Coding Bootcamp ROI Calculator
A bootcamp against the raise it buys
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Confirm the assumptions, current rules, fees, and rounding that apply to your situation before making a decision.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the tuition, the months the programme runs, and the income you would give up a year while studying and while looking for work. Enter 0 if you would keep working through it.
- 02
Enter your salary now and the salary you expect afterwards, then the months you expect between finishing and starting the new job.
- 03
Set a placement rate. This page supplies no figure of its own on purpose — enter a rate you would defend, having read the methodology behind any number a provider advertises.
- 04
Enter the income-share agreement's terms: the share of income it takes, the most it can ever collect, and the months of payments. Then set a financing rate if you would pay tuition with a loan instead.
- 05
Read the expected payback period, the two routes costed side by side, and the salary at which each one wins. The month-by-month table shows both routes paying out over the agreement's term.
Formula
Income-share agreement collected = the smaller of its cap and (the salary you expect × the share it takes × the months of payments ÷ 12). Tuition route = the tuition, or if financed, the ordinary amortizing payment on it at your rate over the same number of months as the agreement, so both routes cover one window. Interest = what is repaid less the tuition. Salary at which the two tie = the tuition route's total ÷ (the share it takes × the months ÷ 12). Where that salary would take the agreement past its cap, the cap binds first and there is no crossover; the page says so rather than printing a figure. Income given up = the income you give up a year × ((the programme's months + the months to placement) ÷ 12). Expected raise = (the salary after − the salary now) × the placement rate you set. Payback = (the cheaper route's total + the income given up) ÷ the expected raise, in years, shown in months. It is reported only where the expected raise is above zero.
Example
A bootcamp costs $15,000 and runs four months, with five more months expected before the new job starts. The student gives up $45,000 a year across those nine months, earns $48,000 now, expects $72,000 afterwards, and assumes a 70% placement rate. The agreement takes 10% of income for thirty-six months, capped at $30,000; the alternative is financing the tuition at 12% over the same thirty-six months. The agreement collects $600 a month, $21,600 in all. Financing the tuition costs $498 a month, $17,936 in all, of which $2,936 is interest — so paying tuition is cheaper by $3,664 at this salary. The two routes would cost the same at about $59,786. Income given up is $33,750, so the all-in cost on the cheaper route is $51,686. The expected raise is $16,800 a year — the full $24,000 weighted by the 70% placement assumption — giving a payback of about three years and one month. Two variations, both run. At a 40% placement rate the expected raise falls to $9,600 and the payback stretches to five years and five months. At a $110,000 salary the agreement's cap finally binds: it would have taken $33,000 but stops at $30,000, the monthly payment rises to $917, tuition becomes cheaper by $12,064, and the payback shortens to one year and two months.
Definitions
- Income-share agreement
- An arrangement to pay a share of income for a set period instead of tuition, usually with a cap, an income floor and a term. It shifts the risk of not being placed onto the provider and takes the upside if you earn well.
- Cap
- The most an income-share agreement can ever collect, whatever you earn. The single most important term in one, and the reason a high salary does not make the agreement unboundedly expensive.
- Placement rate
- The share of graduates who find work. Self-reported, defined inconsistently, and highly sensitive to who is counted in the denominator. On this page it is your own assumption and nothing else.
- CIRR
- The Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, which publishes a standardised, audited format for reporting bootcamp outcomes so that rates are comparable between providers. Used by a minority of them.
- Expected raise
- The full raise multiplied by the placement rate you assume, so a programme that works only some of the time is not credited with its best case. It drives the payback period more than any other input.
