What does technical debt cost your organization?
Calculate the hidden annual costs in under 2 minutes.
Your Technical Debt Cost
Total Annual Cost
€316,909 — €428,757
per year
Cost per Developer
€31,691 — €42,876
per developer / year
Budget Waste
~50%
of developer budget
Cost Breakdown
Impact Chain
The impact chain shows how technical debt creates cascading costs. Thicker arrows = higher cost share.
Benchmark Comparison
Compare your values against industry averages. The green zone shows the healthy target range.
3-Year Projection: Cost of Inaction
Without intervention, technical debt costs compound annually through accumulation effects.
Based on 15–30% annual cost compounding. Sources: Stripe Developer Coefficient 2018, Accelerate / Forsgren et al. 2018.
How we calculate
Input Classification
Each input value falls into one of three categories:
| Input | Type | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Team Size | Measured | Direct input — number of developers |
| Firefighting Time | Measured | Direct input — percentage of unplanned work |
| Deploy Frequency | Measured | Direct input — selected from options |
| CI Wait Time | Measured | Direct input — minutes per pipeline run |
| Single-Point Systems | Measured | Direct input — systems only one person understands |
| Onboarding Duration | Measured | Direct input — weeks until productive |
| Region | Measured | Determines salary and hourly rate assumptions (see table below) |
| Hourly Rate | Estimated | Derived from region and industry averages |
| Replacement Cost | Estimated | Estimated at 1.5x annual salary (SHRM benchmark) |
| Frustration Attrition | Benchmarked | Benchmark: 25% increased attrition probability |
Salary Assumptions by Region
Based on industry averages for software developers (full-time):
| Region | Annual Salary (avg) | Hourly Rate | Currency |
|---|---|---|---|
| DACH (DE/AT/CH) | €75,000 | €43 | € |
| Western Europe | €65,000 | €37 | € |
| Eastern Europe | €35,000 | €20 | € |
| United Kingdom | £60,000 | £34 | £ |
| USA | $120,000 | $69 | $ |
Base calculation: 1,720 working hours per year (industry standard).
Range Calculation
We use +/-15% around the base value to express estimation uncertainty. No single model can precisely quantify hidden costs — the range makes the inherent imprecision transparent.
Compounding Effect
Technical debt does not grow linearly — it creates cascading costs. We model 15-30% annual cost growth based on:
- Stripe Developer Coefficient (2018): Developers lose 42% of their time to technical debt and maintenance
- Accelerate / Forsgren et al. (2018): High technical debt correlates with exponentially increasing lead times
The lower value (15%) is conservative, the upper (30%) applies to organizations with growing codebases and no active refactoring.
How we work
Sources up to dateTo put the results in context we use current research and industry data from 2025 and 2026. The calculation itself rests on studies from 2018 to 2024 (see above):
90% use AI at work; AI correlates with higher instability and rework
61B workdays of global tech debt; 45% of code is fragile
75% of tech leaders will see debt rise to moderate/high by 2026
Enterprises waste $370M/year on average through tech debt
56% say debt blocks new investment; 40% have weekly IT glitches
Code duplication rose to 12.3%; refactoring dropped below 10%
AI users took 19% longer despite believing they were 20% faster
9/10 devs save 1h+/week with AI; context switching is top drain
84% use AI tools but 46% don't trust accuracy (up from 31%)
Sources as of March 2026. The calculation uses studies from 2018 to 2024; the context draws on research from 2025 and 2026. Get updates by newsletter
Our services
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MAJCON · Checks and development for software systems
Fits your result
Technical Health Check
Your result shows high hidden costs. The check shows where they come from in your system and what to tackle first.
Book an intro call30 minutes, free. The link opens Calendly and fills your result and a link to your calculation into the booking form.
Learn more: Technical Health CheckThe first step
AI Code Check
How AI code gets into your system: reviews, tests, dependencies, secrets and agent permissions.
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Your AI development process
We build with you the process your team uses to develop software with AI, tailored to your system and your rules.
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The ASE Coaching Program
1:1 coaching for software developers, on their own code, in their own project.
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S/4HANA Developer Training
For ABAP developers on your system: 11 modules, from ADT, CDS and RAP to Agentic Engineering in SAP.
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