Rewrite ROI
A 20-minute online assessment that gives a non-technical CEO or COO a Modernization Score, an AI-era ROI estimate, and a clear rewrite-vs-refactor-vs-wrap recommendation.
CEOs, COOs, and board members at mid-market companies sitting on legacy software, who keep hearing about AI but don't know whether to invest in a rewrite
- Plain-language questionnaire (no code access required) that scores tech debt, vendor lock-in, and AI-readiness
- AI-era ROI calculator showing hours saved per FTE per year if the stack were modernized
- Side-by-side output for 'rewrite', 'refactor', and 'wrap with AI' with cost and risk ranges
- Matchmaking to vetted modernization partners with case studies from similar industries
The linked essay argues the AI economics of codebases with clear patterns are now decisively better than legacy ones — meaning boards sitting on old stacks are quietly falling behind, and they need a way to quantify the gap before their competitors do.
Real executive interest is clearly documented — multiple consultancies and content sites (ModLogix, AspireSys, SoftwareSeni, Ticomix) all publish ROI/assessment content aimed at CEOs weighing modernization, but evidence of a self-serve paid-product demand (vs. advisory engagements) is mostly indirect.How to Measure ROI from Legacy Application Modernization ↗Legacy Modernization ROI - How to Calculate and Justify the Investment ↗
The exact 'modernization score + rewrite-vs-refactor-vs-wrap' delivery is differentiated, but the assessment-tool category is already crowded — Brilworks ships a Legacy System Modernization Readiness tool and Ticomix offers an ROI cost calculator, while Gartner/McKinsey and consultancies (KodeBaze, Stackforge) own the executive-trust layer.Legacy System Modernization Readiness | Enterprise Modernization Tool ↗Legacy Application Modernization Cost Calculator | ROI Tool | Ticomix ↗
Willingness to pay exists at the high end ($50k–$1M+ modernization engagements per CM-Alliance and LinkedIn roundups), but converting a non-technical CEO on a 20-minute self-serve product — and not getting trapped between free calculators and a heavy advisory sale — is unproven; mid-tier $500–$2k per assessment is plausible as a top-of-funnel, not a standalone business.Top 10 Legacy System Modernization Companies in 2026 ↗Legacy Modernization: AI vs Consulting is the Wrong Fight ↗
Legacy codebases persist for decades (CM-Alliance, Gartner both treat this as a permanent structural category), and the AI-economics framing is tied to a multi-year shift in code-generation cost, not a single hype wave.Strategies for Enterprise Applications Modernization Success - Gartner ↗
A 20-minute questionnaire with a rules-based scoring engine and a templated report is trivially buildable; the genuine build risk is engineering credibility of the rewrite-vs-refactor-vs-wrap heuristic, not the tooling itself.