills and your problem-solving skills to work on a custom agent versus having to sift through lines of code.” The composite organization sees its AI adoption increase with Notion.

• Enhanced collaboration via a single connected workspace. Interviewees said Notion provided employees with a central, easily searchable workspace. The head of productivity and enablement at the AI software organization shared: “Notion integrates structured and unstructured data into a single searchable surface, which is really powerful. Spreadsheets, documents, and slides don’t have to be separate file types anymore.” The CEO at the software organization said: “The most important value for us from Notion has been the agentic platform. Users have their own personal agents that interact with all the things we’re doing as a company, allowing us to create a central brain.” Having a central workspace improves the composite organization’s employee collaboration, which increases the speed of its large-scale corporate initiatives (e.g., product launches, pricing changes).

• Improved decision-making with Notion AI Meeting Notes. Interviewees said their organizations used Notion AI Meeting Notes to record, transcribe, and analyze meeting conversations. They explained that it provided conversation context and identified action items, which helped improve decision-making. The head of productivity and enablement at the AI software organization explained: “Notion AI Meeting Notes will be running in the background, transcribing that conversation, and then analyzing the conversation. Notion provides the context of the conversation, which historically has been an impossible thing to do. People who were not in the meeting have access to the content, and it helps us make dramatically better decisions. Notion AI Meeting Notes is worth its weight in gold.” The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization said, “Notion AI Meeting Notes processes the meeting notes into actionable steps.” With Notion AI Meeting Notes, the composite organization’s employees better understand meeting context, identify action items, move faster, and make better decisions.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Notion and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Supporting future growth with the same headcount. Interviewees said that with Notion, their organizations do more with the same number of employees or less, and that this may allow them to grow without hiring additional headcount. The chief digital transformation officer at the energy organization noted: “Notion has allowed us to do a lot without increasing headcount. You can do more when your people are aligned on the right priorities, and this is the true reason for Notion at our company.” The head of sales and success in hospitality said, “Notion has helped us do more with fewer people. We can handle things at lower levels in the company, which alleviates the need for extra headcount, especially expensive domain expertise headcount.”

• Discovering new Notion use cases, enabling what was not possible before. Interviewees said their organizations found new use cases after adoption. The chief product officer in professional services explained how their organization’s Notion use evolved: “Notion just used to be a location to store information for simple document management. Then we shifted to databases and specific operations and tasks required. Going forward, Notion is becoming more of a foundational core system.” The senior staff enterprise engineer at the entertainment organization said Notion allowed his company to cut the costs of shadow IT spending, which they said would not have been possible before Notion because it would have otherwise required 10 to 20 IT to monitor IT spending. Now the monitoring is done by a Notion agent.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).