Cost & ROI
What unverified AI code costs and when a verification layer pays for itself: rework economics, token costs, and honest ROI arithmetic.
How to use this collection
Use cost & roi when you need a bounded answer rather than a generic promise about AI coding. The 4 articles separate observed evidence, working assumptions, product boundaries, and decisions that still belong to a human reviewer. Each guide is dated and keeps its source limitations visible.
Start with “What Verification Debt Costs” for the broadest entry point, then use “AI Code Churn” when you need the collection's more specific edge. The cards below state what each article covers, so you can choose by task instead of reading a manufactured sequence. Related links inside each guide connect methods, risks, evidence, and next actions without treating one check as universal proof.
Check each article's publication date, cited source, and stated scope before applying it to a live repository. Examples explain a method; they do not replace your project rules, threat model, tests, or accountable reviewer. If two guides appear to conflict, compare their assumptions and evidence rather than selecting the more confident wording.
Economics
What Verification Debt Costs
The worked example at 120 AI-assisted changes per month: rework, review reconstruction and an incident allowance land at one to two engineer salaries per year - every assumption labeled and swappable for your numbers.
Updated: August 15, 2026Read article →
Economics
Reducing LLM Token Costs
Tokens are mostly context, and context is resent every turn - the five levers that cut the bill without degrading output, each with its quality risk named. No percentages, just mechanics that survive price changes.
Updated: July 17, 2026Read article →
Economics
The Verification ROI Calculation
Volume, not headcount, decides: the transparent break-even model for a verification practice - costs per run and fixed block against reconstruction and rework removed - including the honest no-cases.
Updated: August 15, 2026Read article →
Economics
AI Code Churn
GitClear's 211M lines: two-week churn drifting from ~3.1% toward 5.7% as AI grows - the findings, the honest caveats, the rate-times-volume math, and the script to measure your own.
Updated: August 15, 2026Read article →
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