Technical Debt Cost Estimator
It's hard to convince management to let you refactor code. Use this calculator to show them the exact dollar amount the company is losing every year to Technical Debt.
Engineering Team Specs
Base salary per engineer. Estimated Hourly Rate: $62.50/hr.
The "Bad Code" Tax
How many hours per week does a dev spend fixing flaky tests, waiting on slow builds, or deciphering spaghetti code?
The Financial Cost
Your company is burning this much cash every year just paying engineers to fight bad code.
The Refactor Pitch
The Invisible Tax on Software Teams
"Technical Debt" happens when engineers take shortcuts to ship features faster. Over time, the codebase becomes a tangled mess. Adding a simple button that used to take 1 hour now takes 3 days because the code is so fragile.
The Real Cost is Salary
Management often ignores tech debt because it doesn't show up on a balance sheet like a server bill does. But the cost is entirely real. Software engineers are expensive. If a $120,000/yr engineer spends 10 hours a week fighting legacy code, fixing weird bugs, and deciphering undocumented systems, the company is burning $30,000 a year in wasted salary.
How to Pitch a Refactor
Never tell management "the code is ugly and needs to be cleaned up." They don't care. Instead, tell them: "Our current architecture is causing our 5-person engineering team to waste 40 hours a week combined. This is costing the company $150,000 a year in lost productivity. If we spend 2 weeks refactoring the payment service, we will recoup that investment in 3 months."
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Cost of Tech Debt?
The Cost of Tech Debt is a free online tool designed to help you calculate the hidden financial cost of bad code based on wasted engineering hours.
How much does the Cost of Tech Debt cost?
Our Cost of Tech Debt is 100% free to use. We do not require any signups, subscriptions, or credit cards.
Is my data safe when using this tool?
Yes. All calculations are performed locally in your web browser. We do not store or save your financial data or inputs on our servers.