Cost per Contributor

DEFINITION

Cost per contributor is used to calculate the cost efficiency of your organization or group.

HOW IT’S MEASURED

Development costs are calculated by multiplying a group’s cost per contributor by the count of developers and reviewers within the group.

Dividing a group’s development cost over a period by the count of features that group delivered over the same period gives us an estimate of how much it costs a group to develop a feature. The result—cost per feature—can then be used to compare cost efficiency across development groups.

We recommend using the annual, fully-burdened cost per contributor, including costs associated with other employee-related expenses, taxes, and benefits. This is typically about 1.2-1.4x the average base salary.

Cost calculations only include contributors who created or reviewed code in the last 90 days—to more precisely capture the costs associated with developing, reviewing, and delivering features.