What you enter
Split your backlog into small, medium and large items using whatever definition your team already uses, and enter how many there are of each. For each size, enter the hours of hands-on work you expect per item and the hours of review per item, so reviewing and checking are counted rather than assumed away. Then enter the hourly cost of the people doing this work, the current average lead time per item in days, how many items you clear per month today, and the monthly running cost of the outsourced approach you are comparing against. Optionally enter how many months you expect that approach to take.
Example values are loaded when the page opens only to show the layout. They are not typical, measured or recommended: replace every one with your own, and use one currency throughout.
- Count items you would really do. Items that would be closed, merged or dropped do not belong in the total.
- Use observed hours where you have them. A guess is fine if you label it a guess and test a lower and a higher value.
- Use a full stop for decimals and no thousands separators. Counts must be whole numbers and nothing can be negative.
The arithmetic
Total hours = for each of small, medium and large, items times (your work hours per item plus your review hours per item), added together. Total cost = total hours times your hourly cost. Months to clear = total items divided by the items you clear per month. Your monthly spend at that pace = total cost divided by months to clear. Break-even months = total cost divided by the monthly running cost you entered: the number of months of that running cost that equals the total cost of doing the backlog yourself. If you also enter a number of months, outsourced total = monthly running cost times those months, and the tool shows how far that is above or below your own total cost. Waiting item-days = total items times the current average lead time in days; it measures how much queue there is, not a cost.
Everything is exact whole-number arithmetic on the values you typed, rounded half-up to two decimals only when shown.
- Worked arithmetic, not a customer case: 20 small items at 1.5 hours, 8 medium at 5 and 3 large at 20 is 30 + 40 + 60 = 130 hours. At 60 an hour that is 7,800. At 2,000 a month of running cost, break-even is 7,800 divided by 2,000 = 3.9 months.
- At 6 items cleared a month, those 31 items take 31 divided by 6 = 5.17 months.
- If a comparison approach needs more than the break-even number of months to clear the same backlog, it costs more than doing the work yourself on these inputs; if fewer, less.
What this is not
It is not a quote, an estimate of what we or anyone else would charge, a forecast of savings or a promise about how fast any provider clears a backlog. The tool contains no price, rate or throughput of ours: every figure comes from your inputs, so a different set of inputs gives a different answer. It leaves out things that are often decisive: dependencies between items, context switching, interruptions, rework, the cost of delay, the quality and risk of the work and the time you spend briefing and accepting an outside provider.
The two related outcomes are different arrangements and neither is implied by a result. Clearing a defined backlog is a project: you give us a list, we agree which items are in it and a fixed price for that list, and each accepted item arrives with its test; items added later are quoted separately. The Vibe Engineering Lane is a continuing monthly arrangement for one existing web product with one active item at a time and at most four agreed bounded items a month. That four is a scope ceiling, not a completion guarantee, and it is explicitly not a promise to clear a whole backlog. Price, timing and terms for either are agreed in writing before any commitment.
- Do not paste confidential figures if you do not want them on your screen. Nothing is sent, stored or put in a link.
- A cheaper-looking result on paper can still be the wrong choice if the work needs your own product knowledge or production access.
- The comparison running cost is whatever you enter; the tool cannot check that it matches any real proposal.
Use the tool
Sources and limits
- Estimator implementation Checked 2026-10-11.
- Total hours equal the sum over small, medium and large of items times (work hours plus review hours per item); total cost equals total hours times the hourly cost.
- Months to clear equal total items divided by the items cleared per month; break-even months equal total cost divided by the monthly running cost entered.
- All inputs are visitor-supplied; the tool contains no default rate, benchmark or provider price, and its exact whole-number arithmetic is covered by its test suite.