Technical Debt Calculator
Estimate the cost of your technical debt and the ROI of addressing it with a structured rescue plan.
Technical Debt Calculator
Quantify the Cost of Technical Debt in Your Product
Technical Debt Is Invisible Until It Stops the Business.
Engineering leaders know technical debt is slowing them down — but without a number attached to the cost, it is hard to quantify and justify fixing it. Product and commercial stakeholders see feature velocity as the only metric.
The Technical Debt Cost Calculator gives you a number — the engineering capacity lost to debt, the business value destroyed by slow feature delivery, and the estimated cost of rescue — so the conversation changes.
The Four Costs of Technical Debt
Technical debt impacts your business in four measurable ways.
Engineering Capacity Loss
Engineers spending time on workarounds, fire-fighting, and manual processes instead of building value.
Slower Feature Delivery
Every new feature takes longer as complexity and coupling accumulate in the codebase.
Higher Bug Rate
Tightly coupled, poorly tested code produces more bugs — each requiring time to diagnose and fix.
Engineer Attrition
Senior engineers leave codebases they are embarrassed to work in — replacing them costs 1-2x salary.
Missed Revenue
Features delayed by debt are features not generating revenue. The opportunity cost is real.
Series A Risk
Investors penalise companies with high technical debt in valuation and terms — or walk away.
Tech Debt Cost Calculator
Find out how much technical debt is actually costing your team every month — in money, capacity, and lost revenue.
Your Team Details
Cost of Your Tech Debt
Monthly Cost of Tech Debt
Direct salary spend on non-feature work
Lost Engineering Capacity
Full-time engineers lost to maintenance
Estimated Revenue Impact
Lost opportunity from delayed features
Technical Debt Benchmarks
Use these benchmarks to understand if your technical debt is under control — or silently slowing your growth.
Under 20% Maintenance Time
High-functioning engineering team. Debt is managed and under control.
20-35% Maintenance Time
Typical growing startup. Debt is accumulating — plan to address it before scaling.
35-50% Maintenance Time
High debt. Feature velocity is measurably impacted. Intervention needed soon.
Over 50% Maintenance Time
Critical. The team is mostly maintaining, not building. Immediate action required.
Cost Impact Level
Low (<$10K/month) — manageable. Medium ($10K–$50K) — needs prioritization. High ($50K+) — impacting growth.
Delivery Impact
<10% delay — healthy. 10–25% — slowing down. 25%+ — serious bottleneck.
Common Questions
Yes, completely free. No signup required. Use it to build the business case for addressing technical debt with your product and commercial stakeholders.
Share the number with your product and commercial stakeholders. If maintenance time is over 35%, book a call to discuss a debt rescue programme.
Yes. We run structured Technical Debt Rescue programmes — audit, triage, test restoration, incremental refactoring, and CI/CD — while continuing product development.
We use the strangler fig pattern — incremental replacement of problem areas in parallel with feature development. Production never stops.
What Happens After You Calculate Your Tech Debt
Technical Audit
Deep dive into your codebase, architecture, and bottlenecks
Impact Analysis
Quantify engineering loss, delays, and business impact
Cleanup Roadmap
Prioritized plan to reduce debt without stopping delivery
Execution Plan
Incremental fixes aligned with ongoing product development
Ready to Tackle Your Technical Debt?
Start with a codebase assessment. We quantify the problem before prescribing the fix.