The short answer
A Digital FTE wins on speed-to-value, cost, availability, and scale; a human employee wins on judgment, relationships, novel problem-solving, and accountability for ambiguous decisions. They're complementary: hire Digital FTEs to own repetitive, high-volume job functions, and free your people for the work that needs a human.
Cost and time-to-value
A human FTE carries salary, benefits, recruiting cost, and weeks-to-months of ramp time. A Digital FTE on ftes.ai starts at $49/month, onboards in hours, and one subscription covers multiple roles — so you add capacity without adding headcount or long hiring cycles.
Availability and scale
Digital FTEs work 24/7 and scale instantly — you can put the same role to work across more volume or more departments without a new hiring round. Human capacity is finite and bound by working hours; Digital FTEs handle the elastic, always-on load.
Where humans still win
Humans remain essential for high-stakes judgment, building trust with customers and candidates, creative strategy, and owning ambiguous decisions. A well-designed Digital FTE escalates exactly these cases to your team with full context — augmenting people rather than replacing them.
How to decide what to hire
Map your team's work into 'repetitive and rules-based' vs 'judgment and relationships.' Hire Digital FTEs for the former and keep humans on the latter. Start with one high-impact role on ftes.ai/discover, measure the outcome, and expand.