Feature Bloat Cost Calculator
The cost of unused features isn't the build cost (sunk). It's the ongoing maintenance + cognitive overhead + product complexity tax. This calculator stacks those.
your product
Total features
% of features actually used (Pareto says ~20-40%)
35%Engineering team size
Avg fully-loaded eng cost ($)
% of dev time on maintenance
40%Product age (years)
annual waste
$530K
maintaining 52 features nobody uses
Lifetime maintenance debt
$2.7M
over 5 years
Engineers worth of waste
3.1 FTE
on unused work
Hours wasted / week
125
12-eng team
Cost per unused feature
$10K
annual
Annual waste = team_size × avg_cost × (maint% / 100) × unused_fraction. Maintenance debt = annual_waste × product_age. Engineers-worth-of-waste = (maint%/100) × unused_fraction × team_size. Pareto principle suggests 20-40% of features carry 80% of value.