The real cost of not knowing your architecture
Manual architectural auditing costs senior engineering time, delays migrations, and misses structural risks. Calculate what it's costing you — and what Axiom saves.
ROI Calculator
Your architectural overhead
Adjust the inputs to match your team. See what Axiom saves.
Your team
Audit cost estimated at $12K avg (2-week senior engineer engagement).
Your current annual cost
$91,200
Ongoing: 3 engineers × 8 hrs/mo × $150/hr × 12 = $43,200/yr
Audits: 4 × $12,000 = $48,000/yr
With Axiom (Team tier)
$8,190/yr
$750/mo × 12 months (annual founder pricing, 9% discount)
Annual savings
$83,010
That's a 10.1× return on your Axiom investment.
Real Scenarios
The cost of waiting
Don't calculate what Axiom costs. Calculate what manual analysis is costing you right now.
The Refactoring Audit
A senior engineer ($120–200/hr) spends 2 weeks mapping the system. Axiom does it in one scan + 4 hours of review.
Manual
$10,000–16,000
Axiom
~$830
Savings: $9,000–15,000 per audit
The Onboarding Drag
New senior dev spends 3 months learning a legacy codebase. Axiom delivers architecture maps, zone narratives, and danger areas on day one.
Manual
$35,000–45,000
Axiom
One report
Savings: $15,000–20,000+ per new hire
The 10x Auditor
Consultants: bill $5K for 3 days of manual mapping, or bill $5K for 5 hours with Axiom. Same deliverable, 5× the margin.
Manual
~$200/hr effective
Axiom
~$1,000/hr effective
Savings: 5× effective hourly rate
The Ghost Method
AI-generated code calls a method that doesn’t exist. Ghost Method detection catches it before merge.
Manual
$10,000/min downtime
Axiom
$0 — caught in CI
Savings: Prevented production downtime
Do the math:
One avoided migration mistake pays for a year of Team.
One extra audit contract pays for Business.
Axiom replaces the $12K manual “code archaeology” sprint with evidence-backed decisions in 45 minutes.