ROI Calculator
What is a platform worth to your team?
Two separate numbers: the cost you recover (money you stop losing, capped and conservative enough to survive a finance review) and the value you create when that reclaimed engineering capacity is redeployed to your roadmap. It also compares three options: do nothing, build it, or buy it. Pick a preset, tune every input, and see the math, the sources and the opportunity cost, all on the page.
Inputs & assumptions
Every number the model is built from, pre-filled by the preset below and fully editable.
Inputs & assumptions
Every number the model is built from, pre-filled by the preset below and fully editable.
Maturity assessment
Answer for the client as they are today. This suggests realistic defaults for sections 2–6. Every value stays editable.
Operationalized maturity: 14/21. Typical rollout profile, matching this model's baseline defaults.
Total engineers in scope. Scales the whole model.
↳ NL benchmark: ~1.4× gross → €110k–140k loaded.
↳ NL is a low-hours market (~1,400–1,500).
Start from a realistic scenario
Pick a company size and a platform maturity. Every value stays editable.
Company size
Platform maturity
Scenario range
Click a scenario to drive the conclusion and proof below.
Every scenario moves the risks together: the Conservative case has lower benefit, higher cost, slower adoption and more disruption, with no cherry-picking.
What the platform is worth per year at steady state
The hard number is money you stop losing. Redeployed to your roadmap, that same reclaimed capacity is worth more. That upside is shown on top and never mixed into the conservative figure.
Cost recovered / yr
€1,595,448
money you stop losing (hard)
+ Value if redeployed / yr
€1,276,358
redeployed to product · 1.8× the recovered cost
= Total value / yr
€2,871,806
cost recovered + redeployed value
Over 5 yrs, discounted: €11,844,015 of value created (€6,580,008 on cost recovered alone).
The cost of each path
Same company, three choices: cumulative value over 5 yrs, discounted. Buying captures the most of the prize; doing nothing forfeits it.
−€8,511,595
the recoverable waste you keep losing, paid every year
+€4,803,366
€1,776,642 less of the prize than buying, because adoption is lower and slower to land
+€6,580,008
cost recovered · +€5,264,007 more if that capacity is redeployed to product
The J-curve: value returned over time
Cumulative value delivered: the platform (blue) vs building it yourself (red) vs doing nothing (amber). Rollouts dip while adoption ramps (DORA 2024), then compound; doing nothing only sinks. Shown before the one-time investment, so this is the value on the table.
How this curve is built, and why the two paths differ in shape
Why it dips before it pays
- The platform team and tooling are paid from day one; benefit only arrives as teams adopt it. Year 1 here is €603,079 of benefit against €683,250 of run cost.
- Rolling out costs throughput while people change how they work (DORA 2024 measured −8% throughput and −14% stability in the first year). That is the €255,272 disruption line, tapering over 1.5 yrs.
- It turns positive in year 2, once adoption has compounded past the standing cost.
Why the paths differ in shape, not just height
- Nothing is adopted before the platform exists. Time to first value is 3 mo here and 12 mo building in-house, so year 1 counts only the 9 months the platform is live.
- The adoption clock starts at go-live, not at kickoff. This shifts a slower path’s whole curve to the right instead of just lowering it. A platform that ships in month 12 is at the start of its adoption S-curve then, not partway up it.
- Costs are never scaled down for the wait. You pay the team in full while they build, with nothing to adopt yet. That makes a slow path’s dip both deeper and longer.
- No rollout means no rollout disruption: the dip starts when the platform goes live, not when the project does.
How each year is calculated
benefit = full steady value × adoption(live year) × maturity(live year) × months live net = benefit − rollout disruption − run cost plotted = running total of net ÷ (1 + 10%)^year
Adoption ramps from 35% in the first live year toward a 75% plateau; the maturity term reflects that a new platform doesn’t deliver its full effect immediately even where it is adopted. Past year 5 the curve continues at steady state to the 8-year capability life (the terminal value).
€6,580,008
money you stop losing, discounted
€11,844,015
cost recovered + redeployed capacity
−€8,511,595
recoverable waste, never recovered
Buy vs build: same platform, same benefits
Build the same platform in-house and it loses money: −€4.8M over 5 years, €6.9M worse than buying (€2.1M).
Both paths chase the identical recovered waste. What differs is cost and when the value starts. Building spends its first year with nothing to adopt while the team is paid in full, so its curve shifts right instead of just sitting lower. Every number below is editable. Shown before any one-time implementation cost, on both paths.
Value retained by building
loses money
Time to first value
3 mo vs 12 mo(+9)
Buying's advantage (5-yr value captured)
€6.9M
Where the gap comes from
Click any bar for its derivation
- Buy: 5-yr value captured€2.1M
- Build: 5-yr value captured−€4.8M
The proof
Where every euro of value comes from. Expand any driver.
Where the value comes from (steady-state, realized)
Click any driver to expand the full calculation: waste bucket → effectiveness → realization → treatment → plateau.
Where the value comes from (steady-state, realized)
Click any driver to expand the full calculation: waste bucket → effectiveness → realization → treatment → plateau.
Total waste is capped as a share of payroll (no double-counting), a typed improvement removes that % of its bucket (no amplifying curve), platform engineers are costed at a premium, and the scenario band moves every risk together. Anchors from DORA, Atlassian, McKinsey, Humanitec, Gartner & platformengineering.org. Tune every input; the guards only push the number down.