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Inconsistency cost calculator.

Estimate the annual hours and cost of UI rework using your team size, product surfaces, hourly cost, and level of inconsistency. Adjust the inputs to compare scenarios.

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ANNUAL REWORK · EXAMPLE 8 people × 4 h per week × 46 weeks 1,472hours $139,840 at $95/hour
  • Five inputs
  • Assumptions shown
  • Shareable settings

Put a number on rework.

Set the five inputs to reflect your team. The estimate updates as you go. Open the calculation details to inspect the model, or copy a link to share your settings.

Your team.

Use recent examples of UI rework to estimate your team’s weekly effort.

8

Designers and front-end engineers who touch UI.

3

Distinct apps or surfaces kept in sync.

4.0

Per person: redoing, reconciling, and chasing drift.

$95

Fully-loaded cost per hour, averaged across the team.

How inconsistent today?

Duplicates and one-offs are common

annual rework estimate live

Potential recovery per year

$61,560

648 engineer/designer hours/year of modelled recovery.

Today's rework cost $139,840
With a structured system $78,280
A structured system is modelled to reclaim 44% of that rework time.

An estimate based on your inputs. Review the assumptions before using it to plan work.

Calculation details and assumptions

Annual rework cost = people × weekly rework hours per person × 46 working weeks × hourly cost.

The model starts with a recovery rate of 20% for mostly consistent UI, 40% for noticeable drift, or 60% for inconsistent UI. Each additional product surface increases that rate by 5% of the base rate, up to a 50% increase. The overall recovery rate is capped at 85%.

Recovered hours are rounded to whole hours, then multiplied by hourly cost. Displayed costs are rounded to whole dollars. These assumptions illustrate a scenario; they are not measured savings. Building, migrating, and maintaining the system would add costs.

Using this tool.

Start with rework you can identify

Think about time spent rebuilding a shared pattern, reconciling differences between products, or fixing the same component behavior in several places. Use recent examples to estimate the weekly effort, then adjust the inputs to see how sensitive the result is to your assumptions.

If you do not know a number, compare a lower and an upper estimate. A range you can explain is more useful in a planning discussion than a precise-looking total built on guesses.

What the estimate means

The calculator models annual rework and the share a more structured system might recover. Its working-year and recovery assumptions are shown with the calculation. They are model choices, not measured results from your organization.

The estimate does not include the cost of building, migrating to, or maintaining a design system. Compare those costs with the potential recovered hours before using the figure to support an investment. More products or a larger team alone do not establish that a new system will pay for itself.

Bring examples to the conversation

Use the total alongside actual work: a duplicated form, a difficult upgrade, or repeated accessibility fixes. Those examples help a team decide whether the answer is a shared component, better documentation, clearer ownership, or a smaller local change.

The design system scorecard can help identify which part of the system deserves a closer look.

Source: https://joshuabriley.com/tools/roi-calculator/