Free tool
What is your stalled build actually costing?
Build Purgatory is the loop of building, rethinking, and rebuilding with no locked decisions underneath. This calculator gives you a directional dollar estimate of what that loop is costing your team right now.
Inputs
Fully-loaded cost of engineering + product people directly on the stalled build. Not your full company burn.
How long the team has been building, rethinking, or rebuilding the same surface without locking the underlying decision.
What fraction of the work needed to be torn up and redone. 50% is the median we see; 100% means the whole effort is being rebuilt.
Estimated cost
$192,000
in the loop so far
Opportunity cost is the value of the work your team would have shipped instead. We apply a conservative 0.6× multiplier; in our experience the real figure is higher.
How the math works
The calculator multiplies three things:
- Team monthly burn. Fully-loaded engineering + product cost. Includes the people directly on the loop. Not your full company burn.
- Months in the loop. The time you have been building, rethinking, or rebuilding the same product surface without locking the underlying decision.
- Rework percentage. What fraction of that work needed to be torn up and re-done. 50% means half the work was wasted. 100% means the whole effort is being rebuilt.
The number that comes out is a directional estimate, not an exact figure. It is designed to make the size of the problem visible enough that you stop deferring the decision that would end the loop.
The most common result we see when we run this with founders is a six-figure number. The second most common is the founder pausing for several seconds before responding.
If the number you just saw is uncomfortable
The Build Purgatory loop ends when the decisions underneath the build are explicitly made and locked. Not when more features are shipped.
Comet Studio runs a two-week, fixed-price Product Clarity Sprint that produces a decision document, a locked scope, and a fixed quote for any build that follows. Most teams use the Sprint to stop the loop. Some use the Sprint output to brief their own engineering team. Either way, the decision pass is the cheapest part of the situation you are in.