Free Tools · Tool 01 of 31
Flagship Diagnostic

Drag Cost Calculator

Eight sliders. Five minutes. The annual cost of drag in your business — named in dollars, broken down by where it bleeds from.

5 minutes to completeSoft-gated · use it free, save the report with emailMobile-friendly
Why this tool exists. Most founders feel the drag. Few have ever put a number on it. The Drag Cost Calculator forces the math: at your team size, your comp structure, and your level of friction, what does an average year of drag actually cost? The answer is rarely the one you'd guess. And it's almost never small enough to ignore.
Set your numbers
Drag this any direction. The math updates instantly.
Full-Time Employees25
Including you.
Avg Fully-Loaded Comp$95K
Salary + benefits + overhead per employee.
Estimated Drag35%
% of capacity lost to wait, rework, status, and friction. Most sit at 30-50%.
Founder Hours / Week on Operator Work25 hrs
Hours you spend on work someone else could do.
Founder Hourly Value$500
What an hour of your highest-leverage work is worth.
Annual Rework / Redo Rate10%
% of work that has to be redone due to handoff or info errors.
Annual Talent Loss from Drag8%
% of team that leaves due to friction, frustration, burnout.
Customer Wait Days (avg per cycle)5 days
Avg days customers wait between touches in your process.
Annual Drag Cost
$1.2M
Lost capacity + founder time + rework + turnover + wait-time impact
Where it's bleeding from
Lost team capacity
Drag % × team comp × team size
—
Founder time burned on operator work
Hours × hourly value × 50 weeks
—
Rework cost
Rework % × team comp × team size
—
Talent replacement
~50% of comp × turnover × team size
—
Customer wait impact
Wait days × ~$200/day per FTE
—
Save your result

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Your next move

One step deeper.

Take the next tool
Eight Types of Drag Radar
You saw the cost. Now see the shape. 24 questions, 5 minutes, a personalized radar across all 8 drag types.
Open the tool
Read the chapter
The Iceberg Principle
Why touch time is 5–20% of elapsed time, and the 80–95% nobody measures is where the cost actually lives.
Read the excerpt
Go deep
Maximum Velocity (the book)
34 chapters. 7 appendices. The full operating system that turns this number from a diagnosis into a fix.
See the book
If this number scared you

Maximum Velocity is the book that fixes it.

34 chapters mapping every type of drag, every architectural fix, and the 90-day sprint model that compresses lead time without changing your team. Built from 25 years inside founder-led businesses.

$147launch price
Get the Book →