Good to know
The placement rate is the assumption that decides everything
This page asks you to supply a placement rate and supplies none of its own, and that is a deliberate refusal rather than an omission. The reason is that the number moves the answer more than any other input, and no trustworthy comparable figure exists to put in its place. In the worked example, a 70% assumption turns a $24,000 raise into an expected raise of $16,800 and produces a payback of about three years and one month. Drop the assumption to 40% and the expected raise falls to $9,600 and the payback stretches to five years and five months. Tuition would have to change by many thousands to shift the result that far. One assumption, which you cannot verify in advance, dominates everything the page computes. The trouble with published rates is not that providers necessarily lie; it is that the definitions vary so much that two advertised numbers are rarely measuring the same thing. What counts as a placement? Does contract, freelance or part-time work count? Does a job outside the field count? How long after finishing is the count taken — ninety days, six months, a year? Most important of all, who is in the denominator? Excluding students who did not complete the programme, who did not actively seek work, or who simply did not respond to the survey can move a headline rate by tens of percentage points without a single figure being false. A rate of 90% computed on graduates who sought work and responded is not comparable with a rate of 60% computed on everyone who enrolled. There is a partial remedy. The Council on Integrity in Results Reporting publishes a standardised, audited reporting format specifically so that outcomes can be compared across providers, and a provider that reports to it has accepted meaningful constraints on how the figures are produced. Only a minority do. If a provider cannot supply a CIRR-style report, ask in writing for three things: the denominator, the timeframe, and the definition of a placement. Then enter a rate you would be willing to defend, and run the page again at a pessimistic one.
An income-share agreement is insurance, not cheap money
An income-share agreement replaces tuition with a promise to pay a share of future income for a fixed period, usually with a cap. Whether it is cheaper than paying tuition depends entirely on what you go on to earn, which is precisely the point of it. In the worked example the agreement takes 10% of income for thirty-six months. At the expected salary of $72,000 that is $600 a month and $21,600 in total, against $17,936 for tuition financed at 12% over the same thirty-six months — so paying tuition is cheaper by $3,664. The page also reports the salary at which the two routes cost exactly the same: about $59,786. Below that the agreement is cheaper, above it tuition is, because the agreement scales with your income while tuition is a fixed sum. The cap is the term that bounds the downside of succeeding, and it is worth seeing it bind. Raise the expected salary in the example to $110,000 and the agreement would otherwise collect $33,000 over its term; the $30,000 cap stops it there. The monthly payment rises to $917, and paying tuition becomes cheaper by $12,064. Without a cap, the better the programme works for you, the more it costs you, without limit. With one, the exposure is bounded and quantifiable. The honest way to think about the choice is as a transfer of risk rather than a price comparison. An agreement generally collects nothing while you are not earning, so the provider — not you — carries the cost of a placement that does not happen. At a placement rate you are genuinely unsure about, that protection is worth real money, and it is rational to pay for it by giving up some of the upside. A tuition loan makes no such promise: $15,000 at 12% is $498 a month whether or not you find work, and the lender is indifferent to the outcome. An agreement is not cheap money. It is insurance, and the premium is the upside you surrender if the programme works unusually well.
The cost you do not pay to the school
The tuition figure is the smaller half of what a bootcamp costs a career-changer, and comparisons that stop at tuition understate the commitment by a wide margin. In the worked example the programme costs $17,936 on the cheaper financing route, while the income given up comes to $33,750 — roughly two thirds of the $51,686 all-in total. Someone deciding whether a $15,000 programme is affordable is really deciding whether a $51,686 commitment is affordable, and the difference between those two numbers is the months spent not earning. The page counts that period as the programme plus the job search, because both are time out of the workforce and there is no honest reason to count one and not the other. The example runs four months of study and five months to placement, nine months in all, at $45,000 a year of income given up. The months-to-placement field is easy to set optimistically and worth setting conservatively, since it costs the same per month as the programme itself and is far less under your control. Deliberately, this is a single field covering both periods rather than two. The reason is that a large share of people take these programmes part-time while staying employed, and for them the honest entry is zero. Charging such a student a forgone salary during a job search they never conducted would overstate the cost badly, and splitting the field into two would invite exactly that error. Entering zero models someone who keeps their income throughout; entering a full salary models someone who resigns to study. Both are common, and the field is the dial between them. The practical consequence is that the part-time and full-time versions of the same programme are financially different propositions, often by more than the tuition. A part-time route that takes twice as long but costs no forgone income will usually show a much shorter payback, even though it is slower in calendar terms. If you are weighing a full-time programme against a part-time one, run the page twice and compare the all-in costs rather than the tuition.
