Unlock Greater Value with Knapsack: See Your Design System ROI.

Calculate the ROI of a design system built to scale with your team. Our calculator shows exactly how Knapsack can drive efficiency, consistency, and cost savings—tailored to your unique needs. Ready to see the impact Knapsack can make?

Cost Saving by Employee Time Savings by Component Calculate Your ROI

Move the sliders to input your employee costs and assumed efficiency gain to calculate total employee savings from implementing a design system. If you need help figuring out how efficient you might be, try calculating Time Savings by Component on the next tab.

What is the ROI of your Design System?

  1. What's your average employee cost?

    • Assumed average loaded cost to the business per employee.
    • $0$500000
    • $150000
    • 0
    • 125K
    • 250K
    • 375K
    • 500K
  2. Number of employees using the system?

    • Include all users you expect to benefit from the system.
    • 0
    • 150
    • 30
    • 0
    • 37.5
    • 75
    • 112.5
    • 150
  3. Efficiency Gain

    • Expect a minimum of 10% and a target of 40-50%.
    • 0%80%
    • 10%
    • 0
    • 20
    • 40
    • 60
    • 80

Projected Cost Savings: $450,000.00

Projected Cost Savings

Select an example component or UI element to calculate the estimate efficiency gain using a system vs. unique implementation. Pick between the two starting scenarios - a simple (e.g. button) or complex (e.g. dynamic menu) component.

Simple Component Type Complex Component Type

Without a Design System

  • The hours required to build the component each time it needs to be used.
  • How long does it take to build the component for each use case?
  • e.g. 5 hours design, 10 hours engineering and 5 hours maintenance = 20 hours

Time Required: 0-200

  • 20 hours
    • 0
  • 50
  • 100
  • 150
  • 200

With a Design System

  • The time spent to build within a design system - including initial one time set up and implementation.

Time Required: 0-200

  • 40 hours
  • e.g. 10 hours design, 15 hours engineering and 15 hours maintenance = 40 hours
    • 0
  • 50
  • 100
  • 150
  • 200

Implementation time for component

  • e.g. 2 hour design import time and 4 hours engineering import time - 6 hours
    • 0-60
    • 6 hours
      • 0
    • 15
    • 30
    • 45
    • 60

Scale of Use

  • How many times does the component appear in product UIs?
  • Number of times implemented
  • The number of UIs using the component e.g. 30 UIs
    • 0-200
    • 50
      • 0
    • 50
    • 100
    • 150
    • 200

Total Effort: 1,000

Implementation time without a Design System**:

340 hours

Implementation time with a Design System: 660 hours

Total hours saved: 66%

What is the ROI of your Email Marketing Strategy?

  1. Without a Design System

    • The hours required to build the component each time it needs to be used.
    • e.g. 40 hours design, 80 hours engineering and 20 hours maintenance = 140 hours
    • Time Required: 0-300
      • 140
        • 0
      • 75
      • 150
      • 225
      • 300
  2. With a Design System

    • Time Required: 0-500
      • 260 hours
      • e.g. 60 hours design, 120 hours engineering and 80 hours maintenance = 260 hours
        • 0
      • 125
      • 250
      • 375
      • 500

Implementation time for component

  • e.g. 4 hour design import time and 8 hours engineering import time - 12 hours
    • Time Required: 0-80
      • 12
        • 0
      • 20
      • 40
      • 60
      • 80

Scale of Use

  • Number of times implemented
    • Time Required: 0-200
      • 30
        • 0
      • 50
      • 100
      • 150
      • 200

Total Effort: 4,200 hours

Implementation time without a Design System:** 620 hours

Implementation time with a Design System:** 3,580 hours

Total hours saved: 85%

Projected Cost Savings: 13M.

Knapsack helped a Fortune 500 product development team collaborate more effectively around a dynamically maintained, central source of truth.

Accelerating digital production to save $3M

Watch your team excel with Knapsack

  • 30% Reduction in QA time
  • 20% Improvement in designer and developer efficiency
  • 15% Accelerated feature speed-to-market
  • Faster time to market
  • Increased collaboration
  • More opportunities for innovation
  • Easier onboarding for new team members
  • A source of truth everyone can use

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