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Engineering Economics10 min read

Platform Engineering ROI: Proving the Business Case

Internal developer platforms cost $500K-2M to build. Here's how to prove the investment.

By Richard Ewing·

Making the Case

Platform engineering is expensive: 3-5 engineers for 6-12 months = $500K-2M. But the returns: 30-50% reduction in deployment time, 40-60% fewer configuration errors, 20-30% faster onboarding.

Calculate ROI: (Time saved per developer × Number of developers × Loaded hourly rate) - Platform investment. Typical payback: 12-18 months for teams of 50+ engineers.

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Published Work

This article expands on ideas from my published work in CIO.com, Built In, Mind the Product, and HackerNoon. View published articles →

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Richard Ewing

The Product Economist — Quantifying engineering economics for technology leaders, PE firms, and boards.