The Real Cost of Security Debt (With Numbers) · Automatic Security Detection

The bottom line: Each security vulnerability costs your team ~$600 to fix manually. A 100-engineer company burns $300,000 annually on this. Automation cuts that by 93%.

Most CTOs guess they spend “maybe 10%” of dev time on security fixes.

Multiple studies show it’s much worse:

IDC/JFrog study: 19% of developer time on security tasks (7.6 hours/week)
Checkmarx survey: 72% of developers spend 17+ hours/week on security; 25% spend 25+ hours
Contrast Security report: 91% report each vulnerability takes 2+ hours to remediate

The consensus? Security work consumes 20-40% of developer time.

What this really costs: With average developer salaries at $130,000 and a 30-40% overhead for benefits and taxes, the fully loaded cost is ~$170,000/year or $85/hour. At 19% of time on security:

395 hours/year × $85/hour = $33,575 per developer annually

In tech hubs? It’s brutal:

Seattle: $224K average = $292K loaded = $55K/year on security
San Francisco: $223K average = $290K loaded = $55K/year on security
Big Tech/Mag7: $180K-$350K+ = $234K-$455K loaded = $44K-$86K/year on security

We track everything else obsessively. Sprint velocity, bug rates, deployment frequency. But security debt? That’s the expensive ghost nobody measures.

Let’s change that. Here’s exactly what it’s costing you.

The Real Math Behind Security Fixes

Based on industry research, here’s what fixing vulnerabilities actually costs:

Developer Time Per Fix: Research shows developers average 2 hours per vulnerability fix, but that’s just the coding time. The full picture includes:

Triage and understanding: ~1 hour (includes the 5-minute initial review plus research time)
Implementation: 2 hours (industry average)
Testing and validation: 1 hour (standard validation time)
Context switching cost: 23 minutes per interruption × multiple switches = ~1.5 hours

Total developer time: 5.5 hours × $85/hour = $468

Coordination Overhead:

Security team triage and explanation
Code review by other developers
Deployment and verification

Add another 1.5 hours across the team = $128

Total cost per vulnerability: ~$596

(In tech hubs with $150-200/hour loaded rates? Double these numbers.)

Industry data validates this: teams of 100 developers spend ~$700K annually on vulnerability patching.

Scale It Up (Warning: It Gets Ugly)

Now let’s talk about your company:

Growing startup (50 engineers): You’re dealing with ~250 vulnerabilities per year. (Synopsys data backs this up—it’s not just you.)

250 vulns × $596 = $149,000/year

That’s more than one full engineer you’re NOT hiring.

Mid-size company (100 engineers): Double the team, double the problems. You’re looking at 500-1,000 vulnerabilities annually.

Let’s be optimistic and say 500.

500 × $596 = $298,000/year

Congrats, you’re burning nearly $300K on playing security whack-a-mole—that’s 2+ engineers.

Enterprise (500+ engineers): At this scale, you’re drowning in 2,500-5,000 vulnerabilities.

2,500 × $596 = ~$1.5 million/year

That’s 11+ engineers—an entire product team. Gone. Every year.

Gartner says companies spend 5-10% of IT budget on security. Now you know why.

There’s a Better Way (Obviously)

What if fixing vulnerabilities was like reviewing a PR from a really thorough colleague?

The RSOLV approach:

Scanner finds something suspicious
RSOLV validates it’s a real vulnerability (not a false positive)
If legit, RSOLV creates a complete fix with tests
PR appears in your queue: review takes 5-10 minutes
Happy with it? Merge and move on
Only pay ~$40 if you actually merge (success-based pricing)

You just saved $556 per vulnerability. That’s a 93% reduction.

Quick napkin math:

Manual approach: 
  500 vulns × $596 = $298,000/year

Automated approach:
  500 vulns × $40 = $20,000/year

Money saved: $278,000
ROI: 1,390%

Your CFO will literally hug you.

How to Sell This to Your CFO

Here’s what works when talking to finance teams:

Lead with predictability: “We can turn a variable $300K-$1.5M cost into a fixed $20K line item.”

Show the opportunity cost: “That’s 3,000 developer hours we get back for features that actually make money.”

Mention the breach elephant: IBM’s data shows average breach cost is $4.45M. One prevented breach pays for automation forever.

Use their language: “It’s like switching from hourly contractors to fixed-price deliverables, with more than 90% cost reduction.”

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Forrester studied this. Companies that automate security see:

365% ROI over three years
Half as many incidents
75% faster fixes

But honestly? You don’t need a research report. You need a calculator.

Your Move

Here’s your homework:

Count your open vulnerabilities (be honest)
Multiply by $596
Show that number to whoever controls the budget
Watch their face

Then show them the 93% savings from automation.

The conversation usually ends with “When can we start?”

Want to see these calculations applied to your specific situation? RSOLV provides automated security fixes for $15-40 per merged PR—a 94% cost reduction versus manual remediation. Calculate your ROI →