Reading an agreement, and the clauses that decide what you pay
The headline percentage on an income-share agreement tells you less about what you will pay than several clauses that receive a fraction of the attention. Anyone comparing offers should read for these specifically, because two agreements quoting the same share can behave very differently. The income floor is the first. Most agreements collect nothing below a stated income, which is what makes them function as insurance rather than debt; the level of that floor, and whether it is indexed, decides how much protection you actually have. The cap is the second, and it is the most important single term: it bounds what the agreement can ever collect, and the worked example shows it binding at a $110,000 salary, holding the total to $30,000 rather than the $33,000 the formula would otherwise produce. Third is what happens to the term when you are not earning. Some agreements pause and extend, so a year out of work adds a year of payments at the far end; others let the months run regardless. An agreement that extends is materially more expensive over a career than one that does not, even at an identical rate. Fourth is the definition of income itself — whether it includes bonuses, equity, freelance earnings or a partner's income — since that definition, not the percentage, determines the base the share is taken from. Fifth is the early buyout: whether one exists, what it costs, and whether it is a fixed sum or the remaining payments discounted. A buyout is the only exit if the programme works better than expected, and its absence is what makes an uncapped agreement genuinely dangerous. Finally, check what happens if you leave the field or stop working voluntarily, which agreements treat inconsistently. The financing alternative deserves the same scrutiny for the opposite reason: its terms are rigid. In the example the loan is $498 a month for thirty-six months regardless of employment, and paying tuition outright removes the $2,936 of interest but ties up the cash at exactly the moment you have no income. Neither route is simply cheaper; they fail in different ways, and the clauses are where that difference lives.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a coding bootcamp take to pay for itself?
In this page's example, about three years and one month. That is a $15,000 bootcamp over four months, five months to placement, $45,000 a year of income given up across those nine months, and a salary rising from $48,000 to $72,000 at an assumed 70% placement rate. The all-in cost is $51,686 — $17,936 for the cheaper financing route plus $33,750 of income given up — against an expected raise of $16,800 a year.
How much does the placement rate change the answer?
More than anything else on the page. The expected raise is the full raise weighted by the chance of being placed, so at 70% a $24,000 raise counts as $16,800 and the payback is three years and one month. Drop the rate to 40% and the expected raise falls to $9,600 and the payback stretches to five years and five months. Tuition would have to change by thousands to move the answer that far.
Why does this page not tell me a typical placement rate?
Because a trustworthy one does not exist in a comparable form. Bootcamp placement statistics are self-reported, and the definitions vary so widely that two advertised rates are rarely comparable: what counts as a placement, whether contract and part-time work count, whether jobs outside the field count, how long after finishing the count is taken, and which graduates are in the denominator. Excluding people who did not finish, did not seek work, or did not respond can move a rate by tens of points. The Council on Integrity in Results Reporting publishes a standardised, audited format, but only a minority of providers use it.
Is an income-share agreement cheaper than paying tuition?
It depends entirely on what you go on to earn, which is the point of it. In the example the agreement collects $21,600 — 10% of $72,000 for thirty-six months — against $17,936 for tuition financed at 12%, so paying tuition is cheaper by $3,664. The two cost the same at a salary of about $59,786. Below that the agreement is cheaper; above it tuition is, because the agreement takes a share of whatever you earn while tuition is a fixed sum.
What does the cap on an income-share agreement do?
It bounds the downside of earning well. In the example the cap is $30,000, and at a $72,000 salary it never binds. Raise the expected salary to $110,000 and the agreement would otherwise collect $33,000 over its term, so the cap stops it at $30,000 — against $17,936 for tuition, making tuition cheaper by $12,064. The cap is the most important term in any agreement, and it is worth checking alongside the income floor, whether the term pauses when you are out of work, and whether an early buyout exists.
So which route should I take?
They differ in who carries the risk, not only in price. An agreement generally collects nothing while you are not earning, so it shifts the risk of not being placed onto the provider — worth real money at a placement rate you are not confident about. A tuition loan does not care whether you find work: $15,000 at 12% is $498 a month whatever happens. An agreement is not cheap money; it is insurance, paid for by handing over the upside if the programme works unusually well for you.
Does the page account for the income I give up?
Yes, and it is the larger cost. In the example the income given up is $33,750 against $17,936 of programme cost — roughly two thirds of the total. It covers both the four months of the programme and the five months of looking for work, as one field, so someone studying part-time while employed enters 0 and is not wrongly charged a lost salary.