Sample output
Made on 27 October 2026
The Cost of Doing Nothing
Assumptions
Replace these inputs with internal figures as needed:
- 20 engineers run or wait for CI an average of 2 times per day
- 220 working days per year
- Fully loaded engineering cost: $150/hour
- Current suite duration: 45 minutes
- Estimated productive time lost per run: 15 minutes due to parallel work, context switching, and delayed feedback
- 5 flaky-test reruns or investigations per day, averaging 20 minutes each
- 2 production incidents last quarter traced to untested paths
- Average incident cost:
- 80 engineering hours for response, remediation, and follow-up
- $5,000 in support, service credits, and operational impact
- Incident frequency remains constant: 8 per year
1. Slow feedback cost
Annual lost engineering time:
- 20 engineers × 2 runs/day × 0.25 hours lost/run × 220 days
- 2,200 hours/year
Annual labor cost:
- 2,200 hours × $150/hour
- $330,000/year
This estimate counts only 15 minutes of lost productivity per 45-minute run. If engineers are fully blocked for the entire run, the theoretical exposure is:
- 20 × 2 × 0.75 × 220 × $150
- $990,000/year
2. Flaky-test cost
Direct investigation and rerun time:
- 5 flaky failures/day × 20 minutes × 220 days
- 367 hours/year
Annual labor cost:
- 367 hours × $150/hour
- $55,000/year
This excludes the harder-to-measure cost of normalizing red builds. Because flaky tests are skipped, the suite gradually loses coverage and stops functioning as a reliable release gate.
3. Incident cost from untested paths
Engineering cost per incident:
- 80 hours × $150/hour
- $12,000
Total estimated cost per incident:
- $12,000 engineering cost + $5,000 operational impact
- $17,000
Annualized cost at the current rate:
- 2 incidents/quarter × 4 quarters × $17,000
- $136,000/year
If incidents affect revenue, contractual SLAs, regulated data, or customer retention, the actual exposure may be significantly higher.